Programme to give a flavour of new cultural venue

A programme of events that will give a taste of activity at one of the North East's most exciting cultural venues has been launched.

Culture House Sunderland, which will open its doors in Autumn 2025, has commissioned 12 programme partners to deliver activity between November 2024 and February 2025.

Taking place at the Creative Smart Hubs at Washington and Houghton and the Keel Square Pavilion, the preopening programme will give communities a flavour of the type of activity they can expect when Culture House Sunderland opens.

All the successful programme partners are North East based with the majority of them Sunderland organisations.

The activity will range from fashion design to craft and conversation sessions and sustainability workshops to script writing courses - giving a glimpse of the variety of activity that will be on offer when Culture House Sunderland opens its doors.

Cllr Beth Jones, Cabinet Member for Communities, Culture and Tourism at Sunderland City Council, said: "I'm delighted with the line up of partners and events that have been commissioned as part of this programme.

"When Culture House Sunderland opens it will be a dynamic, modern venue that will have something that appeals to everyone.

"It's also great that this programme is able to support and showcase the work of local organisations who do such fantastic work to bring cultural activity to our communities."

The 12 programme partners delivering the preopening events are Harbour Printworks, Pink Collar Gallery, Reinvented with Love, Ellie Clewlow and Kirsten Luckins, The Art Room, New Writing North, King Ink, Holmeside Writers, Curious Arts, Threads in the Ground, Southpaw and Tactic North

Culture House Sunderland - The National Centre for Creative Smart Cities - will be a multi-purpose cultural venue based at the heart of Keel Square. The venue will be home to the City Library, and will be packed with dynamic, digitally powered, interactive and educating features, with a year-round programme of fun things to do and see.

This project is funded by Sunderland City Council and by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.