The kid on the trike was transfixed. It was just a quick trip to the shop with mum, along familiar streets, pass a shuttered shopping arcade. But something was different: the old walls of the Hardwick Road Community Centre were awash with colours, the local youth group was getting the paints out, and this toddler had seen nothing like it in his life.
The work was part of the Healthy Streets initiative in Stockton-on-Tees. This northeast town faces serious challenges: the council cites research showing that it is the 73rd most deprived local authority area in England, and nine of its 27 wards are among the 10% most deprived. Inequality is a lethal factor: life expectancy in wealthier wards is up to 21 years greater than in the poorest postcodes. The proportion of children in care is more than twice the national average.
And yet it’s a town with a vibrant cultural life and a resilient creative sector. Moreover, this is not just a plaything for the affluent suburbs. Much of Stockton’s art, music and theatre scenes actively tackles these problems, providing genuine alternatives and opportunities.
‘Is this your job?’
Outside Hardwick Road, the local youth group is desperate to have a go at spraying the walls. Artist Harriet Mee, who is leading the project alongside her colleague Nocciola the Drawer (Hazel Oakes), is surrounded by a clamour of children.
Conversation quickly moves beyond the ‘how’. “Is this your job? Can you get paid for this? How do you get a job like this?” A couple of girls, aged about 12, are starting to see new prospects opening up for them. It’s a small step towards changing attitudes and showing that a dead-end job needn’t be the limit of anyone’s aspirations.
For Harriet, whose Big Art festival in the summer of 2024 delivered a wide range of public art to Stockton, using public art to change narratives is crucial.
“There are a lot of what feel like collectively accepted truths that people cling onto,” she said. “They want to hold onto this martyrdom: Stockton’s awful, nobody cares, nobody invests in us.
“Even when you show evidence that this isn’t the case, when you point out how Stockton is changing, there’s still negativity. We’ve demolished the old Castlegate shopping centre and we’re making that into a beautiful green space that opens onto the river. We can have outdoor events, music, theatre, markets, gorgeous stuff like that. But people are worried it will just be overrun by drug users and drunks.”
Changing attitudes takes time.
“There are people who will invest in our town, who passionately believe it can be a hub of culture and creativity. They understand the benefits of that because as soon as you raise creativity, anti-social behaviour and other problems go down. It promotes aspiration and pride. But we need to get people on board.”
‘Creativity can help...suddenly things seem a bit less terrifying’
Harriet’s support for change is painted on the walls of her town. Her mural at the Big Art festival dominates the car park opposite ARC, Stockton’s biggest theatre and performance space. A larger-than-life female figure gazes from the gable end with a message for all who pass by.
“That mural is how I feel about Stockton. I feel like we need somebody looking over us, making sure that change happens in the right direction. So I painted this giant, goddess-like person, almost looking people in the eye and telling them ‘you need to change things’ and reminding us how we need to change together.”
ARC Chief Executive Alexander Ferris sees that mural every time he comes to the arts centre. He grew up in Newport, South Wales, another area that has suffered its share of industrial decline. And he, too, found cultural life offered an important alternative. However, while ARC offers a diverse programme to the community, there remains the challenge of persuading people to come through the doors – and the more marginalised the community, the tougher that task becomes.
That’s why he’s proud of the fact that when he started in his current role in Jan. 2024, people kept describing ARC as a space that was “welcoming” and “safe”. Alexander is also excited that about 25% of the audience is drawn from postcodes that traditionally have low engagement with the arts.
Mechanisms to support this include “pay what you decide” for theatre shows. “We had a show for young people, delivered by a professional company but with some young people directly involved,” he recalled. “There were teenagers coming to see it four times in a week because they knew that they could come through the doors with no questions asked. And, to be fair, they paid what they could. But the joy was that they kept coming back. They wanted to keep experiencing it, to be in the same room.”
Outreach also matters. Going into different neighbourhoods and trying to engage with residents. Steering people towards shows and workshops, but also finding out what’s happening in their part of town. Partnership projects include working with youngsters, recovering addicts, refugees, people with mental health problems and more, helping a wider range of people into the building. A favourite anecdote tells of working with Teesside Mind to help someone who had been unable to leave her house get to a session at ARC. “From there, they really flew! They came back to us for a number of weeks, and then started going on to other things. Creativity can help with that. If part of your brain is switched on, suddenly things seem a bit less terrifying, a bit more possible.”
‘When life’s awful, you have to know how to find the joy in things’
Lizzie Lovejoy, a poet, performer and picture-maker from nearby Darlington, recognises this. Their first “proper” paid job in the arts was a year-long post as an artist of change at ARC.
“ARC uniquely catered to communities of working-class people and refugees in lots of different way,” Lizzie said. Stockton is very much a working-class town, very much an impoverished town, it has lots of struggles.
“And the cultural life is connected to the fact that life is hard. If there’s one thing working class towns know how to do, it’s to have a celebration. When life’s awful, you have to know how to find the joy in things, to really reach for it and get involved. The reason things are happening right now is because it’s a struggle. People in Stockton are very much ‘rainbow after the rain’. There are challenges, but there’s a community spirit that wants to help and be part of something bigger.”
And the celebrations are frequent. The weekend after our interview, Alexander was looking forward to ARC’s role in Gathering Sounds, one of many multi-venue festivals that brighten Stockton’s cultural landscape. With emerging bands playing at half-a-dozen venues, it’s one of several events that turns the town into a cultural hotspot. This summer, SIRF resonated more than usual: the weekend that it transformed Stockton High Street into a festival of music, dance, circus and theatre was also the weekend that rioters took to the streets in nearby Middlesbrough and Sunderland. The contrast between streets of anger and streets of celebration was striking.
“This year was my first experience of SIRF and it was really wonderful to see everyone engaging, chatting about the merits of circus as an artform or whatever,” Alexander said. “It was an advanced level of conversation; people had some real expertise about what they were seeing.
“When you have these moments – and Stockton Calling is another good example – it brings people together as a community and celebrate things, that challenges anger and hatred. One of the reasons we have problems in society is because too often we don’t share a space with other people and experience things together.”
‘The music scene is very healthy...but theinfrastructure is lacking’
Many of those events – and Stockton Borough Council likes to talk of Stockton as an “event town” – revolve around music. There’s history here: The Beatles played The Globe in 1963, on the day JFK was shot, and that venerable venue has its own walk of fame highlighting great names who appeared in the past.
In the present day, it’s one of a clutch of venues within a stone’s throw of one another around the High Street. Together, they do the big music festivals: Stockton Calling, Gathering Sounds and more, as well as trying to set up a vibrant scene for emerging Teesside talent.
It’s not always easy. Lee Allcock at NE Volume, a small bar and venue dedicated to promoting local talent, sees the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on what is often a ‘luxury’ item.
“Even if we draw in a decent crowd, gig-goers are spending less on alcohol,” he said. “But that's where all of our income comes from.”
Amid the challenges, he’s determined to keep his four-year-old venue afloat, believing that the creative community is both socially and economically valuable for the town. And he also has great faith in the local music scene, which remains resilient despite challenges.
“The music scene is very healthy at the moment as there are a lot of younger bands coming through which is brilliant to see,” Lee said. “But it's a shame that we seem to be practically the only venue on Teesside really giving new bands a chance. And in terms of infrastructure, there seems to be a lot lacking in that department, including the likes of professional rehearsal rooms, for instance.”
‘The more young people stick around, the more vibrant the scene’
Around the corner, in Green Dragon Yard, Paul Burns works as CEO of Tees Music Alliance. For many, this is the Georgian Theatre, a venue dating back to the 18th century and now repurposed as a live music hotspot. But Tees Music Alliance offers far more: rehearsal space, a small recording studio, and practical pathways into the music industry that contradict the nay-sayers by bringing tangible economic returns as well as the thrill of live performance.
Again, outreach is crucial. “We take a little roadshow into schools and we pass out information about what kind of careers there are in music. The more young people stick around locally, the more vibrant and supportive the scene will be if we can create some of those micro-industries that you see in the larger cities.
“Behind every professional singer on a microphone, there might be 200 other people in different capacities. That’s where you see tangible outcomes from investing in the arts, but historically people have had to leave the region to find a route into it.”
Tees Music Alliance isn’t just about music. The project grew out of the community and, 30 years on, works hard to keep engaged. That might be working with an online radio station, introducing primary-school children to live music or even inviting a community organisation into the venue’s kitchen to help them introduce young people to the realities of the workplace.
Plus, on top of the practical benefits, music and culture delivers so much more of what a town like Stockton badly needs.
“There are so many intangibles about well-being, community pride and so on. It’s been proved that an understanding of music and rhythm can help you with things like maths and creative writing. When people get involved in the arts, they can have a more fulfilled academic life in other disciplines.
“And what should be top of the list, it makes life more fun!”
Images: Andy Potts
