Sunderland’s new Culture House opens this weekend with books, digital studios, contemporary art and an ambition far larger than any one building. Director Leanne Littlewood tells MagNorth why its real work will be to connect a city, nurture its talent and help Wearside cement its place in the North East’s creative future

For some neurodivergent young people, going back to school requires a largely invisible expenditure of energy. A West Yorkshire charity is reminding families to look beneath behaviour - and creating a place where parents and carers can find support of their own-

At Salford Museum & Art Gallery, visitors are being invited to walk across an artwork and change it permanently. Behind the playful proposition lies a more honest account of recovery - collective, unpredictable and shaped by every person encountered along the way

On the final Bank Holiday of summer, Leeds West Indian Carnival filled Chapeltown with music, masquerade, food and tens of thousands of people. MagNorth went looking for the smaller stories inside one of the North’s greatest public celebrations

For more than a decade, Kenny Dunn has quietly helped to care for New Brighton. Now the familiar figure in orange hi-vis has been made part of the town’s landscape - as the first subject of a new mural series celebrating its unsung heroes

The Government has asked UK Sport to assess the possibility of staging the Olympic and Paralympic Games across the North in the 2040s. The prize could be enormous but only if the investment survives long after the athletes, cameras and crowds have gone

York Minster knows its future cannot be secured by freezing the past. Returning to its new Centre of Excellence, MagNorth meets the craftspeople passing ancient knowledge between generations and across continents - while technology quietly gives their skilled hands the capacity to do more

Cultural evolution and revolution in the North East

Yorkshire endured just a tenth of its normal July rainfall. Rivers reached historic lows, soils baked and reservoirs retreated - yet much of the groundwater beneath northern England remained remarkably resilient. Is part of the answer to a hotter, drier future hiding in the rocks below us?

Evidence of large-scale prehistoric iron production unearthed in Thornton may shed some light on the origins of parts of the Melsonby Hoard - but many mysteries remain

This September, the North York Moors is inviting us to put down the phone, quieten the noise and rediscover the restorative power of walking, making, listening and paying attention

Flowers are set to fill two Kelham Island venues this month for a joyful new city festival - helping Bloom Sheffield continue providing free therapeutic gardening sessions for women who need support

That pebble fits perfectly in the palm. The shell would look lovely on a bathroom shelf. But on coastlines already being remade by tides, storms and millions of summer visitors, when does a harmless souvenir become something we should leave behind?

On a Yorkshire Wildlife Trust walk at Spurn, MagNorth explores erosion, wildlife, military history and the power of helping young people connect with conservation

A Yorkshire Dales charity has helped build a national recycling network for redundant tree shelters. But with millions of plastic guards still scattered across Britain’s woodlands, campaigners say their eventual removal must be planned - and paid for - before the first tree goes into the ground

At Yeavering, one of early medieval Britain’s most important royal centres has almost vanished back into the Northumberland landscape. This summer, archaeology, storytelling, food and communal celebration will bring it vividly into view again

They learnt their craft in one of Britain’s great colliery bands. Now the musicians behind Dizzy Brasscals are replacing competition pieces with Arctic Monkeys, Pulp and Oasis - and asking Manchester to supply the vocals

Preserved beneath the Fenlands for five millennia, England’s black oak carries the memory of a vanished landscape. At Blackburn Cathedral, Richard Durrant will bring an extraordinary guitar into conversation with the monumental Table for the Nation

In Whitby, Sheffield-born artist and musician Ruby Tingle is bringing a historic family collection back into contact with the living world. Through collage, scent, film, field recordings and “music from the swamp”, Wildings follows two remarkable sisters - and the creatures gathering at the edges of their story

Made in Kenya and based in Manchester, Macharia has shaped her debut EP as five intimate letters - to her ancestors, a former love, the people she carries with her and the person she is still becoming

Liverpool’s international celebration of bodies, movement and visual storytelling returns to Unity Theatre next week - bringing artists from across Europe and Japan to a festival that has spent more than 20 years making space for adventurous performance in the North

For one September weekend, artists across Leeds are inviting the public into the mills, basements, workshops and shared spaces where the city’s creative life is actually made

Philip Stokes wanted theatre to generate the visceral excitement of a rock gig. Twenty years later, his dark postwar thriller has travelled from a room in Leeds to Australia and New York - and is now coming home through Red Ladder Local

One hundred years after the birth of Eric Morecambe, his hometown is launching a comedy festival that brings leading stand-ups and television legends together with local performers, children’s workshops and the possibility of a new generation finding its voice