Bunch Of Fives: Leann Hay & Ruth Sheldon (Great North Museum: Hancock)

Great North Museum: Hancock’s Great North Night returns on Saturday 30th August.  The event is developed for adult audiences so they can enjoy the museum after hours, and this edition focuses on hidden architecture of cities past & present and explores form and function through culture, design and artefacts. 

The evening comes complete with plenty of sound-based inspiration with classic and contemporary music from DJ Awkward Black Girl who will open the event, there will be a performance from The Mind & The Muse festival using Ancient music instruments & techniques and you can listen to Adam Soper’s contemporary blend of environmental sounds combined with digital instruments, electric & acoustic guitar, hydrophone recordings combined with VLF radio recordings and EMF microphones.

There’s plenty of interactivity too and visitors can take part in some Pooki press printing activities with the team from the Farrell Centre; join Academic and designer Dr Steph Holton as she introduces you to her exhibition PSYCHE: Where does the soul go? and shows you how to make your very own underworld puppets to take home; you can Investigate the Urban nature project with Jo McSwaine from the Great North Museum: Hancock learning team; make a Roman artefact inspired badge with Morgan Fail from the Great North Museum: Hancock learning team; and enjoy some cocktails, bar, pizza and Beer from Stu Brew, Newcastle Universities’ student-run brewery.

And because it’s a museum, there’s loads to discover, with Hazel Barron Cooper presenting some of her PhD research on the hidden menageries of Northeast churches; Dr Caroline Smith and Andrew Agate, Northeast Finds Liaison Officers will be discussing the identification process of current Archaeological finds; and Local Architect firm, Xsite Architects will introduce you to some of their current projects and discuss how they think about impact, form and function when designing spaces. You can also check out the Northumbrian night sky in the Planetarium chill-out space.

Here, Leann Hay and Ruth Sheldon from the Great North Museum: Hancock give us their bunch of fives…

Leann Hay – Top Five Great North Nights Highlights
Over the last several years, the Great North Museum: Hancock has been developing the Great North Nights brand and has explored topics from nature and environment to folklore and magic. Here are some of their highlights from the past three years.     

1. Great North Nights: Bits & Bobs: The Anatomy of Sex (Wednesday 12 October 2022) 
On this night, visitors were able to uncover the fascinating world of human anatomy in a fun and interactive way. They could learn about anatomical terminology versus the slang used to describe our bits and bobs and investigate the secrets of the pelvic bones, including how they have evolved and vary between people. 

2. Great North Nights: Insight & Ink (Friday 28 April 2023)
World-renowned tattoo artist Fade-Meraki presented some of her most adventurous tattoo research expeditions, her practice and her new project – Brighton Tattoo Museum. Visitors had the chance to design their own tattoo flash sheet inspired by objects in the museum’s collection and with inspiration taken from the fabulous illustrations from the library archive.  

3. Great North Nights: Wonder and the Wild (Friday 30 June 2023)
Local musician and researcher David de la Haye serenaded attendees with sounds inspired by the underwater world of local aquatic habitats. Musician and researcher Imogen Gunner presented her new performance work based on Irish folklore, and choreographer and dancer Liz Pavey offered an improvised dance piece that responded to a local, natural material: Frosterly Marble.

4. Great North Nights: Festive Folklore and Magical Musings (Friday 8 December 2023)
This event delved deep into stories, folklore, legends and magic. There were opportunities to dive into ghostly tales of Victorian Newcastle with Icy Sedgwick, craft a magical Roman curse tablet, and explore the magic of Ancient Greece. The night was also set to a musical voyage guided by the rhythms and eclectic sounds of DJ Awkward Black Girl, known for her bold approach to mixing genres and passion for creating a fun music experience for all.

5. Great North Nights: Burns Night Ceilidh (Thursday 25 January 2024)
This event celebrated Burns Night 2024 with a Ceilidh extravaganza, complete with poetry and dancing, to celebrate the birth of the legendary poet Robert Burns.

Ruth Sheldon – Top 5 Children’s Book Illustrators
I grew up in a time where children’s book illustrations had a very much handmade quality to them, the digital world didn’t really exist for me (to this day I still prefer a pencil and paper to a computer or mobile phone!) I loved seeing stories come to life through the beautiful artwork on the pages. These 5 illustrators mean a lot to me.

1. Beatrix Potter: My hero! I love her, I love her style, her creativity and her love of nature and animals. I love how she fought to protect natural spaces in the Lake District and how her imagination and connection to animals and nature come through in her books. She was such a strong-minded woman and didn’t conform to social expectations, she was her own person, had a brilliant independence in her work and personal life and she brought so much happiness to so many people through her work. 

2. Quentin Blake: His illustrations fit the stories of Roald Dahl (and others) so perfectly, they are energetic, fun, insightful and bring out the personality of the characters and their surroundings in a magical way. His drawings appear spontaneous but I imagine many hours of careful planning and sketching go into getting that beautiful quickly drawn style. His illustrations can make you laugh and cry and they really draw you into a world of imagination.

3. Janet Ahlberg: Famous for her creative partnership with her husband, Allan Ahlberg, she illustrated so many of my favourite childhood stories. Her illustrations take you right into the heart of the story and make you feel as if you are there, each image is a carefully created work of art with so many hidden details. Her illustrations are comforting and nostalgic but stand the test of time and I love them just as much now as I did 30 years ago.

4. Shirley Hughes: Shirley Hughes’s illustrations brought stories to life, she captures so many emotions in her work and there is a real cosiness for me in looking at her illustrations. She makes you feel like no matter what everything will be ok. When I was little I wanted to live in the house in Lucy & Tom’s Christmas and actually I think I still do! That moment where Tom gets completely overwhelmed by Christmas and goes for a walk in the snow with his Grandad is just beautiful and so accurate to how life can feel.

5. E.E. Shepard: For my 5th choice I was torn between E.E. Shepard and Barbara Firth, illustrator of Can’t You Sleep Little Bear? But I have chosen E.E. Shepard because the Winnie the Pooh stories have been with me my whole life, I loved them as a child, I had a Pooh teddy bear when I was younger (he still lives in the blanket box) but I still love reading them today. The idea of going on woodland adventures every day with your best friends is wonderfully exciting, who wouldn’t want to do that! I love the way he captures the personalities of the characters too especially Eeyore who is such a skilfully written and illustrated character.