Congregate Fest Booklet

Event Guide

Welcome to Congregate Fest!

A celebration of ideas from across Durham: The Culture County, the exciting project that emerged from the shortlisted County Durham UK City of Culture 2025 bid. The county’s bid was focussed on the impact that could be made under these key themes:

Make More. Feel Powerful. Be Well.

The bid made it to the last four (the first county bid to ever do so), an achievement that resulted in the county attaining a ‘runners-up’ award from the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Our approach has been to ‘R&D’ some of the many innovative projects put forward in our bid from across the three themes.

Today you will get a taste of the work undertaken by passionate people to advance those projects – bringing them closer to reality. Initiatives large and small (from the grandeur of the cosmos to the terraces of Horden) that connect the brilliant people and places in our vast county.

As everyone who lives in County Durham can testify we are home to extraordinary people, places and ideas. Congregate Fest brings some of them together. This is our first step to harnessing the incredible wealth of inventiveness in all of our towns and villages.

Congregate Fest has inclusive innovation at its heart. Finding the people with ideas, and helping them get started.

Initially formed for the bid, Culture Club is a large, ever-growing, varied group of people from across County Durham – and the first port of call for any and everyone with an idea. It was shaped by those who formed it and supported by local artist, Alison Curry, providing opportunities to gather, connect, share skills, passions and understand the struggles creatives often feel.

Culture Club has legacy and connectivity running through it, and we intend for it to grow to meet the needs of every creative part of the county. During Congregate Fest you are welcome to join us in the ‘Creating Conversations Space’. Experience the enthusiasm, begin your own journey and discover what is on the horizon for Culture Club.

At the centre of Congregate Fest are the 10 innovators – you can visit them in the main theatre.

They have come together through Durham Kickstart, the open-call ideas competition that anyone within the county could apply to. We were inundated with ingenious plans and we wished we could fund them all! But for this initial pilot we selected the 10 you can see in person today and in the following pages, who were each awarded £1,000 to help their projects take their first steps.

Image: Ogre Studios

Durham County Council, Durham University, Culture Durham Partnership.

A Bright Night

MICHELLE HARLAND | CREATIVEPOP

There is growing interest in an annual large-scale art installation in Seaham Town Hall. A Bright Night intends to do just that, bringing together both creativity in local schools and the feeling of community and light at a darker time of the year.

CreativePop worked with local primary schools to create “happy houses of light”. These houses reflected the feelings children have towards their community, family and light. From these ideas CreativePop chose a design to inspire the installation: one of the stars, galaxies and space. The theme resonated throughout the project and its core idea of shining light into the night sky.

CreativePop have created a cut-out village scene to this theme that has been displayed in the windows of Seaham Town Hall and enhanced by the children’s further work of star hangings. The stars and galaxies above us remind us of how special we are and how unique our individual communities can be.

creativepop.uk @creativepoparts

Artist Network Durham Exploring the Underwater Soundscapes of County Durham

DAVID DE LA HAYE

Artist Network Durham (AND) aims to support artists working across the region in any artistic discipline. For the opening exhibition, artists were invited to submit works in response to underwater soundscapes recorded throughout the county. The results set the precedent for a plural network; in this case sound AND image, science AND arts.

The exhibition explores our relationship to the marine and freshwater systems that feature prominently in the County Durham landscape. It showcases the wellbeing benefits of ‘blue spaces’, advocating cultural appreciation of overlooked habitats that are stunningly rich in biodiversity and endless sources of inspiration.

The network kicks off at Elvet & Bailey, a CIC in the heart of the city, and hopes to become a central hub that will provide a much-needed space to help local artists meet, inspire, and flourish.

Consett at Play

GEORGE LEDGER, STEVE WEBB, ABBIE THOMPSON AND JOHN RACE | CONSETT IN FOCUS DOCUMENTARY PHOTO GROUP

CHRIS BRUCE,

The overall aim of this group is to document the lives of the people of the Consett area through photography.

Our current project, Consett at Play, is designed to document the activities that the people of the town partake in during their leisure time. We are aware that, historically, Consett had an extensive and great variety of leisure activities that have both provided an outlet for everyday lives and brought an element of social cohesion to the town. We felt that these activities are worthy of recording and celebrating.

In recent years, as Consett has become larger and more diverse but also less centralised, these activities have become less obvious. We felt that they were probably still there if we looked. We decided that the core activities we would document would be sports, both the traditional ones of football, cricket and rugby, but also the less obvious ones of karate, shooting, bowls, etc. We also thought pursuits such as keep-fit, dancing, board games and many others would also be appropriate. It is hoped that other activities would become apparent to us once people became aware of the project. The timescale for the project is initially a year to enable us to cover all the seasonal activities and events.

Dogpeople

LOUISE POWELL

Dogpeople is an audio project which co-creates an oral history of Wheatley Hill Greyhound Stadium, an unlicensed or ‘flapping’ track in East Durham. Named after the highest term of respect among the flapping community, Dogpeople uncovers hidden stories about a sport which was an integral part of working-class County Durham culture from the 1930s until 2019, with strong connections to the area’s mining heritage.

Through interviews between award-winning writer and professional greyhound trainer Dr Louise Powell, audio producer Bridget Hamilton and the flapping community to which Louise belongs, the Durham Kickstart commission enables the co-creation of two pilot audio pieces. They consist of a 20-minute podcast episode and a 3-4 minute oral history clip designed to be used as part of a QR code story trail. Both pieces are intended as proof-of-concepts for a substantial project which will co-create a history of the flapping tracks around County Durham, including Easington, Spennymoor and Coundon. Outcomes of this project include an oral history podcast series, a QR code Flapping Story Trail at Wheatley Hill, an exhibition in a community space supported by The Story at Mount Oswald, a raw oral history archive, a blog and a work of non-fiction.

I Come From KATHARINE GODA AND CARL JOYCE

Creative facilitators Carl: a photographer and filmmaker, and Katharine: a writer, are working with a group of young volunteers from Creative Youth Opportunities in Horden to explore identity and belonging through text, image and film. Starting from the phrase ‘I come from’, we are investigating the places which have shaped us, from dens and hiding places to homes, gardens, parks and larger urban and wild spaces. Since identity and belonging are more complex than the locations we spend time or feel at home in From also includes the people we are connected to, objects which are meaningful to us, our activities and experiences.

Through this co-created project we are exploring who we are, individually and collectively, what is important to us and what shapes us. This record incorporates through written text, image and film not only who, what and where the participants are from but also the creative process of writing and filmmaking itself.

We hope these experiences will empower people, affirming the value of intangible heritage and culture as well as enabling individuals to find their voices in new ways, to see themselves as artists, raising aspirations and confidence and fostering connectedness.

carljoyce.com @carl_joyce @carljoycefilms

Radical Recipes

LOUISE TAYLOR AND NAT WILKINS | WIDEYED

Radical Recipes is a pilot project by Wideyed photographers Louise Taylor and Nat Wilkins that combines photography and written oral testimonies to uncover inspiring stories of change, highlighting the variety of ways that food can be used as a positive for our communities and our environment.

The project will celebrate and elevate ordinary members of our community – from Mutual Aid groups springing up to provide emergency food, to farmers, independent retailers, producers and community growers – who are creating networks, cooperatives and food systems that operate for the good of our communities. Using the visual format of a contemporary recipe book, Radical Recipes will share the energy and inspiration of these grassroots activities, hoping to influence the general public through exhibitions and publications, that in the right hands, food can be a route to wellbeing and a force of good.

Spring on The Story Train

SAM SLATCHER | CITIZEN SONGWRITERS CIC

The Story Train is a new initiative by Citizen Songwriters to transform a retired High Speed Train buffet car into an imaginative carriage full of art, community, storytelling and food. This first spring season for The Story Train is all about experimenting with the concept, giving communities a taste of different arts activities whilst further developing the idea of The Story Train.

The project has supported ‘Creativity Week’ which took place during Spring half term for families and children with arts, crafts, painting and crocheting. Local landscape artist Susanna Heath worked with visitors on the coach to co-create a new sign for the front of The Story Train. The project has also supported photographer Nat Wilkins facilitating a photography masterclass around the railway to create photography for The Story Train as well as Lisette Auton, a disabled writer, activist, and creative practitioner who ran a drama based activity with primary school children on board The Story Train.

These activities have also enabled project curator Sam Slatcher to deepen The Story Train’s partnership with Weardale Railway, The Auckland Project, local partner organisations and widen the network of volunteers. The project has certainly helped spring The Story Train into action!

citizensongwriters.org

@CitizenSongwriters

@CitizenSongs @CitizenSongwriters

Durham Cathedral

Built with hand, head, and heart

Out of different cultures

From Mathematics, manual craft, religion, imagination, From Sacred geometry and the egg

A metaphysical scale

For heaven’s light to pour in.

The Stonemason

Place to place the itinerant craftsmen

Christian, Muslim, Pagan, Congregate

To build from stone.

Through skill and imagination

Problem solvers

Who make us see The world differently.

Then and now. By chiselling stone

Solo voice, choral voice, drama, live instruments. This adventure in music

firmly based in County Durham

In the lives of craftsmen and manual trades

Explores the acoustic opportunities

The cathedral offers Placing singers and actors

In different parts

Of the nave, choir, transepts, clerestories.

To tell the story

Of human ambition

In Durham’s connections with Europe, Ideas, Imagination

duncanbr.com

The StoneMason

DAVID DUNCAN

Durham Kickstart Durham Kickstart

Trailways: The Start of Our Journey

LIZZIE LOVEJOY

Between January and March 2023, artist & writer Lizzie Lovejoy engaged with community members who live on, or have used, the Bishop to Darlington railway line.

This line was the first in the world, and paved the way for trains across the globe, permanently altering transport as we knew it. As Lizzie learned about the stories and culture surrounding this historic location, they created a series of visual artworks for display at the station platforms along the route, translating local memory into an art trail. This also includes a series of poetic works exploring the impact of the railways on local, working-class culture. In the spring and summer, Lizzie will lead walks and workshops across Shildon and Newton Aycliffe. A station exhibition will launch in March 2023, supported by The Bishop Line.

Lizzie has also been visiting the Darlington Hippodrome archives and will be showcasing an expanded range of work based around our local rail history and the postcards kept in the theatre. This exhibition will launch on 3 May 2023.

lizzielovejoyillustration.co.uk

@lizzie_lovejoy

@lizzie_lovejoy_illustration @LizzieLovejoyIllustration

WEAVE (Women’s Engaging Arts Vision for Everyone)

Weaving in art and life…

“The art of weaving is a profound metaphor for understanding the workings of the universe and our place in it. Through the physical/metaphorical/ process of weaving, we gain a better understanding of this world and how we as human beings are woven into it. We are bound to our bodies with the fragile threads of earth”.

The ideas for WEAVE were developed following research carried out by artist Rhonda Fenwick for the Creative Lab at Durham University as part of the 2025 County Durham UK City of Culture Bid. This part of the project focused on women of great achievement born in County Durham. The research highlighted the lives of many great women whose achievements are submerged, disguised, disappeared, invisible and yet played pivotal roles in society and the world. Such women as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Gertrude Bell, Sheila Mackie, Janet Taylor and Cecily Neville Duchess of York to name but a few. The concept of ‘weave’ in terms of weaving cloth, carpets, stories and rivers, in fact all aspects of weaving, in one form or another is the basis of our work.

The project currently involves three highly committed artists, namely, Rhonda Fenwick, Diana Raw and Marion Thompson.

rhondafenwick.co.uk @rhondafenwick

RHONDA FENWICK | MONA LISA ARTS & MEDIA

Durham Kickstart Durham Kickstart

Finding The Light

With Sumit Paul-Choudhury (paulchoudhury.com), former Editor-in-Chief at New Scientist, writer, thinker, dreamer.

Through a proposed programme of events, exhibits and experiences, we’ll explore what the latest science and technology tells us about the universe we live in – and how art and culture help us to make sense of it. Celebrating our region’s 1,300 year history of space science, from Bede’s lunar calendar to the James Webb Space Telescope. With Durham University and its global partners (NASA and others), the NE Satellite Applications Catapult in Sedgefield, our dark skies in the North Pennines AONB, we’ll look at how the shifting balance of light and dark shapes our lives and we’ll find out how we can make our own light shine more brightly – right here in Durham, the Place of Light.

CREATIVE PROGRAMME

Bidding places for UK City of Culture are asked to generate 15 creative event concepts that set out your ambition and philosophy.

We wanted to reach for the sky but keep our boots firmly rooted on the ground. Through a wide campaign of community workshops (where participants were paid for their time) we developed a longlist of over 115 brilliant and wonderful ideas. We enlisted the support of some of the best creative producers in the UK – many already within County Durham – to help us refine and expand what we had into the final 15. Grassroots raw creativity colliding with world-class experience. It made for a killer combination.

For this research and development phase we have selected six of the 15. To advance them a little closer to being made real.

World Economic Funfair

Led by Bompas & Parr (bompasandparr.com), globally recognised as the leading expert in multi-sensory experience design.

The World Economic Funfair (making Durham a counterpoint to Davos) will bring together showmen, cultural representatives, local people and economists to tackle economic problems and inequalities in a space that is thrilling and fun. Everyone understands the language of a funfair. Very few understand the language of economics. The goal of the economics funfair is to educate but also empower people to change the economy to better suit their needs. On Valentine’s Day 2023, we held our first multi-sector, cross-community workshop to brainstorm what rides and attractions might look like at the World Economic Funfair, helped by AI-generated imagery.

Image: Eleanor Mathieson

Images: Tynesight Photographic

Image: NASA

Image: Bompas & Par

Gametime Are You Listening?

A large partnership with Durham County Council leisure services, Events of the North, County Durham Sport, Go-Well, Paula Radcliffe’s ‘Families On Track’.

Intended to be a county-wide campaign to use creativity to attract new people to physical activity and wellbeing, who might normally be a bit put off by ‘traditional’ sport. We ran our first pilot in February half-term at Shildon-Sunnydale Leisure Centre and focused on the fun and social sides. We used dynamic social media promotions, it was free and designed for all ages and abilities, and attracted 220 people. Activities included family track races, street dance, quidditch and culminating in a big family rave workout with a live brass band!

Led by The Forge (intheforge.com), a preeminent participatory art commissioning and producing agency. With the County Durham Cultural Education Partnership.

Young people in County Durham are living in a time of great flux. The impact of the pandemic is everywhere, poor mental health issues are increasing, climate change is on the news every night and they are surrounded by economic and political instability. It is not an easy time to be young. What can ‘culture’ do about it? In order to find a solution, Are You Listening create spaces for exploration, dialogue and most importantly learning to listen. Deploying a creative approach based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals we will begin to develop a Manifesto for the Future

Project PM | MP No Frills/Thrill

Led by Marc Rees (marcrees.com), Wales-based interdisciplinary artist/curator/director with an established track record of creating groundbreaking theatre projects around the globe. With Jenny Hall, a Chartered Architect, carpenter and artist based in Wales. She is the founding director of Craftedspace Ltd (craftedspace.co.uk).

A reimagining of the historic seating structure of the Pitman’s Parliament in Durham Market Place by artist Marc Rees and architect Jenny Hall. This site-located, coal-community responsive artwork will act as a space for debate about 21st-century social challenges in County Durham, as well as prompting discussion of what Durham Miners’ Hall / Redhills’ role as a civic space might be in the future.

me

Led by Gala Theatre (galadurham.co.uk).

No Frills / Thrill Me intends to invite the greatest performers in the world to perform in working men’s clubs, through stripped-to-the-bone shows, with authentic collaborations between individual clubs and UK cultural producers. Does greatness need big sets, dazzling lighting, perfect acoustics? Nah. Using the 120 clubs across County Durham and flipping the audience dynamic, this programme would reinvigorate the clubs as venues and cultural anchors, closer to what they used to be. And be a playful but genuine challenge to the arts.

Image: Ogre Studios

Image: Madeleine Waller

Image: Jenny Hall

Place Lab

• Network enlivenment

• Research

• Hyperconnectivity

Place Lab will be a connected network of hubs across local places, using community-powered creativity to link people, projects and good ideas to determine and realise a shared vision of place. This initiative will test the concept of networked creative hubs in towns and villages across the county and potentially beyond. A central hub – HQ – will research how the labs are working and build up a body of knowledge to help drive further change alongside creating opportunities to enliven the network.

At its core, Place Lab is connecting people to opportunity. The first Place Lab pilot was in Dawdon with the second in Peterlee. Two more pilots and the HQ will be developed by Summer 2023. Each Place Lab will be specific to its location. Local residents, businesses, young people and stakeholders will inform and lead them.

Silver Citi es Network

Consett

Seaham

Spennymoor

Shildon

Silver Cities Network

County Durham was unsuccessful in our bid for UK City of Culture 2025, and so were a few other places – ‘silver cities’. These places have decided to form a new network from across the UK, Wrexham, Southampton, Derby, Armagh and others, to see how we might work together to support each other, collaborate on ambitious programmes, and connect our communities.

PLACE LAB

Durham City

Bishop Auckland Crook

Stanley Peterlee

Chesterle-Street

Barnard Castle Newton Aycliffe

PLACE LAB HQ

Durham Evaluation + Insights Hub

Thank you for visiting us at Congregate Fest. We hope you got an overview of all the brilliant people and ideas that are driving The Culture County, and the methods for making them more than the sum of their parts.

This is the beginning of something epic. The next steps are to take on board what we have learned through these pilot projects and find new ways to build on this momentum. This creative movement is for everyone –if you’d like to join us or learn more email us at: durham2025@durham.gov.uk.

@CultureCounty @CultureCounty @culturecounty

#DurhamCultureCounty

Led by Durham University. With Dr Ladan Cockshut.

To truly understand and learn from everything we’re doing, this phase of The Culture County is undertaking a robust evaluation – led by Durham University. The aim is to take our shared learning from what’s happening right now to help us keep growing and expanding going forward. Please help us by adding your thoughts to the evaluation! Follow the QR code on the back page.

The Durham Evaluation + Insights Hub: was conceived as a bold and dynamic approach to evaluation that continually calibrates ongoing projects for maximum socio-economic impact on the county. Drawing on existing research, evaluation expertise, creative economy knowledge, as well as strong community ties, it will not only provide best practice evaluation for the region but also advance the science of evaluation for the creative and cultural sector globally. Our evaluation of this phase is building towards the establishment of the Durham Evaluation + Insights Hub.

Special Thanks

Many people have been involved in making Congregate Fest happen. But here a few special thanks:

Alison Curbishley

(SNAFU)

Creates

Fox

• Alison Curry

• Carlo Viglianisi

• Elaine Scott

• Janet Stewart

Lewis Wilkinson

Kirby

• Bishop Auckland Town Hall Team

• Claire Tymon

• Colin Robson

• Eleanor Mathieson

• Jess Hunt

• Lizzie Glazier

• Nick Malyan

Shane Harris

• Curious

• Emma Turnbull

• Jess White

• Lorraine Coghill

• Nocciola the Drawer

• Jill Cole

• Brett Smith

12

• Brettan Garrett

• Debbie Connell

• Fiona Hill

• Katie Binks

• Mark Saint

• East Durham

• Freddie Mason

• Katy Thompson

• Martin Ward

• Northern Heartlands

• Steven Walker (Ogre Studio)

• Hannah

• Kylie Lloyd

• Martin Wilson

• Sam Bompas

• Tez Errington and team

• Melissa

• Sarah Hudspeth

• Wayne Brown

We would love to hear what you thought of the projects presented at Congregate Fest as The Culture County continues to develop.

Please spare just a few minutes – scan the QR code and tell us what you loved, what you liked, and anything in-between!