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Wolfgang Weileder – Jetty-Project

A series of sculptures informed by the Dunston Staiths that explore the sustainability of industrial heritage within the urban realm

View of Dunstan Staiths with the Tyne river in foreground

Jetty-Project is a body of work which contributes to a deeper understanding of the complexity of agents, engagement, experience, synergies and potential for new methodologies which can evolve from the intervention of fine art practice within the discourse on the sustainability of industrial heritage within the urban realm.

Jetty-Project developed through an AHRC funded collaboration of a cross-disciplinary team of artists, architects, urban planners and social scientists, led by Professor Wolfgang Weileder. It was realised through engagement with local government, heritage, environmental and legal bodies, the manufacturing, construction and education sectors and the local community.

The project was informed by the disused industrial structure, Dunston Staiths, situated on the Gateshead bank of the River Tyne, UK. The resulting body of work comprises the production, between 2014 and 2015, of three related artworks, Cone, Gap and Bridge and the publication, ‘Catalyst – Art, Sustainability and Place in the work of Wolfgang Weileder’ (Kerber Verlag, Germany 2015).

Two images. Large wooden sculpture. Cone shaped sculpture outside

Cone was a temporary, publicly accessible site-specific architectural scale installation situated on the Staiths from June to September 2014, which served as a nexus for community activities, performance and public debate.

Gap is an architectural sculpture made from reclaimed timber presented at the Great North Museum, Newcastle, UK in 2015 and the Kunststiftung Erich Hauser, Rottweil, Germany in 2016.

Bridge is a fictional proposition for a site-specific installation for the destroyed section of Dunston Staiths, created in 2014.

The publication ‘Catalyst’ records, evaluates, develops and disseminates the insights which evolved from the production of the artworks, providing locus for further discourse on the value of the intervention of fine art practice in the agency of industrial heritage and sustainability.

Artists impression of bridge

Jetty-Project has enabled a Heritage Lottery Fund grant for £418,000 to begin the restoration of the Dunston Staiths and a public programme of events around this site.

 

Download project PDF: Wolfgang Weileder - Jetty Project (1.4MB)