Culture Review 2008: 2

by Barbara Hodgson, The Journal

IT'S been quite a year in the cultural life of the region with enough personal highlights for me to fill this space several times over.

Yesterday, I focused on some of my favourite theatre performances.

Other memorable dates in the diary have included a hilarious interview with madcap comedian David Spike, and a meeting with Chinese artist Wang Qingsong, and wife, in the summer when he first came up with the idea for the subject of his photographic tableaux.

The result in September was a hospital scene featuring 300 volunteer casualties which was photographed at Northern Stage and displayed at Baltic in Gateshead.

Then there was the first look around the revamped Tyneside Cinema; talking to Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi about his ambitious plans for Hotel Monument (before they were shelved – for now anyway) and the US painter Stephen Hannock’s story behind his Northern City Renaissance, commissioned by pal Sting and currently hanging at Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle.

But I’m going to focus on a surprise contender for a late-in-the year personal highlight: Enchanted Parks in Gateshead.

I say surprise because it was a last-minute decision to go along to Saltwell Park on the last day of the December 4-14 event.

When I’d earlier got around to applying for tickets, which were free, there were none left.

But, as I also found out by word of mouth, that didn’t necessarily mean you couldn’t go.

So, after a deluge of rain the night before, which apparently did nothing to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm, we joined several other ticket-less visitors to see the park come to life after dark.

A series of specially-commissioned art installations created a magical atmosphere.

It was a seductive mix of eerie fairytale, lights and sounds, as we followed a route around the illuminated park – an ideal backdrop for the strange woodcutter, with his axe, who warned us about the wolf which we spotted loitering behind nearby trees.

Tree trunks were wrapped up warm against the winter chill.

An old woman, I thought she was real, sat in a rocking chair, knitting; her yarn spun into the bushes above her.

We wrote out wishes and tied them to Yoko Ono’s wish tree, which will eventually join those from people around the world in her completed project, and there were chestnuts on sale near the beautifully-illuminated Saltwell Towers, where outdoor display cases captured scenes from its history.

Voices spoke of love as we wandered around the rose garden; and a camera projected our faces on to the icy-looking bandstand.

An Ice, Water and Fire display at the dene, where a welder banged metal into shapes, was so beautiful it stopped us in our tracks.

But we still made time to visit the very chatty park keeper in his shed, which was a little box of delights, and added a surreal note to a hugely entertaining evening.

Next year, if Enchanted Parks returns to weave its spell once again, I’ll be sure to book my tickets early.