'Hartlepool is where my heart is': Follow people's personal journeys with Waterfront Festival art project
and live on Freeview channel 276
The Wayfinder project has been specially produced by artists from London-based organisation Output Arts and Hartlepool’s Northern School of Art.
Art students interviewed people of all ages and backgrounds to give a unique insight into their personal journeys and about what Hartlepool means to them.
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Hide AdThe Wayfinder project works by visitors following a trail in Hartlepool Marina and listening to interviewees’ recordings which play automatically through a compass at certain spots.
Costume students even made nautical hats for participants to wear.
The stories recorded tie-in with the Waterfront Festival’s theme this year of Harbour of Refuge.
Artist Jonathan Hogg, of Output Arts, explained: “It’s a development of a similar piece we did a few years ago called Lost and Sound which used a metal detector on a beach.
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Hide Ad“We wanted to make something along those lines, but on a bigger scale where you are taken on a journey which is where the idea for the compass came from.”
The Hartlepool Mail was given a special preview of the project and were led around the route by Output Arts’ Andy D’Cruz.
Participants follow the needle on the compass which includes geo-tagging technology.
The compass’s blinking green light turns blue whenever we reach a place where new recording kicks in.
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Hide AdOutside the Jackson’s Wharf pub an elderly lady talks about how she met her husband and raised a family.
Inside the National Museum of the Royal Navy, the voice of a historian who taught children about HMS Trincomalee is heard.
Further round a musician talks about his travels around the world before coming back to Hartlepool.
The trail begins and ends at the waterfront (former Jackson’s Landing) site and ends with a short boat trip across the dock.
Wayfinder runs throughout today and tomorrow.