Amber Brown is a Northumbrian photographer and printmaker. She explores notions of place, home and belonging over continuous periods of time through cultural, political and personal narratives. Her practice is rooted in many slow, ritualistic processes which largely fall under the umbrella of printmaking and large format photography, a medium which she is dedicated to. She utilises labour-intensive techniques to investigate the post-industrial landscape, ideas of Northernness and how archives can interact with the contemporary. Amber Brown also practices in curation and exhibitions organisation, and is working towards MA in Arts Museum and Gallery Studies at Newcastle University.
 
‘It Must Be Somewhere Here’ is a year-long survey of the Northern deep coal-mining landscape. As the granddaughter of two miners, it acts as both a geographical study and inquiry into ancestry. A departure to colour depicts former colliery sites which have been visually affected by the chemical aftermath of deep coal-mining. Unnaturally high levels of Manganese in still-draining mine-water stains rocks orange, and the erosion of cliff formations reveals materials from a colliery landfill. Amber records various places of memorial and colliery remains. Through ‘slow’ large format photography, and the photopolymer gravure, she creates works in which time cannot be specified, where the process is elongated as much as possible, commenting on manual labour, materiality and the ritual of returning home to walk in the empty industrial lands where man once laid his hand.  
 
Amber was awarded The Analogue Photography Grant from The Richard and Siobhán Coward Foundation to further develop her graduate project over the next year. Alongside being shortlisted in international photography competitions, her project 'Earthworks' was supported by Grow Wild in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew and the National Lottery Community Fund. A more detailed CV can be found on her website.