This Was The Future: Byker in Focus

Exploring how Byker has been documented and represented over the last 50 years.

Few areas of any city have undergone as a comprehensive transformation as Byker in the second half of the twentieth century. Demolition of the terraced streets that had defined the area since the late nineteenth century began in the mid 1960s, with the new estate, including the famous Byker Wall, designed by a team led by Ralph Erskine, rising over the following nearly two decades.

Over that time – and since – Byker has attracted numerous artists, photographers, filmmakers and architects who have explored and in different ways documented the area’s urban fabric and the distinctive culture of the place.

In this event, we explore how and why Byker has been such a recurring source of interest and inspiration. How has the area been represented by different creative practitioners, across different media and in different contexts? What agency have local people had in shaping these representations? How do the images of Byker from the ‘outside’ differ from the ways its perceived by residents past and present? Is it possible to depict or convey the ‘real’ Byker?

Speakers

Silvie Fisch – Associate Researcher at the Newcastle University Oral History Collective and Director of Northern Cultural Projects, currently developing a Community Archive in Byker.

More speakers to be announced.

Part of ‘This Was The Future’ – a series where expert speakers tackling the big questions and key issues around Tyneside’s 1960s and 1970s transformations.

Image credit: Byker Wall. Photo by Euan Lynn

Host or Publisher Farrell Centre