Galena

Galena tracks a landscape awaiting development. Through sound, film, painting and print, Julia Heslop, Taryn Edmonds and Martin Heslop explore the site of the Elswick Lead Works on the River Tyne, where a new housing development is planned. These artworks trace this vanished industry, considering the origins of the galena (lead ore) from the mines of the North Pennines, to the processing and production plants on the banks of the Tyne. But the exhibition also offers a fresh eye and ear to the present day ecologies: from the abandoned factory buildings, to the pigeon crees, and the hundreds of silver birch trees now making the place their home. It poses questions about how the past and present-day stories of this remarkable landscape are valued within the new housing development proposed for the site.