Gordon MacDonald (editor)

Gordon MacDonald (born 1967) works in all areas of photography as an artist, writer, curator, press photographer and educator.

MacDonald is the founding editor of Photoworks magazine and was head of publishing at Photoworks, the Brighton based organisation for contemporary photography in Britain. He co-founded Brighton Photo Fringe in 2003; and was for a time its chair of the board of trustees. He is co-director, alongside Stuart Smith, of the visual arts publishers GOST. MacDonald is also half of the collective MacDonaldStrand, with his wife Clare Strand, who make idea based projects.

Life and work

'Ideas not careers' logo by MacDonald.

MacDonald was born in East Kilbride, Scotland, in 1967. He has worked as a photographer, writer, photography curator, press photographer and educator.

MacDonald is the founding editor of Photoworks magazine and was head of publishing at Photoworks, the Brighton based organization for contemporary Photography in Britain. MacDonald stood down as editor at Photoworks issue 17, in October 2011. During MacDonald’s editorship, he interviewed photographers and filmmakers Richard Billingham, Martin Parr, Nick Broomfield, and Jeff Wall, and wrote a number of texts on photographers including Osamu Wataya, Martin Lange, Lisa Barnard, Daniel Stier, and Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin.

MacDonald also initiated the publishing activity at Photoworks and produced and edited a number of books, including his own It’s Wrong to Wish on Space Hardware (2003) and The House in the Middle (2004), as well as Joachim Schmid: Photoworks 1982-2007 (2007) by Joachim Schmid; Anna Fox: Photographs 1983-2007 (2007) by Anna Fox; Fig. by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin (2007), Stuart Griffiths: The Myth of the Airborne Warrior (2011), and Daniel Meadows: Edited Photographs from the 70s and 80s (2011) by Daniel Meadows.

He co-founded Brighton Photo Fringe in 2003, the fringe festival to Brighton Photo Biennial; and was for a time its chair of the board of trustees.

MacDonald is co-director, alongside Stuart Smith, of the visual arts publishers GOST. GOST has published Mass by Mark Power, Brisees by Helen Sear, Chateau Despair and Hyenas of the Battlefield, Machines in the Garden by Lisa Barnard, UKG by Ewen Spencer, Skirts by Clare Strand, Spill by Daniel Beltra, Maidan - Portraits from the Black Square by Anastasia Taylor-Lind, The Winners by Rafal Milach, Punks by Karen Knorr and Oliver Richon and Hong Kong Parr by Martin Parr.

In 1998 MacDonald worked collaboratively with Val Williams and Anna Fox on the Shoreditch Biennale; and in the same year with Brett Rogers and the British Council for the Look at Me: Fashion and Photography in Britain 1960-1997 exhibition. In 2001 he curated the show, It's Wrong to Wish on Space Hardware at the Gardner Art Centre and The House in the Middle (2004) at Towner Art Gallery.

MacDonald was a senior Lecturer at Southampton Institute 2000–2003 and has guest lectured on other degrees, MA and PhD courses throughout Britain. He has lectured at Tate Britain, London Art Fair, The Baltic, and the National Portrait Gallery, London. He is currently MA external examiner on Goldsmiths, University of London's course of The Image and Electronic Arts.

MacDonald is half of the collective MacDonaldStrand, with wife Clare Strand, who make idea based projects. They live in Brighton and have three children.

File:TheBeachers.jpg

The Beachers by MacDonaldStrand

Publications

• The House in the Middle: Photographs of Interior Design in the Nuclear Age. Edited by Gordon MacDonald. Brighton, England: Photoworks, 2004. ISBN 1-903796-14-8. Photographs by Danny Treacy, Paul Reas, John Kippin, Richard Billingham, Jo Broughton, Dirk Wackerfuss, Anne Hardy, John Paul Bichard, The Design Council Archive, the BBC Picture Library, the Collection of Chris Mullen, Protect and Survive and the Los Alamos National Library. Text by Althea Greenan. "Published to coincide with a Photoworks exhibition at the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, in 2004." Edition of 1000 copies.
• It's Wrong to Wish on Space Hardware. Brighton, England: Photoworks, 2003. ISBN 978-1903796047. Edited by Gordon MacDonald, Text by Caroline Smith, photographs by Adam Broomberg, Oliver Chanarin, John Paul Bichard, Nichola Bruce, NASA, Richard Purdy, Steve Pyke, Ian Rawlinson and Joan Fontcuberta.

External links

• Official website
• MacDonaldStrand, the collaborative partnership of MacDonald and Clare Strand
• GOST Books, a photography and visual arts publishers founded by MacDonald and Stuart Smith