Photographs from Another Place

When artist Alan Ward bought, on a whim, three boxes of old photographic glass plates and negatives on eBay, he never imagined it would take him on a rich, five year-long journey of history and geography, revealing intriguing stories and fascinating characters.

Now that journey – and the life of the early 20th century amateur photographer Sydney J Gearing who took the images – is being revealed in this exhibition. Featuring the original 1920s photography by Gearing and Alan Ward’s contemporary responses to the images, Photographs from Another Place is a poetic and personal reflection on the very essence of what it is to be human, exploring family, loss, transience and memory.

Sydney J Gearing – the son of a Norfolk mother from Wortwell – became the deputy chief engineer of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board in the golden age of the Liverpool Docks. A keen photographer, he took images of famous ships, his sporting endeavours, masonic artefacts, his family and landscapes in Wales and Norfolk. He died in 1973. In 2014 Alan Ward found a set of his images on eBay and on opening the boxes, uncovered an entire life lived.

Deciphering this forgotten photographic archive revealed a series of connections and coincidences with Alan’s own life – including a shared connection with Norfolk, London and the North-West – which deepened and drove the project. Alan visited the places and people touched by Gearing’s archive and responding with a series of reflective photographs of his own.

“When I began this project I had a strong sense that I was being entrusted with Sydney’s negatives and in a way his rediscovered life story,” says Alan. “The value and the power of the photographs is in their social and emotional contexts. Photographs from Another Place became a quiet consideration of our place in Sydney’s landscape and our increasingly fragile world. Once you start to spend time with these images, within the apparently ordinary and everyday there is the extraordinary.”

Inspired by these images, Alan began to piece together a ‘faction’ of Sydney’s life using archives, documents and local research, all of which can be explored in the exhibition and accompanying book. Finally, he was able to track down Sydney’s surviving daughter in Devon, who, incredibly, still had the original plate camera that had taken the pictures.

The exhibition includes extracts from a literary collaboration with Norfolk-based poet and author George Szirtes, the Faber and TS Eliot prize-winning author.

About the artist

Alan Ward’s artistic practice responds to the ideas of ‘place’, ‘loss’ and ‘cultural heritage’ and many of his commissions are informed by research and engagement, whether historical or community led. Archives both personal and institutional have become a significant reference point for exploration and reflection on ideas centred on the construction of historical narratives, identities, and individual and collective memories.

For more about the artist's work, visit alanjward.co.uk

This exhibition was made possible with an Arts Council England project grant, with additional funding from Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, The Elephant Trust and Cheshire Grand Lodge.

Photographs from Another Place was originally conceived with the assistance of the Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead, Merseyside, where it was first shown.

Photographs from Another Place will be on display in the Hostry from November 2 to 26 2022.

The exhibition will be open seven days a week from 10am to 4pm (3pm on Sundays) and entry is free.

Public Preview - 5 November at 1.30pm

Artist talk by Alan Ward, with a reading by Norfolk-based poet and author George Szirtes from their collaborative project text. All welcome.

Signed copies of the accompanying book with free limited edition postcard pack at a special exhibition price will also be available on the day.