Walker, just In case you didn’t know, is a suburb in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, in the North East of England.
Once home to a thriving shipbuilding Industry, it is now considered one of the most disadvantaged areas in the UK. Not a place most tourists would think to visit but a place loved by many!
This project is about getting to know those people.
From September 2014 to February 2015, Jeremiah Alexander was Artist in Residence in Walker, working with students from Walker Technology College and Sir Charles Parsons School as part of a wider artist led programme across the city, developed and managed by Newcastle City Council Arts Team, with support from ISIS Arts. Together they underwent a journey of discovery into Walker, its places and its people. A journey which ended with a question… or rather 12 of them.
Through their exploration into identity and community, the group curated 12 questions, chosen for their ability to evoke meaningful responses from the answerer. These questions were then used to interview people in Walker, with each individual answer recorded and stored as an online hidden video. The questions themselves were immortalised as metal plaques, each one designed by one of the students on the project. Each question and corresponding answers linked together by an invisible bond, a bond traceable only by this, the accompanying WLKR App.
Each metal question plaque is interactive, they contain both a bluetooth beacon and a barcode. Either of these smart sensors can be scanned by the App in order to find and view an answer to the chosen question*. It is hoped that both the answers and the questions will encourage you, the viewer, to explore both your own identity and the collective identity of community.
Participate & Enjoy!
* If you can’t venture into Walker to find a question plaque, then you can also scan any barcode to discover a random question and answer.