From June – Sept 2018, I took part in the N18 Artist Development Programme running alongside the Great Exhibition of the North. As part of the programme, a group of artists were invited to respond to the exhibition using digital tools and technology.
Northern Pulse responds to the theme of Northern-ness and engaged participants using social media and the Seenit Capture app. In the first stage, I sent out a questionnaire asking people to answer questions such as ‘What does being Northern mean to you?’, ‘What are the common misconceptions of the North?’ and ‘Describe the North in 5 words’. I then used these responses to create a poem which participants were then invited to film themselves reading in a Northern location of their choice. Individual films were edited together to create the final film poem. Alongside this, sits a data visualisation showing how often words and phrases in the poem came up in the questionnaire responses.
The poem is read by Hazel Osmond, Joe Facer and Becci Sharrock. You can watch the full poem below.
Huge thanks to Jasmine Cox for being an A* mentor, Riverside Associates for managing the programme, the Great Exhibition of the North for the opportunity and to all the other fantastic artists who made the experience such an enjoyable one.