Form and Display unfolds in two interconnected stages: first, the collective construction of a display structure; and second, the presentation of artworks created by NewBridge members and neighbours. By design, the exhibition creates multiple ways to take part: help make the display structure, exhibit artwork, or co-curate the exhibition.
Form and Display is a process-led exhibition that explores display as a collective social practice, foregrounding the labour, relationships and organisational work that underpins it. It emerges from an interest in revealing the labour that underpins the making of all exhibitions – the labour of support, installation, cleaning, maintenance and helping each other out. It also emerges from a commitment to celebrating the practices and artwork of the NewBridge community.
Working alongside NewBridge technicians and staff, members and neighbours are invited to participate in the design and construction of a display structure, creating opportunities for practical skill-sharing, collective problem-solving and the satisfaction of working side-by-side with others.
Members and neighbours are also invited to exhibit their artworks. All artists are invited on a first-come, first-served basis to come along to exhibit. Rather than selecting artists, the exhibition is shaped through participation. Working in small groups, exhibiting artists will develop the exhibition as artworks accumulate and respond to one another.
Form and Display sits in the context of NewBridge’s history as an artist-led organisation shaped through ongoing acts of collective labour. Founded in 2010, NewBridge began as a temporary grassroots project in a five-storey office block on New Bridge Street West, later moving through sites including Carliol House and Gateshead High Street before settling here at the Shieldfield Centre. It builds on successive members exhibitions, including The NewBridge ‘Open’ Open developed in 2025 with Programme Committee and artist Jenny Alderson.
NewBridge operates as a site of artistic production and a shared community resource, with activities such as a weekly Coffee Morning, Shieldfield Youth Programme (in partnership with Dwellbeing Shieldfield) and Memory Cafe (collaboration with Forum Café) extending its work into ongoing forms of neighbourliness. Form and Display continues this ethos through a structure that is both support and subject: something made together and activated through use.
Come to build together, meet new people and familiar faces, learn new skills, and showcase your work in the NewBridge gallery with support from an extended community of artists and neighbours.
*This includes studio members, hot-deskers, associates, The Collective Studio and Create/Disrupt members; and anyone who takes part in regular groups such as Shieldfield Youth Programme and Memory Cafe. Find out more how to become a member here.
