COUNTY
DIGITAL
Our Digital Programme is designed as a vibrant testing ground to help articulate, define and develop people- and place-based digital culture that’s socially engaged, exciting and rooted to contexts of County Durham.
The programme aims to understanding and enhance the role of digital, in widening access to great art and culture through the lens of a medium in permanent flux and evolution.
This programme embraces the entire county (and beyond), focusing keenly on themes of place, identity, and connection within our vast and diverse geographic and socio-economic landscapes.
Since 2023 our Digital Residencies specifically explore the transformative power of shared digital spaces to build real-life engagement empowering individuals often overlooked due to their identities, seeking to understand how digital culture can help them find and navigate their unique place within the cultural landscape.
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Our county, the fourth largest in England, covers 862 square miles and is home to over half a million people. Many of these are post-industrial and rural areas, facing significant challenges: County Durham ranks among the top 20% most deprived Local Authorities, with 16 'left behind neighbourhoods' – double any other English area.
Digital exclusion, inequalities in access, and data poverty are persistent issues, intensified by the pandemic and the decline of public services. So our approach in working with artists, creative technologists and partners such a Google Arts & Culture, OGRE Studio, Into The Light, Place Lab and our fantastic network of community-based Cultural Hubs is key to connecting with and engaging our communities in meaningful, exciting ways.
In 2025, the following headline figures give an impression of engagement through the Digital Test Commissions (now completed) and the Digital Residencies (in the later stage of completion):
Public participation numbers total: 444 people directly engaged with community engagement activities of the Digital Test commission and Digital Residency artists. This came from a mixture of in-person workshops, online workshops, online video conferencing, surveys and conversation activities.
Social media reach of digital programme: 40,400 individual accounts have been reached via our digital programme content.
A total of 32 hours of mentoring and support has been provided to Test Commission artists from OGRE Studio.
The Digital programme is commissioned by No More Nowt, the Creative People and Places programme for County Durham supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, Into the Light Durham, Place Lab and produced by OGRE Studio.
There are currently 3 strands to the NMN Digital Programme:
DIGITAL RESIDENCIES
Current: Updates from digital residencies by artist David Blandy and Petra Szemán - responding to the provocation: What defines “digital” as a place for Co. Durham, in the wider context of the world?
Previous: Full projects by artists Andrew Wood and Alistair Flindall.
DIGITAL TEST COMMISSIONS
See updates from the five current Test Commission Artists. The Test Commissions are designed to support creative practitioners to experiment with digital cultural approaches to their practice, particularly for artists who are participatory and socially engaged, collaborating with the communities, heritage and contexts of County Durham.
ACTUAL REALITY
In partnership with Google Arts & Culture, Actual Reality is a people-powered experiment in bridging the digital divide experienced across our county. It’s part community-generated artwork, part action research project and part DIY digital accelerator powered by easy-to-ignore communities and those with challenges in accessing digital connectivity through social, economic, health, age and infrastructure factors.