Third Floor Gallery: A year in pictures

Third Floor Gallery is a leading contemporary photography gallery based in Cardiff. Having opened to the public on the 12 of February of 2010, the gallery is proud to celebrate its first anniversary.
Photograph: Maciej Dakowicz

In January of 2010 the founding trustees of Third Floor Gallery, photographers Maciej Dakowicz and Joni Karanka, received the keys to the leased loft that was to become the gallery. They had just put over a thousand pounds each covering a quarter of the lease and the service charges.
Photograph: Maciej Dakowicz

There was just under a month of time to refurbish the space for the opening exhibition with award winning British photojournalist Peter Dench's gruelling photographs entitled Love UK. In matter of weeks a number of unexpected volunteers joined in for the job of turning the once green walls white, building some new walls to divide the space, and installing new flooring that had been bought by the landlord.
Photograph: Maciej Dakowicz

Joni Karanka, Peter Dench and Maciej Dakowicz at the launch of Dench's exhibition Love:UK
Photograph: Maciej Dakowicz

At the launch party for Third Floor and Peter Dench on 12 February last year
Photograph: Maciej Dakowicz

Celebrating the opening of Love:UK
Photograph: Maciej Dakowicz

The months and exhibitions went by, and the gallery was lucky enough to find that more people than expected would volunteer and donate for its expenses. This is a gallery with no directors and no wages, so the trustees double as accountants, directors, press office, handymen and cleaners, making the help and time of volunteers invaluable.
Photograph: Maciej Dakowicz

After Dench, leading British street photographer David Solomons put up his exhibition Up West, a homage to the London's West End.
Photograph: Maciej Dakowicz

London underworld, exhibited Muse, a much more personal exhibition which consisted of gigantic close-up portraits of women, both beautiful and unadultered.
Photograph: Maciej Dakowicz

The gallery was establishing a programme that lay close to the foundations of contemporary documentary photography. Indeed, when most of the gallery circuit in the UK relies on large touring exhibitions, Third Floor Gallery produces premieres of new work with the direct involvement of the photographers. Many of the exhibited projects were by local photographers who went on to win awards internationally during the next months, like Bartosz Nowicki, Chiara Tocci or Gawain Bernard. Around this time, the funding trustees found themselves without all the resources to run the gallery. Time an money were scarce, and the amount of work to be done seemed to be piling. As a result, the aforementioned Bartosz Nowicki joined the organization of the gallery as third trustee.
Photograph: Maciej Dakowicz

The documentary photographer Jocelyn Bain Hogg, known for photographing the hidden life of the London underworld, exhibited Muse, a much more personal exhibition which consisted of gigantic close-up portraits of women, both beautiful and unadultered. The most attended of the gallery's exhibitions to date was the tour de force of Street Photography Now. The exhibition brought up more than forty photographers and reviewed the contemporary practice of street photography, with prints by masters of the genre such as Bruce Gilden, Martin Parr, Michael Wolf, Joel Meyerowitz, Alex Webb, Matt Stuart, and many others. Around this time the gallery received also Charity status and started the 'adopt a radiator' campaign to pay its utility bills.
Photograph: Maciej Dakowicz

Having recently received charity status, we can now expect the gallery to receive further financial support. If this is the case, with its tight budget, low costs, and the high quality of its programme (Rob Hornstra and Joseph Rodriguez are the next to show), there might be Third Floor Gallery for many years to come.
Photograph: Martin Hanna