Exhibition charts lost connections between Tyneside and the Caribbean

An exhibition and event series will be hosted by Newcastle University this month as part of Being Human 2017, the UK’s only national festival of the humanities.

‘Paths Across Waters: lost stories of Tyneside and the Caribbean’ is an interactive exhibition that charts the lost connections between Tyneside and the Caribbean through artworks, images, sounds and events.

The exhibition will be staged at the Old Low Light Heritage Centre, the Fish Quay, North Shields from Thursday 9 November to Saturday 25 November, 10am to 5pm.

It aims to raise awareness of Tyneside’s international heritage and ask questions about the memories, objects and understanding of this history in the North East; free of charge between 17-25 November, as part of ‘Being Human’, a £2 entry fee will be in operation at other times.

Included in the exhibition are: an oral history booth and live soundscape designed by Professor John Bowers of Newcastle University; a film piece by artists James Davoll and Paul Gibson that will change according to the speed of the wind; images from the Imperial War Museum and the National Archives as well as oral histories from Beamish Museum.

The event series includes a workshop on Caribbean cuisines, a talk on the research and work behind the exhibition “Caribbean-Geordie journeys” by co-curator Vanessa Mongey and a performance of Garifuna music “Caribbean sound journeys” by Lindel Solis Zenon, a musician from Nicaragua.

Dr Mongey is hoping that people will visit the exhibit, participate in the events, or contact her to share their stories for a more extensive research project on the multicultural history of the North East.