Art
Little Landmarks
See a selection of South Shields buildings recreated in LEGO. Little Landmarks showcases 10 LEGO models of local buildings from across South Shields, originally displayed at South Shields Museum and Art Gallery in 2017. The models demonstrate the depth and variety of architecture present in the town, ranging from Roman reconstructions to modern glass structures.
- Venue:
- The Word, The National Centre for the Written Word, 45 Market Place, South Shields, NE33 1JF
- Date:
-
Dec 18th 2023 - Apr 14th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Mon-Thu 09:00 - 19:00 , Fri 09:00 - 17:00 , Sat-Sun 10:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- Free
Brick Wonders
Brick Wonders features recreations in LEGO bricks of amazing sights from around the world. Beginning with the wonders of the ancient world, the exhibition also takes in modern, natural, and historic wonders from all seven continents. Brick Wonders takes visitors from an Egyptian pyramid to the Grand Canyon, to Old London Bridge and everyday marvels we forget to wonder at, such as broadcasting and the Internet.
- Venue:
- The Word, The National Centre for the Written Word, 45 Market Place, South Shields, NE33 1JF
- Date:
-
Dec 18th 2023 - Apr 14th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Mon-Thu 09:00 - 19:00 , Fri 09:00 - 17:00 , Sat-Sun 10:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- Free
Dressing Room No.1
Born and raised in Bishop Auckland, photographer Sophie Teasdale has been delving behind the scenes into a world that we rarely get to see…backstage in theatres. For over a decade Sophie has photographed actors and musicians in the safe haven of their dressing rooms, from local North East venues to London’s West End, with the aim to capture that golden moment somewhere between real life and the bright lights of the stage.
- Venue:
- Bishop Auckland Town Hall, Market Place, Bishop Auckland, DL14 7NP
- Date:
-
Mar 2nd 2024 - Jun 1st 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Mon-Sat 10:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- Free
SCRAN! A history of Food & Drink in South Tyneside
Food and drink is the mouth-watering theme for South Shields Museum’s latest exhibition. The exhibition charts the story of food and drink across South Tyneside and celebrates the traditional cuisine of the North East, from regional favourites such as stottie cakes and leek pudding, to singing hinnies and panaculty. In this exhibition, visitors can discover South Tyneside’s evolving food and drink story, from Roman times up to the present day, and learn of the origins of some of the borough’s most iconic eateries, including Colmans fish and chips, Dicksons pork butchers and Minchella & Co’s ice cream.
- Venue:
- South Shields Museum & Art Gallery, Ocean Road, South Shields, NE33 2JA
- Date:
-
Jul 18th 2023 - Jan 25th 2025
- Opening Times:
-
Sat 11:00 - 16:00 , Mon-Fri 10:00 - 17:00
- Price:
- Free
Middlesbrough Collection: Soft Structures
Soft Structures reflects on the invisible threads and undocumented connections that underpin creative lives and communities. Through drawing, painting, video, installation, textile and ceramics, the exhibition presents newly commissioned artwork by Fiona Larkin and Ian Giles and pieces from the Middlesbrough Collection cared for by MIMA. New audio, installation and drawings by Ian Giles, A Reflection in Time, draw together LGBTQ+ individuals who have influenced the buildings, industries and communities of Middlesbrough. Through collaboration and speculative storytelling, Giles unveils the hidden histories and untold stories intertwined with the town’s cultural and industrial past.
- Venue:
- Mima, Centre Square, Middlesbrough, TS1 2AZ
- Date:
-
Sep 19th 2023 - Mar 31st 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Tue-Sat 10:00 - 16:30 , Sun 12:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- Free
Swords into Ploughshares, Knives into Jewels
A touring exhibition curated by Norman Cherry and Dauvit Alexander from Birmingham School of Jewellery. They have worked with 34 of the leading jewellery artists from around the world to re-use and repurpose knives into jewellery, in so doing removing them from circulation on the streets.
- Venue:
- The Redcar Palace, Palace 28, 28-29 Esplanade, Redcar, TS10 3AE
- Date:
-
Feb 3rd 2024 - Apr 27th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Tue-Sat 10:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- Free
Wish You Were Here
An exhibition of work created by members of the weekly Watercolour classes. Including a retrospective of work created by David Hannington a longstanding member of the group who sadly left us last year.
- Venue:
- Arts Centre Washington, Biddick Lane, Fatfield, Washington, NE38 8AB
- Date:
-
Mar 12th 2024 - Apr 20th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Mon 09:30 - 17:00 , Tue-Sat 09:30 - 20:00
- Price:
- Free
John Bulmer: Northern Light
See Hartlepool during the 1960s as captured by legendary photographer John Bulmer before he shot to fame with his iconic images of the north for the Sunday Times magazine. Never shown in the town before, the photographs Bulmer took sixty years ago provide a fascinating record of the town during one moment in time.
- Venue:
- Hartlepool Art Gallery, The Tourist Information Centre, Church Square, Hartlepool, TS24 7EQ
- Date:
-
Jan 27th 2024 - May 4th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Tue-Sat 10:00 - 17:00
- Price:
- Free
Murmuration
Immerse yourself in the world of birds, exploring avian symbolism in art and trace its significance across time and cultures. Murmuration presents a wide selection of work from artists and makers from various generations, backgrounds and contexts whose work ranges across drawing, sculpture, film and installation. Delve into the pivotal role birds play as indicators to the health of the environment, reflecting the urgent climate crisis and, through the work of artists and makers, ponder the metaphor of birds as messengers of home and belonging. Examine the complexity and nuance around the collecting of taxidermy, from its role as a teaching resource to its connections to scientific racism and colonial exploitation, and consider the ethical and cultural implications of preserving animals for study and display. Through this show, discover the profound relationships we share with birds; transcending species barriers and fostering kinship. Murmuration is a reminder of the common spaces we inhabit and the interconnectedness that binds us.
- Venue:
- The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham, DL12 8NP
- Date:
-
Jan 27th 2024 - Jun 23rd 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Daily 10:00 - 17:00
- Price:
- £17.50/under 18s Free
Glass World
In recent years National Glass Centre has developed a permanent collection of international Studio Glass that includes work by artists from or based in thirty different countries, from Sweden to New Zealand and the United States to Japan. This exhibition presents a wide selection of the works held in our collection and creates an opportunity to celebrate the international reach of artists working in glass.
- Venue:
- National Glass Centre, Liberty Way, Sunderland, SR6 0GL
- Date:
-
Oct 14th 2023 - May 30th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Daily 10:00 - 17:00
- Price:
- Free
Voices: contemporary art and craft from the Middle East and North Africa
An exhibition celebrating the work of emerging contemporary artists and designers from the Middle East and North Africa recently acquired by the Oriental Museum. The artists featured in the exhibition come from Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Yemen, Jordan and Palestine. Some still live in their home countries, while others have been forced to flee due to conflict or oppression. Working in a variety of media including digital collage, photography, mixed media, textile and ceramic their work highlights topics of identity, history and politics, while also drawing on traditional art and craft. Their work reflects the variety of artistic expression seen across the MENA region, there is no single, unifying style but many voices.
- Venue:
- Oriental Museum, Elvet Hill, (off South Road), Durham, DH1 3TH
- Date:
-
Sep 29th 2023 - May 12th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Sat-Sun 12:00 - 17:00 , Tue-Wed and Fri 10:00 - 17:00 , Thu 10:00 - 19:00
- Price:
- Free
Merchant Navy: Tyneside Stories
A volunteer lead exhibition which takes a broad look at the Merchant Navy during the 20th and 21st centuries and the very big part it played and still plays in the lives of people on both sides of the Tyne. The exhibition materials cover everything from local shipping companies and repair yards, the world wars, the support and training offered to visiting seafarers of all nations, a boarding school for children who had lost a parent in the service, the Merchant Navy of today and the future, as well as stories from individuals and families.
- Venue:
- The Old Low Light, Clifford's Fort, North Shields, Tyne & Wear, NE30 1JA
- Date:
-
Oct 10th 2023 - Apr 30th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Tue-Sat 10:00 - 15:00
- Price:
- £4/free for members
Yevonde: Life and Colour
A new exhibition showcasing the ground-breaking work of 20th century British photographer Yevonde will be shown at the Laing Art Gallery on loan from the National Portrait Gallery. Yevonde Middleton, also known as Madame Yevonde or simply Yevonde (1893-1975), was a London-based photographer whose work focused on portraits and still lives. She was introduced to photography through her involvement with the suffragette cause and she was committed to colour photography when it was not considered a serious artistic medium. Yevonde’s work often integrated elements of Surrealist iconography, humorous still life compositions, and models in tableaux.
- Venue:
- Laing Art Gallery, New Bridge Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8AG
- Date:
-
Nov 11th 2023 - Apr 20th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Mon-Sat 10:00 - 16:30
- Price:
- £8/£7.20
Seb Trend: XTRALIFE
Central to XTRALIFE is a series of ‘melted photographs’ in artist made frames produced specifically for the exhibition. This marks the first time the photographs have been exhibited together as a solo show and builds on Trend’s ongoing investigations into states of ‘in-between’: molten and solid, representation and abstraction, permanence and momentary.
- Venue:
- Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, c/o National Glass Centre, Liberty Way, Sunderland, SR6 0GL
- Date:
-
Mar 9th 2024 - Jun 9th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Daily 10:00 - 17:00
- Price:
- Free
Keith Bell: An Eye For Nature
A selling exhibition of paintings by north east artist Keith Bell. Subjects include County Durham scenes and landscapes in the Lake District.
- Venue:
- Ushaw: Historic House, Chapels and Gardens, Woodland Road, Durham, DH7 9RH
- Date:
-
Mar 5th 2024 - Apr 28th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Mon-Sat 11:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- Adult £10/child £6/under 5s Free
Creative Wellbeing
An exhibition of new work by members of Newton Aycliffe-based Creative Wellbeing. The display includes watercolours, oils, mandalas and sculptural forms. Many of the works are for sale.
- Venue:
- Ushaw: Historic House, Chapels and Gardens, Woodland Road, Durham, DH7 9RH
- Date:
-
Mar 5th 2024 - Apr 14th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Mon-Sat 11:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- Adults £10 / Children £6 / under 5s free
Laura Lancaster: My Echo, My Shadow
My Echo, My Shadow is the largest solo show to date of British painter Laura Lancaster. Presenting new paintings and drawings made over the last few years My Echo, My Shadow delves into the current practice of one of the North East’s most celebrated and accomplished painters. The source of Lancaster’s paintings and drawings are found photographs, slides and cine films of strangers, purchased from online auction sites, flea markets and junk shops. She translates the lost and discarded memories into paintings which sit ambiguously between abstraction and figuration. The highly gestural, visceral and expressive application of paint allows the everyday and mundane to become surreal, grotesque and poignantly melancholic.
- Venue:
- Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, c/o National Glass Centre, Liberty Way, Sunderland, SR6 0GL
- Date:
-
Mar 16th 2024 - Jun 30th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Daily 10:00 - 17:00
- Price:
- Free
Wildlife Photographer of the Year
See the world through a new lens. Explore the planet’s habitats, from sprawling urban metropolises to the deep polar seas, and meet the creatures that rely on these places. Come face to face with species at risk of extinction as well as those we’ve brought back from the brink. See first-hand how human activities, both good and bad, are shaping the natural world we rely on. The stunning photography will leave you truly inspired by the beauty and diversity of nature and hopefully give you a renewed drive to do what you can to protect it.
- Venue:
- Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens, Mowbray Gardens, Burdon Road, Sunderland, SR1 1PP
- Date:
-
Feb 5th 2024 - May 7th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Sat 10:00 - 16:00 , Mon-Fri 09:30 - 17:00
- Price:
- Free
Bright Lights: Young Wildlife Photographer Exhibition
See photographs of local wildlife taken by young people living across Wearside. The competition is for young people aged 11 – 19 years and closes on Tuesday 16 January 2024.
- Venue:
- Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens, Mowbray Gardens, Burdon Road, Sunderland, SR1 1PP
- Date:
-
Feb 3rd 2024 - Mar 30th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Sat 10:00 - 16:00 , Mon-Fri 09:30 - 17:00
- Price:
- Free
ARTIST ROOMS: Vija Celmins
Latvian American artist Vija Celmins (b. 1938) produces exquisitely intricate drawings and prints of natural phenomena, notably the ocean, spider webs and the night sky. Her painstakingly slow method of composition is characterised by the extraordinary precision of her approach across a variety of media, and her persistent return to certain subjects. Based upon close observation of photographs, her delicate-seeming work addresses subjects that are both powerful and timeless.
- Venue:
- Hatton Gallery, The Quadrangle, University of Newcastle, 6 Kensington Terrace, Newcastle, NE1 7RU
- Date:
-
Feb 3rd 2024 - May 4th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Mon-Sat 10:00 - 17:00
- Price:
- Free
Katie Cuddon: A is for Alma
Katie Cuddon (born 1979, London, UK) is an artist living and working in Newcastle upon Tyne. A is for Alma is Katie’s first solo exhibition in Newcastle for 15 years and presents work created since she gave birth to her daughter in 2018. The works explore the union between mother and child and the emerging dialogue between them. Cuddon’s clay sculptures resonate with the instinctive experiments and gestures of childhood. She sees clay as a material associated with the early experience of shaping matter as a child, perhaps with Play-Doh or plasticine, materials ‘made to mimic clay’.
- Venue:
- Hatton Gallery, The Quadrangle, University of Newcastle, 6 Kensington Terrace, Newcastle, NE1 7RU
- Date:
-
Feb 3rd 2024 - May 4th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Mon-Sat 10:00 - 17:00
- Price:
- Free
New Perspectives: L-INKing Communities
We are all part of a community. Some communities we choose; some are chosen for us. We find community where we live, learn, socialise and practise our beliefs. Our communities include the families we are born into, the families we select, our friends, colleagues, and the society we are all part of. Our communities offer us space and support to share interests, ideas and values. Community means different things to different people. This display, curated by L-INK, brings together artworks that explore the architecture and activity that communities share. To us, community offers comfort, it means home, it means belonging.
- Venue:
- Laing Art Gallery, New Bridge Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8AG
- Date:
-
Nov 1st 2023 - Jul 1st 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Mon-Sat 10:00 - 16:30
- Price:
- Free
Vince Rea
This new exhibition charts the life of Vincent Rea, a local artist and gallery-owner who was best-known for transforming a disused Cold War bunker in Springwell Park, Jarrow, into the nationally recognised Bede Gallery. The exhibition showcases a wide variety of Rea’s creative works, including ceramics, abstract artworks, line drawings and photographs.
- Venue:
- South Shields Museum & Art Gallery, Ocean Road, South Shields, NE33 2JA
- Date:
-
Nov 20th 2023 - Apr 13th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Mon-Fri 10:00 - 17:00 , Sat 11:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- Free
Jacqueline Poncelet: In the Making
MIMA presents a solo exhibition surveying 50 years of work by acclaimed artist Jacqueline Poncelet. Poncelet’s work is characterised by a restless exploration of materials and making that is evident throughout her practice. As an artist she is fascinated by how tastes and fashions play out in the ways that humans dress, decorate living spaces, shape architecture and build infrastructures. Working across diverse media, Poncelet gathers and transforms patterns found in our cityscapes and rural landscapes.
- Venue:
- Mima, Centre Square, Middlesbrough, TS1 2AZ
- Date:
-
Feb 1st 2024 - Jun 23rd 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Sun 12:00 - 16:00 , Tue-Sat 10:00 - 16:30
- Price:
- Free
Voicing Objects
Voicing Objects presents a new moving image artwork by Olivia Turner in response to selected clay artefacts from the Shefton Collection of Greek Archaeology. These objects relate to the lives of women in the ancient world, bringing voice to historically marginalised stories. This embodied approach uses artefacts to think, feel, imagine, and voice with. This exhibition reveals the role objects have within history to promote and challenge patriarchal constructions. Olivia has worked closely with Pippa Anderson, a clinical vocal rehabilitation expert, to create an improvised soundtrack, which explores the voice as a method for care, expression, and healing.
- Venue:
- Great North Museum: Hancock, Barras Bridge, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4PT
- Date:
-
Jan 1st 2024 - Apr 14th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Mon-Fri 10:00 - 17:00 , Sun 11:00 - 16:00 , Sat 10:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- Free
About suffering, they were never wrong
MA Curating Art students present a sequence of three related exhibitions in February, March and April - May. The project partners 12 artists from 12 different countries with 12 historical artworks from the Hatton collection. It reveals how artists across time and space have pictured the pain or suffering of others, by re-examining the history of emotions.
- Venue:
- Hatton Gallery, The Quadrangle, University of Newcastle, 6 Kensington Terrace, Newcastle, NE1 7RU
- Date:
-
Feb 9th 2024 - May 15th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Mon-Sat 10:00 - 17:00
- Price:
- Free
Bordered Belonging
Bordered Belonging platforms the voices and perspectives of those living in a system that does not always offer compassion, adequate care, or sanctuary. How do we decide which bodies are perceived to be a risk to society? Why is care from the state often conditional and policed? Bordered Belonging offers a space to interrogate health inequalities, the role artists can play in creating solidarity, and mutual aid in (un)caring systems. It includes new work by artist and activist Bhavani Esapathi and ‘Sick Bed’, a film by Leah Clements, which uses virtual reality gaming to situate the viewer as someone who is stuck in bed with an unnamed illness. ‘Crip Quilt’ by Jamila Prowse, a large-scale, patchwork textile quilt, translating the individual and collective experiences of disability, will also be on show alongside Prowse’s moving image work ‘Spoons (After Carolyn Lazard)’. This film explores spoon theory, using spoons as a visualisation of the disparity in energy reserves between disabled and able-bodied people. Finally, Jamie Hale’s poem ‘I wish to be held by a river’ will be exhibited, painted directly on the gallery walls, with their poetry collection, ‘Shield’.
- Venue:
- The NewBridge Project, Shieldfield Centre 4 - 8, Clarence Walk, off Stoddart St, Newcastle, NE2 1AL
- Date:
-
Feb 3rd 2024 - Mar 30th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Daily 12:00 - 17:00
- Price:
- Free
Close But No Varz // Lucy Turner
A project exploring how the pressure of being a working class artist can turn passion into obsession. What happens when a vase no longer works as a vase? What happens when an artist no longer works as an “artist”?
- Venue:
- Shieldfield Art Works, Formerly The Holy Biscuit, Opposite The Biscuit Factory, 1 Clarence Street, Shieldfield, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 1YH
- Date:
-
Mar 13th 2024 - Mar 27th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Tue-Thu 11:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- Free
Shifted
The 40th anniversary of the miners' strike will be commemorated by this exhibition, which focuses on the contribution of women to mining life, politics and culture. The ways in which women supported and sustained the struggle of 1984 - 1985 has been seen as one of its unique features. It took many people by surprise, and its impact was all the more notable because of widely held stereotypes implying that women played a secondary and largely passive role in mining life. Most of the publicly accessible art that addresses mining history focuses on miners and the world of men. The EDAN exhibition seeks to shift the focus to the world of women and in that to remember how the strike shifted the power balance between men and women, shifted perceptions of women’s capacities, shifted the expectations of what women might achieve in a rapidly changing, shifting world.
- Venue:
- EDAN Gallery, The Art Block, 74 Church Street, Seaham, County Durham, SR7 7HF
- Date:
-
Mar 5th 2024 - Apr 6th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Tue-Fri 11:00 - 15:00 , Sat 10:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- Free
Focus
This series of exhibitions explores the issues of working-class women working in the arts through online conversations and a celebration of their work, showcasing their talents and passion as an artist. Sally Anderson is a multi-disciplinary artist. This exhibition showcases her hand painted skate decks.
- Venue:
- Otto Coffee, 27 Stockton Road, Sunderland, Tyne & Wear, SR1 3NR
- Date:
-
Feb 9th 2024 - Mar 20th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Mon-Thu 10:00 - 16:00 , Fri-Sat 10:00 - 22:00 , Sun 10:00 - 14:00
- Price:
- Free
Speak Their Name: The North East Suicide Memorial Quilt
This poignant display features 120 individual fabric squares that have been crafted to represent and honour loved ones who have died by suicide. The project has been led by Tracey Beadle of the charity Quinn’s Retreat and Suzanne Howes. Both have lost children to suicide and are determined to make a difference and bring hope in their children’s names.
- Venue:
- Newcastle Cathedral, Newcastle, NE1 1DF
- Date:
-
Feb 5th 2024 - Mar 27th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Mon-Fri 08:00 - 18:00 , Sat-Sun 08:00 - 17:00
- Price:
- Free
‘Place, People & Living Memory’
A public exhibition exploring a new order of social justice. It derives from 19th Century women in the North East of England and their radical non resistance. The women and their associated areas include; Elizabeth Pease - Darlington, Josephine Butler - Northumberland and Harriet Martineau - North Tyneside. Each is known for advocacy, original thinking, activism, and support for the cause of women’s political inclusion and emancipation. The exhibition reflects the change in human affairs over the years.
- Venue:
- Darlington Central Library, Crown Street, Darlington, DL1 1ND
- Date:
-
Jan 31st 2024 - Mar 25th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
31st Jan - 25th Mar 2024 TBC
- Price:
- Free
Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art Collection Display
On display across National Glass Centre are a selection of photographic works taken from Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art’s Collection (NGCA). The photographic works were originally exhibited as part of exhibitions held at NGCA during its existence at Fawcett Street, Sunderland and now National Glass Centre. They delve into extraordinary worlds, mapping the contours of Alpine glaciers, a 3D model of a tree surrounded by a blanket of millions of individual crystals and document the lives of stage entertainers across the world from Las Vegas to India to Blackpool. Artworks on display by Michelle Allen, Alice Hawkins, Dan Holdsworth, John Kippin, Tim Mitchell, Kelly Richardson and Simon Roberts.
- Venue:
- Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, c/o National Glass Centre, Liberty Way, Sunderland, SR6 0GL
- Date:
-
Jan 16th 2024 - Dec 31st 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Daily 10:00 - 17:00
- Price:
- Free
Face to Face: An exhibition of portraits by Leanne Pearce
An exhibition of portraits by artist Leanne Pearce who is motivated by making purposeful work and capturing the individuality and character of the people she draws and paints. Leanne has exhibited her artwork throughout the UK in group and solo exhibitions at universities,
galleries, hospitals and public spaces. She has also appeared twice as a contestant on Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year, 2018 and more recently in 2022. Leanne was also the co-founder and former creative director of Thought Foundation in Birtley.
- Venue:
- Gateshead Central Library, Prince Consort Road, Gateshead, NE8 4LN
- Date:
-
Jan 20th 2024 - Mar 28th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Sat 09:00 - 13:00 , Tue-Wed and Fri 09:00 - 17:00 , Mon and Thu 09:00 - 19:00
- Price:
- Free
Spirit of Invention: A world of creativity from Victorian Britain to the present day
This new family friendly exhibition was inspired by some of the thousands of creative designs registered with the Board of Trade from 1839 onwards which are housed at The National Archives. See contemporary technology alongside eye-catching inventions from the Victorian era – including a ventilating top hat and a typewriter for visually impaired people. With hands-on interactive activities, visitors of all ages can try their hand at designing and inventing.
- Venue:
- Discovery Museum, (Closed on all Bank Holidays) Blandford Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4JA
- Date:
-
Mar 16th 2024 - Jun 23rd 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Sat-Sun 11:00 - 16:00 , Mon-Fri 10:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- Free
Art by Peter Mayne
This exhibition displays 34 paintings by Peter Mayne, a South Shields-born artist who seeks inspiration from Scottish colourists and French impressionists. This exhibition showcases Peter's recent work painted in the North East, as well as paintings of Spain and France.
- Venue:
- South Shields Museum & Art Gallery, Ocean Road, South Shields, NE33 2JA
- Date:
-
Feb 1st 2024 - May 11th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Mon-Fri 10:00 - 17:00 , Sat 11:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- Free
She Shall Be Called Woman
A body of work which celebrates women, by women. The images, by photographer Elaine Vizor, span a decade showing contemporary and environmental portraiture of females in different roles and landscapes, and in the accompanying soundscape, by writer and broadcaster Marie Gardiner, you hear the voices of some of those featured in the images and the authentic sounds of the Durham Dales.
- Venue:
- Bishop Auckland Town Hall, Market Place, Bishop Auckland, DL14 7NP
- Date:
-
Mar 2nd 2024 - Jun 1st 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Mon-Sat 10:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- Free
There is Light in the Fissures
There is Light in the Fissures is a new exhibition at Belsay Hall. Created by Turner Prize nominee Ingrid Pollard MBE, the works explore the landscape and natural materials which Belsay is made of and aim to bring the outside in. Discover pieces in the dramatic Pillar Hall and jurassic feeling Quarry Gardens.
- Venue:
- Belsay Hall, Castle and Gardens, Belsay, Nr Morpeth, Northumberland, NE20 0DX
- Date:
-
Feb 10th 2024 - Jul 14th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
10th Feb - 14th Jul 2024 10:00 - 17:00
- Price:
- From £11.30
The Magic of Dark Skies
This exhibition celebrates a decade of Northumberland's International Dark Sky Park. To celebrate this landmark, the Park collaborated with Unison Colour to create a bespoke set of pastels inspired by the night sky, which were then gifted to six artists to produce their artworks. The exhibition perfectly captures the wonder and awe we feel looking up at the night sky.
- Venue:
- The Sill: National Landscape Discovery Centre, Bardon Mill, Hexham, NE47 7AN
- Date:
-
Mar 16th 2024 - May 12th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Daily 10:00 - 17:00
- Price:
- Free
Bobby Chainbridge and Margarita Frančeska Ieva Loze
Bobby Chainbridge (some say the he’s the alter ego of artist Andrew Mitchell, but who really knows?) catalogues the People, Places and Pints of the North East's greatest clubs; both past & present. His work captures the “alone, but together” conviviality that made and makes social clubs a staple of Northern life. Margarita Frančeska Ieva Loze's work is an exploration of the subtle beauty of life’s moments and a celebration of the poetics of the ordinary. Her recent work combines textile production with the use of found objects. Through her experimental narrative approach, Margarita makes a dreamlike ontology, to capture the nuances of spatial, temporal and poetic navigation.
- Venue:
- OWTSIDE Gallery, No More Nowt, Community House, Yoden Road, Peterlee, SR8 5DP
- Date:
-
Dec 12th 2023 - Oct 31st 2024
- Opening Times:
-
12th Dec 2023 - 31st Oct 2024 TBC
- Price:
- Free
Fantasy Turns To Reality - David Scott
Fantasy Turns To Reality features the work of David Scott, a designer and graphic artist from the North East. Drawing on influences such as 90s dance music & nightlife culture, the thrill and adrenaline of the fair, and the crash back to reality of life working in call centres, David champions acidic, fluorescent and lurid colours coupled with slogan centric typography, which can all be found in his collaboration with No More Nowt. Showcasing a number of posters created during the lockdown eras, Fantasy Turns To Reality has one foot in a nostalgic past and another Nike Air Max looking towards a ‘what if’ future.
- Venue:
- OWTSIDE Gallery, No More Nowt, Community House, Yoden Road, Peterlee, SR8 5DP
- Date:
-
Feb 14th 2024 - Apr 2nd 2024
- Opening Times:
-
14th Feb - 2nd Apr 2024 TBC
- Price:
- Free
Flight: weaving a home for butterflies & moths
An exciting and thought-provoking exhibition by a group of talented local artists is soaring into Preston Park Museum. Tapestry and weaving exhibition, Flight: weaving a home for butterflies and moths, is inspired by the museum’s Walled Garden and created by artists from The Weaving Room in Darlington. It celebrates the beauty of butterflies and moths, sustainability and the environment, and explores an important message about the decline of the butterfly population and loss of habitat. Wing your way to the museum to find out more about this unique exhibition which has brought together talented weavers from across the north with a shared passion for the natural environment.
- Venue:
- Preston Park Museum, Yarm Road, Eaglescliffe, Stockton-on-Tees, TS18 3RH
- Date:
-
Nov 25th 2023 - Apr 21st 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Sun and Tue-Sat 10:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- £5/£3
Michael Rakowitz: The Waiting Gardens of the North
Baltic has invited Michael Rakowitz to develop a major new commission in response to the idea of conflict to be presented in the Level 4 gallery. The artist has proposed to create a sprawling, immersive interior forest of trees, hedges, herbs, and medicinal plants that will be conceived and tended to in collaboration with local organisations. The project is imagined as a “Hanging Garden”, referencing the one in Babylon that is considered among the Seven Wonders of the World. The garden will be inhabited by Rakowitz’s cardboard sculptures that attempt to reappear the archaeological cultural heritage that has been looted or destroyed in Iraq and Syria since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
- Venue:
- BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, South Shore Road, Gateshead Quays, Gateshead, NE8 3BA
- Date:
-
Jul 15th 2023 - May 26th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Sun and Wed-Sat 10:00 - 18:00
- Price:
- Free, donations welcome
Innovation Platform
Innovation Platform will inspire visitors with the inventiveness and ingenuity in rail. This exhibition highlights emerging ideas and extraordinary achievements from across the rail industry. Showcasing the latest and greatest in rail innovation, Innovation Platform celebrates the creative by focusing not only on the technology itself, but by giving just as much attention to the context in which objects were developed. Through imaginative problem-solving and original thinking, the railways are progressing, armed with technologies designed to improve all aspects of the industry. The Innovation Platform will show the very best of these to those who will feel their benefit most greatly—you!
- Venue:
- Locomotion, (previously Shildon Locomotion Museum), Dale Road Industrial Estate, Dale Road, Shildon, County Durham, DL4 2RE
- Date:
-
Jan 11th 2023 - Dec 24th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Sun and Wed-Sat 10:00 - 17:00
- Price:
- Free
Cosmovisions on Land and Entangled Futures
A group exhibition that is being developed through a collaborative research project that seeks to investigate land rights and the social and political agency of nature from non-extractivist perspectives. The project has an interdisciplinary approach that focuses on practices that reveal worldviews at the intersections between land rights and climate justice, questioning and opposing Euro-capital-centric and dominant narratives. Based on experimentation and collaboration, the project explores formats that challenge the hierarchical structures of production and presentation of knowledge, incorporating the voices of artists, and collaboration and exchange in the development process.
- Venue:
- BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, South Shore Road, Gateshead Quays, Gateshead, NE8 3BA
- Date:
-
Nov 18th 2023 - May 26th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Sun and Wed-Sat 10:00 - 18:00
- Price:
- Free
Len Tabner: Elements of Darkness
This new exhibition brings together a selection of Len Tabner’s drawings and paintings of Boulby Potash Mine on the North Yorkshire coast – the deepest mine in Britain. Len explored the unfamiliar underground world of the miner in the early 1980s, drawing and painting in situ in the mine.
- Venue:
- Mining Art Gallery, Bishop Auckland, County Durham
- Date:
-
Nov 1st 2023 - Oct 27th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Sun and Wed-Sat 11:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- £5/£2.50 child
Not in Service
Jock and John Mooney RSA, son and father, present drawing and sculpture in response to the creative prompt of ‘Not in Service’. The results act as a foil and a mirror to our current troubled times.
- Venue:
- Vane, 65 High St, Gateshead, NE8 2AP
- Date:
-
Feb 29th 2024 - Mar 23rd 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Wed-Sat 12:00 - 17:00
- Price:
- Free
Ayo Akingbade: Show Me The World Mister
Comprising two films shot on location in Nigeria, the commission builds on Akingbade’s lucid interrogations of history and place, addressing the interwoven histories of industrialisation, colonisation and family. Akingbade works predominantly with moving image, addressing notions of power, urbanism and stance. Interested in the fluid boundaries between the self and the other, she gathers local and cultural experiences in intimate and playful interpretations.
- Venue:
- BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, South Shore Road, Gateshead Quays, Gateshead, NE8 3BA
- Date:
-
Nov 18th 2023 - Apr 14th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Sun and Wed-Sat 10:00 - 18:00
- Price:
- Free
Bronia Gardner
Women of a certain age shine new light on old photos through digital art.
- Venue:
- Wild & Free Gallery, 3A Ilfracombe Gardens, Whitley Bay, NE26 3ND
- Date:
-
Mar 10th 2024 - Mar 31st 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Wed-Sat 09:30 - 17:00
- Price:
- Free
Stepping Softly on the Earth
A research-led exhibition presenting the work of 20, mostly non-Western and Indigenous, artists. The exhibition invites you to consider human’s relationship to land and territory from a decolonial and anti-colonial perspective. The exhibition showcases a range of artistic practices that approach our relationship to land and territory through the understanding of the world as a pluriverse – a world in which many worlds coexist and support each other. In this world, all things and beings are interconnected and human and nature are not separated.Stepping Softly on the Earth includes artworks exploring questions around ancestral cosmovisions, spirituality, inter-species communication, embodied knowledge, oral traditions, autonomy, mapping and legal frameworks.
- Venue:
- BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, South Shore Road, Gateshead Quays, Gateshead, NE8 3BA
- Date:
-
Nov 18th 2023 - Apr 14th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Sun and Wed-Sat 10:00 - 18:00
- Price:
- Free
Matilda Bevan: Vein
Matilda Bevan creates paintings, drawings, monoprints and collages, that respond to a place and its history. She takes inspiration from photographs of rural environments and the work of English landscape painters of the past. For Vein, Bevan responds to the work of artist and writer Thomas Hennell (1903-1945) who documented the British countryside and its traditions and whose work is also included in the exhibition.
- Venue:
- Granary Gallery, Dewar’s Lane, Berwick-upon-Tweed, TD15 1HJ
- Date:
-
Feb 10th 2024 - May 5th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Sun and Wed-Sat 11:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- Free
Electrik Sheep x Baltic Pop-Up Shop
Shop original artwork, prints, and exclusive merch from various street artists. Plus, find original merch from Newcastle-based brand, Electrik Sheep. The scope of works on sale will grow and change throughout the store's run as works are bought and new ones are added, so you can keep coming back for more and expand your colourful collection. The pop-up is in the foyer, just to the right of the Hello Desk as you enter through the front doors.
- Venue:
- BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, South Shore Road, Gateshead Quays, Gateshead, NE8 3BA
- Date:
-
Jan 1st 2024 - Mar 31st 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Sun and Wed-Sat 10:00 - 18:00
- Price:
- Free
Baltic Open Submission 2024
An exhibition of 100 artworks showcasing painting, sculpture, photography, video and more by artists, makers, self-taught creatives and hobbyists based in North East England, alongside several works by established artists. Works will be selected by a panel including North East musician and lead singer with Maxïmo Park, Paul Smith; artist Jasmina Cibic; Leo Fenwick, Strategic Partnerships Director, Fenwick; Niomi Fairweather, Baltic Curator; and Rose McMurray, Baltic Curatorial Assistant.
- Venue:
- BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, South Shore Road, Gateshead Quays, Gateshead, NE8 3BA
- Date:
-
Mar 16th 2024 - Sep 1st 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Sun and Wed-Sat 10:00 - 18:00
- Price:
- Free
Northumberland Open 2024: Northumberland Now
Housed in Woodhorn Museum’s stunning Workshop Galleries, the annual Northumberland Open is the largest exhibition of its type in Northumberland. The exhibition attracts submissions from artists from across Northumberland and beyond. The theme for the 2024 Open Exhibition is ‘Northumberland Now’ and is inspired by the work of the Ashington Group of Artists (also known as the Pitmen Painters).
- Venue:
- Woodhorn Museum , Queen Elizabeth 2nd Country Park, Ashington, Northumberland, NE63 9YF
- Date:
-
Feb 17th 2024 - May 6th 2024
- Opening Times:
-
Sun and Wed-Sat 10:00 - 16:00
- Price:
- £9.50/£8.50/under 18s Free