From Monday 16th November, the newly-opened Culture House Sunderland is set to signal in each hour with an audio-visual collage of the city’s history.
From 10am-6pm each day, a fifty-second collage will play throughout Culture house, ‘across thirty-six screens and over three storeys, bringing to the fore different aspects of Sunderland life’.
The makers of the installation have been provided with access to archive material, collected from a variety of groups, communities, companies, and local historians.
The Culture House website informs visitors that Timepiece combines film reel with items from Sunderland’s history, including tram tickets, beer mats, postcards, and more.
Displays include a 1950s bus ride through the city, the building and launching of ships at Doxford Shipyard, football at Roker Park and the Stadium of Light, brewing beer at Vaux Breweries, and many more iconic moments in Sunderland’s history.
Each collage is set to replay randomly across the screens in Culture House, providing an ‘intense burst of colour, images, music and sound to the City Lounge’.
Leanne Littlewood, Culture House Director, said:
“Timepiece captures exactly what Culture House was created to do. It takes the stories, creativity and collective memory of Sunderland and brings them together in a way that is accessible, surprising and uniquely rooted in our city.
"Every hour, visitors will experience a different moment from Sunderland’s past and present, creating new connections between generations, communities and shared experiences.
"We are incredibly proud that one of the first major artworks in Culture House draws so deeply on the people, places and history that make Sunderland what it is, while using innovative technology to look confidently towards the future.
"We’re grateful to The Space and Arts Council England, whose support, through the Digital Spaces programme, helped make Timepiece possible.”
Those involved in providing archive material to the display include the University of Sunderland, The Bunker, Ashbrooke Sports Club, Friends of Roker Pier and Lighthouse, Ryhope Engine Museum, Sunderland Libraries, North East Film Archive, Lynder Mathieson, Keith Gregson, and Keith Cockerill. Students at Hudson Road Primary School also contributed some stunning artistic additions to the installation.
A total of seventy-two individual film collages have been created for Timepiece by musician and sound artist Ross Millard, video artist and sound designer Jeremy Bradfield, and creative technologist Ben Lawrence.
Culture House Sunderland in Keel Square is open 10am-6pm daily and is free to enter.
