Preview: Document H.E.T. @ The Newbridge Project

Image: Niall Greaves, Document H.E.T., 2025

The NewBridge Project opens its 2026 programme with Document H.E.T. (Hollow Earth Transmission), a new exhibition from Newcastle‑based designer and artist Niall Greaves. Running from 7th March – 1 May, the gallery becomes a space for gathering, reading and digging into the radical print cultures that shaped alternative communities before the internet.

Greaves’ project brings together printed material from the 1970s–90s – everything from DIY pamphlets to journals – covering squatting, grassroots organising, intentional communities, alternative tech and self‑sufficiency. These publications were created on whatever equipment people could get their hands on, from mimeographs to second‑hand home printers, and reflect a time when print was a vital tool for connection, resistance and collective imagination.

A key focus is the era’s “info catalogues”: DIY directories that acted like early search engines for the counterculture, linking small publishers and local groups to wider national and international networks. Their themes – ecological care, housing struggle, community organising – feel sharply relevant today.

Document H.E.T. sits within NewBridge’s long‑running For Solidarity project, which supports grassroots groups building alternatives to extractive economic systems. Alongside the exhibition, NewBridge will host events, workshops and gatherings with local organisers, artists and collectives.

2026 also sees NewBridge continue its artist‑led programme, with new commissions from Niall Greaves, Lizzie Klotz & Bethany Wells, Petra Bauer & Marius Dybwad Brandrud, and photographers Phyllis Christopher & David Hall. Community projects like TopSoil, a queer gardening club, and Memory Café, a dementia‑friendly space run with The Forum Café, will continue throughout the year.