SWAP in 2015

SWAP in 2015

I have recently received funding from both the Community Foundation North East Fund for the Arts and UnLtD Star People Do It Award to continue the project into 2015 and to develop the project into a social enterprise. This will enable me to develop into a sustainable community led project that would benefit the community […]

Hannah Festival: Somehow it Began to Change When we Talked about Mrs Spence Watson

Hannah Festival: Somehow it Began to Change When we Talked about Mrs Spence Watson

Somehow it Began to Change When we Talked about Mrs Spence includes recordings of poetry created by participants of Stevie Ronnie’s workshop, Voices of Bensham Grove that took place on the 7 April 2014. To celebrate the launch of the Hannah Festival (3-8 June 2014) The Spence Watson Archive Project will preview some of the […]

Hannah Festival

Hannah Festival

The Spence Watson Archive Project is taking part in the Hannah Festival (3-8 June 2014). The Hannah Festival asks three questions: What great stuff is happening in places in England’s north now? Who is doing it? How can more of it happen? To celebrate the launch of the Hannah Festival (3-8 June 2014) The Spence […]

Women of Bensham Grove

Women of Bensham Grove

For the workshop Women of Bensham Grove, artist Jane Dudman worked with participants at Bensham Grove took place over two afternoons, 21 and 28th May. Jane concentrated on Elizabeth Spence Watson and the archival material found  in a number of archives in the region as well as online. Participants were given audio recorders and camera’s […]

Spence Watson cloud map

Spence Watson cloud map

This is the cloud map that has been produced through looking through the various archives and collections. Whilst the map is not any way a complete picture of the Spence Watson’s I would like to hear how artists and other interested people could use the map, or one aspect, as a starting point to develop […]

Echoes of Bensham Grove

Echoes of Bensham Grove

On the 17th April, Pete Ross, the Scribblers group and some of Progressive Players of the Little Theatre performed and read poetry, plays and spoken word inspired by Bensham Grove and a visit to the Tyne & Wear Archives to research the Spence Watson collection. Sound artist Nick Williams interviewed and created an audioscape of […]

Two FREE Workshops in Bensham

Two FREE Workshops in Bensham

As part of the Spence Watson project I am organising two free workshops and performances at Bensham Grove Community Centre run by artists Stevie Ronnie and Jane Dudman. These workshops are part of the Arts Council funded digital arts and heritage project, ‘The Spence-Watson Archive’, I am currently undertaking with Tyne & Wear Archive and […]

Lit & Phil

The Lit & Phil has quite a good collection of material related to Robert Spence Watson including books of poetry written by him, tracts of speeches that he presented at the Lit & Phil on a variety of subjects as well as a dissertation about Elizabeth Spence Watson which is very helpful for there is […]

Tyne & Wear Archive

Tyne & Wear Archive

I have been spending time in Tyne & Wear Archive researching the collections of the Spence Watson family, in particular the letters sent between Robert and Elizabeth and their daughter Mabel. The collection includes roughly a thousand letters between the family members, a book of reminisces dictated by Robert to one of his clerks, a […]