A FLAMBOYANT exhibition in which past and present collide has turned the Great Hall of Newcastle Discovery Museum into a place of wonder.

It is billed as a Steam Punk exhibition, this being the name given to a genre setting modern fantasy in the Victorian age of steam.
A team of creative professionals and Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums worked with groups of young people as part of the Find Your Talent scheme. They were the ‘Authors of Invention’.

This exhibition is the result – a wonderful flight of fancy which is partly an elaborate joke and partly a demonstration of creative talent.

There are fabulous costumes which were made by students at South Tyneside College working with fashion designer Paul Shriek.

There’s also a tricycle resembling something from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang made by teenagers from North Tyneside Youth Offending Service with sculptor Richard Broderick.

Another group of South Tyneside students worked with Richard to produce a series of animal ‘survival packs’.

Larger-than-life Victorian characters are recalled by installations created with the help of artists Rena Holford (Dorothea Violette) and Jackie Boyd (Jacques Void).

Writer Tom Kelly worked with the children of Jarrow School on a creative writing project called The Clocks are Frozen.

Also involved were pupils of Hedworthfield Primary School and young people from Connexions and the House of Objects resource centre in North Tyneside.

Sadly, the exhibition ends today but it’s well worth a look.

http://www.journallive.co.uk/culture-newcastle/arts-news/2010/07/15/quirky-pieces-in-steam-punk-exhibition-61634-26854809/