Artist Toby Paterson with Newton Aycliffe-born writer and actor Mark Gatiss at the preview of the 'An experiment in total environment' exhibition, 30 Nov 2012
The project
What happens when a New Town is no longer new?
'An Experiment in Total Environment' was a major two-year project devised by the Apollo Pavilion Community Association (APCA) and funded by Arts Council England and Heritage lottery Fund. The project examined the fascinating yet flawed legacy of a uniquely daring piece of post-war urban design. In the 1960s a large area of Peterlee New Town was designed by the renowned abstract painter Victor Pasmore, culminating with the building of his recently renovated Apollo Pavilion at Sunny Blunts.
The project involved a significant research element that we undertook for the APCA, which fed into an education programme for local students that was co-ordinated by Northern Architecture.
An exhibition at the DLi Durham Museum & Art Gallery from 1 Dec 2012 - 3 Mar 2013 marked the midpoint of the project and brought together works by Pasmore, new work by Toby Paterson and John Topping, as well as outputs from the first year of the education programme.
Finally a book documenting the project, including highlights of the archive material uncovered, and the artistic responses to this material by Paterson, ourselves and local students, was published this year.
The research
The education programme
Commissioned by the Apollo Pavilion Community Association (APCA) and Durham County Council Arts Team (DCC), Northern Architecture led a two-year education programme as part of the ‘An Experiment in Total Environment’ project. The project was initially inspired by concerns identified by the APCA as to how the Apollo Pavilion, Sunny Blunts Estate, and designer Victor Pasmore’s legacy might be used to engage young people and support learning in local schools.
We designed and delivered six workshops to students from East Durham College (photography, Photoshop and poster making), The Academy at Shotton Hall (using Google Earth to explore the differences between 1960s and 21st Century Peterlee), and St Bede’s RC Comprehensive School (making pop-up art galleries, referencing Pasmore and Hamilton's work at Newcastle University, and the 3D installation work of Toby Paterson)
Read more about the education programme here - Northern Architecture - Peterlee New Town
Mark with Northern Architecture's Sara Cooper at the preview of An Experiment in Total Environment at the DLi
An exhibition - An experiment in total environment,
DLi Durham Museum & Art Gallery
(1 Dec 2012 - 3 Mar 2013)
What happens when a New Town is no longer new? 'An Experiment in Total Environment' examined the fascinating yet flawed legacy of a uniquely daring piece of post-war urban design. In the 1960s a large area of Peterlee New Town was designed by the renowned abstract painter Victor Pasmore, culminating with the building of his recently renovated Apollo Pavilion at Sunny Blunts.
This exhibition looked at Peterlee beyond the pavilion by collecting a carefully selected group of Pasmore's works from the period when he was actively designing the town and arranging them alongside an expansive installation of new work by Glasgow-based artist Toby Paterson and ourselves (Realtimelapse, 2012).
The exhibition sought to reinvest the contemporary town with some of the under-appreciated visual qualities obscured by the passage of time, whilst taking account of the sometimes problematic idealism that attended its creation.
The publication
An experiment in total environment, Pasmore and Paterson in Peterlee was published in February 2014.
This book offers both a new insight to the original development of Peterlee New Town and how this was uniquely shaped by visual artist Victor Pasmore and provides a new perspective of the town seen through the eyes of a contemporary generation.
The subject of this book is Peterlee, where Pasmore worked as Consulting Director of Urban design from 1955-77. The title of the book, and the wider project it marks the culmination of, is a phrase Pasmore used to describe both his approach to urban design at Peterlee and his vision for the new town.
The publication includes some of a new series of artworks by John, showing the elevations of all of Pasmore's original house types from Peterlee.
We celebrated the culmination of this exciting two-year project on Thursday 13 March 2014 by exploring Pasmore's significant impact on contemporary artists, notably Toby Paterson and Turner Prize nominated artists Jane & Louise Wilson. All three joined us for an artists' panel to launch the publication at a special event at East Durham College, Peterlee. The Wilson Sisters, like Toby, have had a long relationship with the Apollo Pavilion, which featured prominently in their 2003 work, originally shown at Baltic, 'A free and anonymous monument'.
South West 1/2, semi-detached (paired houses)
South West 5, Sunny Blunts
South West 3/4, semi-detached (paired houses)
An Experiment in Total Environment: Pasmore and Paterson in Peterlee, (ed. Colin Robson and Sam Gathercole), APCA 2014, can be purchased on the Apollo Pavilion Community Association website here - Buy the book
