Derek Fairbrother – Birmingham timelapse

Ian from 7 Inch Cinema correctly guessed that this video might be up my street – a collection of images they’ve compiled for Birmingham Seen which opens at BMAG today and runs until 3 January 2010.

Ian also sent over a biog of Derek Fairbrother (1931-99), whose images they are. The following is an extended copy and paste job:

In the 1960s and 70s research chemist and amateur photographer, Derek Fairbrother, made over 20 photographic time-lapse sequences showing the demolition of old buildings and their replacement by new buildings and new road systems in Birmingham city centre.

The completed sequences, often running to some fifty images taken over a period of five or more years, were then connected together in a narrative sequence in the form of a strip of postcard sized prints. Fairbrother intended to use a cine camera to photograph each sequence, thereby compressing years of work into a series of short films. However this ambition was not realised in his lifetime.

After his death in 1999, his widow Gaynor gifted his prints and negatives to the photography collections at Birmingham Library.

These short films, which will be shown for the first time in the exhibition Birmingham Seen (Gas Hall, 31st October 2009 – 3rd January 2010) have finally enabled Fairbrother’s work to be seen in the way he intended.

3 Comments

  1. Rob Strong

    That’s obscene. Presumably they dismantled the beautiful original building brick-by-brick and it’s in storage somewhere waiting for the upside-down concrete wedding cake to be demolished?

    Thanks Chris, I have to see these films.

  2. That’s just depressing. It’s still going on too. Just take the front of the old Central TV building on Broad Street that’s recently been torn down, presumably to make room for another car park or, I know, let’s have some more empty offices eh? I suggest that those responsible be tried for crimes against Birmingham’s architectural heritage. I’m amazed the Town Hall survived.

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