00:00Our story Gateshead is a new exhibition from Helix Arts, marking more than four decades of
00:05community-based creative projects in the borough. Now on display at Gateshead Central Library,
00:09it brings together archived material and newly commissioned work to explore how art has been
00:15used to connect people and places. Helix Arts has been running for over 40 years now,
00:21and it works with communities around the North East to use art to bring people together, to make
00:32connections, to build communities, address issues that matter. This exhibition specifically looks at
00:41projects that we've delivered in Gateshead, four key projects, and it's really a celebration of the
00:48power of art to help communities to connect, to explore new things, and to kind of address
00:57issues that matter to them. So the exhibition is on at Gateshead Library, it's running till the 18th of
01:04April, and it's an exploration of key community art projects that Helix Arts has delivered within
01:12Gateshead and around Gateshead. The exhibition includes previously unseen photographs, audio,
01:17and video from the charity's archive. It also features new artworks created by young people from
01:23Reckenton Youth Group. Four major projects are highlighted, including a storytelling initiative
01:28with residents in sheltered accommodation in Burtley, a scheme transforming a disused underpass in Peelaw
01:34into a public gallery, and a large-scale installation addressing climate change on the River Tyne.
01:40The display also revisits Helix Arts' first schools project in Reckenton in 1983.
01:46So the exhibition is about the power of art really, and how kind of working together, collaborating
01:52together to be creative, to create art together, to work with artists, to work with different people
02:02with different experiences. And I hope audiences would come away from this exhibition just kind of
02:09thinking about how art can mean lots of different things. It can mean lots of different things to
02:14different people, but it can also be so valuable to communities to come together to make art, to
02:20celebrate and to explore their communities through that sense of creativity. And to really kind of challenge
02:29and confront issues within communities as well through creativity and through kind of sharing stories,
02:39sharing ideas and sharing that kind of creative insight into communities.
02:44Our Story Gateshead forms part of Helix Arts Revisits programme supported by the National Lottery
02:50Heritage Fund. Organisers say that they hope it will give visitors the chance to reflect on the borough's
02:55creative past and consider how community arts projects may shape its future.
02:59The National Lottery Heritage Fund is a part of Helix Arts Revisit programme.
Comments