Curly's Corner Shop, the blog!

Public “art” officially opened on South Tyneside

I took a trip to the Riverside Park in Hebburn last night to watch this new piece of work by Charles Quick come to life, there was a good sized crowd to witness it, including the Mayor and Mayoress of South Tyneside and the proceedings were commented on by Ray Spencer (as usual). The council had cleverly strung up some festoon lamps in the trees to help people find their way to it on a bank overlooking the River Tyne just past the small marina in Hebburn.

I cannot pretend to fully understand these conceptual works of art (if it’s visually appealing and thought provoking well that’s generally enough for me), except to say that ultimately we pay for them and from time to time they add sufficient interest to attract visitors, and Hebburn doesn’t get too many of them, so I guess we can say that’s a potential benefit. The concept, as far as I could make out, is that these twelve 8 metre poles with solar powered LED lighting operate via RF technology to flash on and off with predetermined patterns and also randomly as affected by the movement of people through and around them. The £150,000 project was funded by The Arts Council is intended to replicate the flashes of our industrial past, the Hawthorn Leslie shipyard was nearby and I guess local residents will remember the  flashes of light created by welding torches during the night.

It was ‘interesting’ and err kind of pretty, huh?

Anyway I thought I’d share this picture with you and let you know there will be another appearing in South Shields Daily Photo tomorrow, I wanted to capture these lights blinking at the moon, but the clouds were whizzing over at a fast pace making my job that little bit harder. If you are wanting to get down there to have a look (not during the day, silly) you can find Flash @ Hebburn – here

Here’s hoping the 19:45 flight BC238 from Milan doesn’t land on it!

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