The residency is about to begin. Plans have been made. And the path ahead is unknown, with a map of our County, still undrawn…

David Blandy & Petra Szemàn who have exhibited and produced work internationally are now joining forces to work collaboratively on a symbiotic programme across County Durham.

We’ll be sharing updates as their work progresses, but for now here’s an introduction to where the compass is pointing.

Q: “What defines “digital” as a place and how does that relate to our physical place of County Durham, in the wider context of the world?”

► David Blandy (he/him)

“Working in collaboration with Petra, I want to bring together a digital community around a shared quest, to create an online encyclopedic map of an alternative future County Durham. I want to encourage disparate and often left behind communities to think about the places around them, to question the normal and to listen to diverse stories - to highlight the fact that we all inhabit different internal worlds even though we might live in the same physical space.”

► Petra Szemàn (they/them)

“A real-life place can take on a virtual quality in multiple ways. One may see the place in a film, or know of local legends and mythologies tied to it, or a place may simply evoke a dream, or a memory of a different time. I envision these versions of “place”, different layers of multiple parallel realities, twisting and merging together, becoming a sprawling archival output. This shared quest aims for establishing an alternative future County Durham.”