If the summer holidays have left both your idea and piggy banks empty, Newcastle city centre has acquired a new collection of art that comes with the very attractive admission price of precisely zero.
You don’t need to book, either. In fact, you might already have walked past some of it without realising.
Utility boxes – those resolutely functional bits of street furniture most of us barely notice – have been turned into miniature artworks as part of the latest public art commissions from Creative Central NCL.
The idea was to use the cabinets as a form of creative wayfinding, with artists taking inspiration from cultural and heritage landmarks around them without simply turning the boxes into signs or advertisements.
Following an open call out, proposals from Newcastle-based artists Aysha Tengiz and GRAEME, and Middlesbrough-based Emma Bennett were chosen… and their work can now be spotted from Clayton Street and Newgate Street to Pink Lane, Westgate Road and the area around Central Station.
As you would assume, each has approached the unlikely canvas rather differently.
For Emma, whose practice centres on colour, architecture and our relationship with the buildings and public spaces we encounter every day, the boxes themselves provided the starting point.
“When I first thought about the cabinets/boxes in the environment they reminded me of little buildings so it felt natural to my practice to go with recreating that idea, as my work responds to architecture,” she says.
Her five cabinets – near Waterloo Square, St Mary’s Church, Pink Lane and The Common Room – draw on nearby buildings including the Tyne Theatre & Opera House, Lit & Phil, Dance City and legendary nightclub Powerhouse.
“I hope the cabinets will make people think about their environment and notice the many beautiful buildings within the city.”
Aysha Tengiz, an illustrator whose clients have included The New York Times, The Washington Post, Google and Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, has gone for something altogether busier.
Her colourful work is populated by characters and smaller stories, and she has applied the same approach to cabinets on Clayton Street and near St John the Baptist Church.
“I wanted the cabinets to bring a big pop of colour and joy to the street,” she says. “To bring elements of the surrounding areas into it and create a portrait of how I see the city. You can look out for iconic landmarks, trains, cars, buildings, and lots of silly little characters!”
Her Clayton Street box takes its cue from shopping and Grainger Market, while those near St John’s feature the Castle, Black Gate, River Tyne and Newcastle’s bridges.
Then there is GRAEME, an artist, writer and animator whose work uses overheard phrases, conversations and everyday encounters.
Rather than use his cabinets to point towards landmarks, he decided to see what would happen if the cabinets became the landmarks.
“I spent weeks sitting about these anonymous urban objects, talking to people, noting things down, then painted what happened directly onto them,” he says.
The process prompted plenty of conversations, including one with a passer-by who decided the work would at least “make people think” – although, when GRAEME asked what it made him think about, he replied simply: “Dunno.”
“So maybe I’d like these cabinets to encourage people to stop and think, but I don’t have any control in what they stop and think about.”
Creative Central NCL is a five-year project funded by the North East Mayoral Strategic Authority and Newcastle City Council, supporting artists and creative organisations in an area stretching from Grainger Market towards the Centre for Life and taking in The Common Room and Discovery Museum.
One of its most visible legacies can increasingly be found simply by walking the streets.
Forth Lane, the ancient thoroughfare alongside Newcastle Arts Centre, became an ‘urban gallery’ in 2024, with Rebecca Purnell, Jed Buttress, SHELDO – aka Laura Sheldon – Chris Fleming, Tullulah Lines and Glenn Malpass responding to the area and the 11-acre pleasure garden which once occupied land nearby.
More work followed from Josie Brookes and Newcastle College, Bex Masters, Bethan Harris and Mark One87 working with Tyneside Foyer residents, before the gallery spread onto Pink Lane.
There, Keeper of Kitsune, Van Goth, Imogen Clarke, Toby Heaps, Anthony Downie, Lincoln Lightfoot, Ryan Roadkill, Mark One87, AlecLDN, SHELDO, Millie Avis, Cackhanded Kurt and Bobzilla have added everything from wildlife to imaginary shops, bookended by neon pink overhead artwork by Raskl and MawsonKerr.
Mike Tilley, founding director of Newcastle Arts Centre, described the lanes at the time as having once been “tired and neglected”, while Creative Central project manager Vix Leaney said the ambition was for what had happened there to “continue evolving long after our project is complete”.
“That’s the ultimate goal really, a testament to the creative impact of art in the public realm,” she said.
More recently, the canvas got considerably bigger.
A towering mural has appeared on the side of the building next to the new LMA Newcastle creative university on St James’ Boulevard, which opens to its first students in September.
Created by Jimmy Turrell and Peter Manning, aka Prefab77, the work combines their distinctive styles in a giant collage.
Vix says the programme has grown from that first Forth Lane Urban Gallery to more than 30 commissions.
“The work reflects the incredible range of creative talent we have in the region, and it’s been fantastic to see the programme of work evolve from the first Urban Gallery commission in Forth Lane to over 30 commissions later and with more projects landing over the next six months, there’s plenty more to look forward to.”
Artist Helen Schell began work last week on another mural for Pink Lane, opposite the Magpies mural near Soufflé Baby, while bin stores next to Subway are also due for an artistic makeover later this month.
Work is also under way on commissions for new murals in the Forth Street and Orchard Street tunnels, adding more art to routes around this part of the city.
Meanwhile, applications have just closed for two further Creative Central NCL commissions on Forth Street, both responding to the theme Nature vs Industry and drawing on the area’s industrial heritage and relationship with the natural environment.
One will see eight artworks created across the boarded windows of the former Royal Mail building, while another will transform a wall behind The Telegraph pub, facing Newcastle’s historic City Walls. The £7,000 and £3,000 commissions form part of the Central Gateway Connectivity project, with the finished works due to appear between September and December.
In September, queer artist Pablo Thomas will add another mural to Newcastle Coach Station in a collaboration with Newcastle Pride and Curious Arts.
All of this means a wander around this part of Newcastle is becoming something of an open-air art trail – albeit one without prescribed directions, opening hours or an entrance fee.
You could set out deliberately to find the murals, painted cabinets and hidden corners. Or you could just come across a brightly coloured utility box on an everyday errand and wonder why there’s a tiny character, a familiar building or a fragment of somebody else’s conversation staring back at you.
Either way, with one last weekend of the summer holidays to fill, there’s an excellent way to spend a couple of hours ready and waiting.