Hartlepool team aim to turn working from home literally into a work of art - here's how to take part

The Hartlepool-based Northern School of Art is on the lookout for anyone to become part of a once-in-a-generation piece that captures the new ‘working from home workforce.’

In a creative bid to capture all the amazing personalities, homes and people that are now working at home behind closed doors, the School has put out a call for people to send a screen shot.

It can either be of their ‘working from home’ video call screen ‘face’ or the ‘space’ they now call their workplace.

The images will be used to create an artwork of all the faces and places of the unique situation experienced by the COVID-19 #WFH community.

For the latest Coronavirus updates and case numbers, visit the Hartlepool Mail website.

The Northern School of Art’s staff have been sharing their work faces and spaces.

Illustration degree programme leader and published author, artist and animator, Niel Bushnell, has submitted an image of him in his home office with his face intriguingly framed by a magnifying glass.

Pat Chapman, The Northern School of Art’s Vice Principal, said the idea sprang from the way that people are now connecting in new ways and keeping in touch with one another, working, caring, sharing and supporting one another but from behind closed doors.

“We are all working from home now and who hasn’t found it just a little bit interesting peering into our colleagues’ homes and seeing what’s behind them during the video calls that are now a regular feature of our lives?”

Pat, whose own workspace image features a backdrop of watercolour paintings, said: “From discarded fineliners, art, pictures, a lot of IKEA bookshelves, pets, kids, it is all there. Our ‘working from home’ personalities writ large across the screens of the nation.”

The School is collecting the images via Instagram.

Others to have shared their images include award-winning artist Narbi Price who responded with a beautiful photo of his book-lined armchair workspace.

Prefab Sprout singer and guitarist, and Director of Creative learning at Sage Gateshead, Wendy Smith shared her newly created home workspace – a battered old 1930s chest of drawers which she is planning to paint.

Simon Costin, art director, set designer and the director of Cornwall-based Museum of Witchcraft and Magic and the nomadic Museum of British Folklore has shared an image of the face behind the space in his unique location.

Pat added: “We are hoping to make this truly interactive and online so you can find yourself (and maybe the boss),

“We are all in it together; let’s get together and snapshot this strange and unique time we have shared, whilst looking forward to the future where we can enjoy being together again.”

To submit an image upload it to Instagram using the hashtag #WFH and tag @thenorthernart in the caption and image.

The image can be your workspace or even just a screen grab of your new working at home screen ‘face’.

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