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Improving the city’s profile and reputation

Sunderland Culture Annual Review 2025-26

We present ambitious exhibitions, events and cultural experiences that celebrate Sunderland’s creativity, heritage and ambition, strengthening the city’s reputation as a vibrant place to live, visit, work and invest.

Exhibitions

From major retrospectives to contemporary commissions and community-led projects, the year’s exhibitions demonstrated Sunderland Culture’s commitment to making great art accessible to residents and visitors.

National Glass Centre (NGC) presented its final year of exhibitions around a theme of celebration, reflecting on the building’s unique contribution to contemporary glass and the artists who have shaped its legacy.

Three Artists brought together work by Anthony AmoakoAttah, a Ghanaian artist who recently completed his PhD at the University of Sunderland, Joanna Manousis, a British artist who at the time of the exhibition was also at the University of Sunderland working her PhD, and Zac Weinberg, an American artist who came to NGC as a Fulbright Scholar. Their work highlighted the global reach of NGC’s artistic community, celebrating Sunderland as a place where artists develop innovative practices.

NGC’s final exhibition, The Graduates, opened in September, showcasing work made here by artists who specialise in working with glass, and artists who work in other media, but have come to us to develop their practice. Featuring 52 selected artists who graduated from the University of Sunderland with a BA (Hons), MA or PhD in glass or ceramics, the exhibition is a tribute to the achievements of the artists who have worked in the building.

A line of seven clear glass, capsule-shaped vessels set in a brass frame against a black background. The glass capsules are arranged symmetrically by size, stepping up to the tallest capsule in the centre. Each glass vessel is partially filled with clear liquid containing suspended white, cloud-like formations. A golden brass strip connects the capsules horizontally, supported by vertical brass stands resting on a flat, brass base.
A beaded sculpture resembling a football scarf, woven from tiny glass seed beads, curves across a smooth white surface. The left section features red and white vertical stripes with white block lettering spelling

Save The Last Breath by Zoe Garner, 2025 (left) and Sunderlover by Shigenobu Fujishiro, 2020 (right). Part of The Graduates exhibition at National Glass Centre. Photography by David Williams.

“Amazing. So thought provoking, and the work that went into it… wow”

Visitor, The Graduates

Meanwhile at the NGCA, the programme continued to attract national attention. Hetain Patel’s collaboration with Artangel – Come As You Really Are was a major highlight, bringing together hundreds of handmade objects and personal collections submitted by people across the region with existing artworks and a new film commission by Patel. Alongside The Caravan Gallery’s Sunderland Pride of Place Project and Newcastle Hospital Charity’s NHS Darkroom Project, the exhibition celebrated everyday creativity and explored the role of art in improving people’s lives. The show reached audiences far beyond Sunderland, featuring in The Guardian, The Times, BBC One Show and BBC Front Row.

NGCA also presented The Ribs Begin to Rise, the first institutional solo exhibition by Sunderland-born contemporary artist Ro Robertson, supported by the Henry Moore Foundation. Drawing on the River Wear, Sunderland’s industrial heritage and the experiences of the 700 female shipbuilders who worked in the city, the exhibition reflected on family history, identity and the materials that shaped the region.

A speaker stands in profile in the left foreground, gesturing with open hands while addressing a small audience in a gallery space. The speaker wears clear glasses, a short beard, and a dark button-down shirt. Behind them, several audience members listen attentively, including a person with short white hair and glasses directly behind the speaker. Colorful artworks and a long textured wall hanging line the wall in the softly blurred background.
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An art gallery installation featuring a low, rectangular display case in the foreground filled with neatly arranged pocket watches and small badges against a red base. On the right, a tall, white textured banner hangs beside a concrete pillar. The back wall is painted deep red and covered in various colourful artworks, including large patchworked textiles, a rainbow flag, paintings, framed pictures, and smaller mixed-media objects stretching across the space.
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An art gallery space showcasing dynamic metal sculptures and framed wall art. In the foreground, three abstract sculptures made from bent, rusted, and polished metal sheets rest on individual dark plinths. In the middle ground to the left, additional large metal sculptures sit directly on the dark floor, stretching towards the back. The background features dark grey gallery walls illuminated by spotlights, displaying framed, colourful abstract paintings and drawings.
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A group of visitors gathers around a metal sculpture inside an art gallery. In the foreground, a young child wearing a blue palm-tree print shirt points towards the artwork, guided by an adult leaning down beside them in a dark blue top and patterned trousers. Nearby, a young person in an olive-green dress watches closely. In the background, other visitors stand observing, with colorful abstract paintings mounted on the light grey wall behind them.
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The year also saw the closing of Sheila Fell: Cumberland on Canvas at Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens (SMWG). The first major retrospective of Fell’s work attracted local, regional and national audiences to Sunderland.

Also at SMWG, Going Back Brockens: Monuments and Rhetoric After the Miners’ Strike brought together artist Narbi Price and writer Mark Hudson to explore memory, resilience and aspiration in mining communities 40 years after the strike. Originally commissioned in County Durham, the project expanded to include three new paintings representing Sunderland and featured original artworks, a sound installation and films by Carl Joyce, connecting regional histories with contemporary artistic practice.

In March 2026, Rebel Women of Sunderland opened to coincide with International Women’s Day. Initiated in 2019 artist Kathryn Robertson, producer Laura Brewis and writer Jessica Andrews, the project celebrates influential Sunderland women – from activists and industrial pioneers to cultural figures. Expanded through a podcast partnership with the University of Sunderland, the exhibition highlights the women who have shaped the city.

Together, these exhibitions represent a year of ambitious cultural activity that has celebrated Sunderland’s creativity while attracting audiences from the region and beyond.

An art gallery room filled with framed landscape paintings mounted on pale blue partition walls and cream-coloured back walls. In the right foreground, a visitor wearing a dark blue hooded jacket, dark trousers, and a shoulder bag stands looking closely at a large, dark landscape painting of hills under a stormy sky. To the right of that, two smaller paintings hang one above the other. A curved wooden bench sits on the polished wooden floor in the lower-left foreground, with additional partition walls display more framed, earth-toned landscape artworks receding into the background.
A visitor wearing dark headphones sits facing a screen mounted on a central white partition wall inside a spacious gallery. The video screen shows a person spraying paint onto a wooden bench. To the right of the screen, four additional pairs of headphones hang on wall hooks, while text panels sit on the left. Long wooden benches rest on polished floors on either side of the room. Small, framed landscape photographs line the distant white side walls under track lighting overhead.

Sheila Fell’s Cumberland on Canvas at Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens (left) Narbi Price and Mark Hudson’s Going Back Brockens (right) at Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens. Photography by Colin Davison.

Public Record

Public Record was a landmark production created in partnership with Sunderland Empire and National Theatre as part of the Theatre Nation Partnerships programme. Over a joyous four days at The Fire Station in April 2025, the production brought together a cast of over 100 people, with members of the community and local performance groups sharing the stage with professional musicians from Field Music and The Futureheads.

Public Record celebrated Sunderland’s identity, creativity and community spirit in the months following the riots of 2024 – serving as a portrait of the city’s music, moods and moves the production was also captured as a vinyl record and film. Designed as a blueprint for other places to tell their story, the production has since been announced for a new staging in New York City!

A large cast performs an energetic group dance on a stage under colourful theatre lighting. In the front centre, a performer in a long-sleeved green top and jeans crouches low with arms extended outwards. Surrounding performers in casual, brightly coloured clothes reach their hands towards the centre in dramatic poses. In the background, a large sign titled

Public Record at The Fire Station. Photography by Luke Waddington.

“I can quite honestly say that this has been one of the most memorable and important things I have ever done.”

Community Cast Member

“The most life affirming, joyous, uplifting show I’ve ever seen. I am so proud to be from Sunderland; and this show encapsulated my love for this place.”

Audience Member

Award-winning programme

At November’s North East Culture Awards The Ballad of the Crocodile & the Underpass took home the Heritage Award, a timely accolade for the podcast produced in partnership with Washington Heritage Partnership to celebrate 60 years of Washington New Town. We also celebrated nominations for Speak Up (Best Arts & Education Partnership) and Public Record (Performance of the Year), a testament to the working partnership between Sunderland Culture, Sunderland Empire and National Theatre. The Autonomy Project also received a nomination for the Special Award for Young Achievement.

In December, Autonomy was recognised once again, with a nomination for Project of the Year at the Good for Me, Good for FE Awards.

We’re incredibly proud of our Speak Up group at Hetton Academy. Their dedication to amplify the voices of their generation saw them receive the Youth Voice Award at the 2025 Together for Children’s Young Achievers Awards.

Sunderland Culture Annual Review 2025-26