Besides stopping at the Baltic, the trip to Newcastle also included a stop at the EAT! Festival, a studio visit with Alec Finlay, and a trip to go see Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North. Of the three, I enjoyed sitting at The Cumberland Arms Pub with Alec and his dog the best. Here’s possibly why.

EAT! is a relatively new festival taking place over two weeks throughout areas of Newcastle, and as a concept to revitalize the city streets and encourage local business and tourism, it’s quite brilliant. Bringing people together with food immediately leads to conversations, and there is no better way to engage with your neighbors than through talking.

Heading out to Gibside for one of the last events, Cakebook (North) invited participants to make a cake in the likeness of a regional heritage landmark, one that currently exists anywhere in the North East of England or Yorkshire, and for the day all the cakes were laid out on a giant edible map where it ended with a feeding sugar frenzy after judging and prizes were finished. 

Not really being a fan of cake, I sat back on a muggy warm day and watched the swarm of people ducking on and off the map, who were predominantly middle class white families spending a leisurely day out. There is an inherent level of fantasy about creating a miniature world for the sole purpose of consumption and I imagine this is how developers always see a city map. Groups naturally huddled around certain miniature neighbors (see above) waiting for their slice of the cake, but I could not discern any rhyme or reason to the mobilization of crowds beyond word spreading over which cake was more delicious, but everything had been sitting in the sun all day, so I can’t imagine taste could have been much of a factor. 

Sitting on the mound overlooking the mini map of the North East, listening to live Americana folk music, I was arrested by the sheer joy in the collective devouring of the region that only took mere minutes to polish off. As there was a lot of dye colouring, there was something apocalyptic about children tearing through roofs and tresses with their hands and teeth, dirtying up the water and grassy bits as everyone rushed from one corner to the other.

People were really into it, and while I didn’t see on this year, a cake replica of Angel of the North had been made in the past, and so we headed to see the real deal as our cab driver told us about a small pub up near the top. 

It was to our great disappointment when we arrived at The Angel View Inn, which actually had a very poor view of the angel, offering a small bench in the parking lot where you could see it in the distance. Before coming to Newcastle, I didn’t actually know The Angel of the North was located in Newcastle. One of the purposes of this public art commission was to put the city on the map, and while the work goes on to be one of Gormley’s most well known works, the connection to the city and its public seem arbitrary. I heard a few years back some football fans adorned the Angel with a giant custom made football jersey for Alan Shearer, but the police removed the number 9 jersey right after it was put up. While some will argue it was vandalism of an art work, was not getting a custom made jersey to fit a 66 ft tall steel sculpture an act of collaborative engagement with an already controversial work of public art? There is work made for the public, and there is work made by the public. And as I sat there at this tourist trap with a poorly poured Guinness in an uninspired parking lot staring off at the Gateshead Flasher, I wondered why I had left Cumberland Arms at all.