The Scene from Within

The Scene from Within
Gerry D’Ambrosio, Mandy Edwards, Keith Ingham & Malcolm Hill
19th July – 5th October 2025

In 1976, four photographers from Partick Camera Club—Malcolm R Hill, Keith Ingham, Jim Gillies, and Roy Smart—were invited by Elspeth King of the People’s Palace Museum to document The Calton area of Glasgow, which, like much of the city, was undergoing major redevelopment. The project resulted in several hundred photographs, with 500 exhibited at the People’s Palace in 1977. Featured in this current exhibition The Scene from Within are works by Malcolm R Hill and Keith Ingham, whose images form part of a broader social record of Glasgow in the late 1970s. Influenced by Oscar Marzaroli, Hill turned his lens from traditional camera club subjects toward capturing the immediacy of social change. Around the same time, enthusiastic amateur photographer Gerry D’Ambrosio documented life in The Jungle, a notorious Cowcaddens pub, before its demolition. His photos, deeply personal and intimate, offer a rare glimpse into a vanishing subculture.

Fast forward to the 2000s, Mandy Edwards’ work continues this documentary tradition. Her 2010 portrait series, A Celebration, captured the faces of East End traders ahead of the 2014 Commonwealth Games—a nod to the threat of redevelopment. Her new project, Merchants of the Empire’s Second City, revisits the same community 15 years later, in anticipation of Glasgow’s scaled-back 2026 Games. Her work reflects on how cultural identities, work patterns, and economic realities have evolved or endured over time. Together, the photographs in The Scene from Within present a multi-generational record of transformation, displacement, and resilience in Glasgow’s social landscape.