Danny Wilson
Danny started working with us as a volunteer over ten years ago staffing the gallery and providing information for visitors.

His skills in communicating directly with a diverse range of people led him, fairly swiftly into a paid position in 1998 managing the volunteer team and the front of house activities of the gallery. His commitment to the development of others, and his willingness to share his experiences opened up a critical discourse for volunteers that really created the solid foundation on which our current recruitment and development programmes could build.

His enthusiasm, passionate interest and specialist knowledge has been hugely influential in the development of photography and video installations here. Whilst still managing the gallery activities he took every opportunity to develop his skills and experience by working as an assistant project manager on our photography based exhibitions – notably running an off-site project for the exhibition Shelter, with gallery director, Debbie Barker in 1999, working with Shona Illingworth on her video installation in 2001 and with curator Gordon MacDonald for the group exhibition, Man on the Street in 2000. He led educational tours of the work, developed exhibition projects with volunteers and forged key links with photography courses in the region that revealed his keen interest in engaging, young people in particular, in the practice and analysis of contemporary photography.

He took the leap of moving from a waged position to becoming freelance in the lead up to the first Brighton Photo Biennial in 2003 so that he could spend more time working on his own photography and take on more ambitious project management roles. At the same time he developed Shutter Speed, with Fabrica, a photography project working with fellow photographer Magali Nougarede, and young people and their youth worker Sue Feighry in Woodingdean and Hove. The extent of his genuine interest in helping young people find expression for their ideas through photography was demonstrated in the creation of two follow up youth projects in subsequent years.

As a project manager here he worked very closely with a number of artists to realise their aspirations for pieces they were developing for the space, and it is in that role that the full range of his strengths and abilities were most widely and publicly appreciated. His humour, honesty and generosity have often been cited as essential contributions to the success of the exhibitions he worked on and particularly so during the sometimes fraught process of creating new commissions for the gallery. Developing a strong supportive relationship with the artists he worked with here over the last five years was fundamental to his working method. He was a close collaborator on the exhibitions of Mark Leckey in 2003, Maha Mamoun in 2004 – managing both her residency and exhibition, Neeta Madahar in 2005, Alfredo Jaar in 2006 and Rachel Reupke in 2007.

Danny managed to develop this role concurrently with many other projects and interests – including the Brighton Photo Fringe and a much more considered and concrete approach to developing and promoting his own photographic practice.

When Danny died he was working with us in many different ways. He was developing and managing aspects of our Brighton Photo Biennial exhibition and education programme. As an artist and Director of the Photo Fringe, he was part of a research process Liz Whitehead is leading about the visual arts in the city. He was part of a peer critique group of mainly artists with a socially engaged practice. He was working with Matthew Miller on developing an exhibition for 2010. Working with Caitlin, the Artist Resource Manager to create networking and other kinds of professional development events for photographers, in order to keep improving the quality and professionalism of the work shown in the Photography Fringe and continuing to develop links with local and regional Press for the programme as a whole.

Danny contributed hugely to the definition of what Fabrica is and stands for and his legacy in very evident. He is greatly missed.

Liz Whitehead & Matthew Miller

Co-directors