Helix Arts is unveiling a new major community art sculpture featuring the artwork and dance movements of the people of North Shields. It’s called Our Woven Voices. The sculpture was made by internationally renowned Canadian artist Aaron Li-Hill, who also worked with fellow artist Laura Brenchley to engage over 1,000 local people during numerous community art sessions.
The unique sculpture sits outside North Shields Magistrates Court. It represents artworks by over 1,000 local residents of all ages who took part in participatory arts workshops to create artworks and scrapbooks about what North Shields means to them - past, present and future.
Regional Artist Laura Brenchley worked with local people to capture a spirit of togetherness which bonds the people of North Shields together during numerous community art workshops around the town, including in schools, public places, community groups, pubs, and North Shields Football Club. Artist Aaron Li-Hill worked with local dancers to capture their poses then interwove them with the participatory artworks into the final sculpture.
Our Woven Voices represents the overwhelming spirit of togetherness and connectedness that the people who took part felt about North Shields. It’s about everyday places like chip shops, beaches and parks. The sculpture shows two dancers woven together – representing the ways people depend on each other and support each other. The dancers’ legs and arms are crossed but it’s their little fingers – the dancers told us – that kept them stable. If one little finger is removed, they said, they’d both fall over. This feels like a perfect way to think about how our communities rely on one another.
Helix Arts was commissioned to produce the sculpture as a gateway to the town by North Tyneside Council as part of their masterplan for the regeneration of North Shields. It is one of a series of public works of art around the town as part of North Tyneside Council’s Ambition for North Shields, which aims to create a more vibrant town centre, a stronger evening and weekend economy, and high-quality public spaces.
The arts charity - which has been co-creating art with people across the North East for more than 40 years - wanted to involve as many people as possible in making this public artwork so that it could become a monument to everyone in the town and an example of the hopes, dreams, realities and memories of everyday life.
Aaron finished the sculpture on 19th June 2025. The sculpture will be officially unveiled by the Elected Mayor of North Tyneside Karen Clark on 17th July 2025 at 11am.
Director Cheryl Gavin of Helix Arts says: “I am really proud to see the people of North Shields’ stories, hopes and creativity incorporated into Our Woven Voice sculpture. The responses have been resoundingly positive - which we know can be different when something new arrives into community spaces.
"We often try to do things differently at Helix Arts, so when I saw an opportunity to do this with North Tyneside Council’s requests around public artworks, we knew that encouraging as many people’s ideas to be incorporated in the final sculpture was the best way forward.
This work has been developing for a long time, by working with Laura Brenchley first we could gather community ideas and insights which were core to the process, but it was also aspirational in terms of its physical nature, which is why we connected with international visual artist Aaron to realise the final artworks.”
Artist Aaron Li-Hill says: “This sculpture, my first major public sculpture of its kind, holds a special place for me. It’s about what holds us together, what binds us to place, to community and the strength in solidarity and support. A strength that we have together, astronomically greater than alone. Capturing this interwoven and dynamic pose in such a solidified form creates a strong metaphor of shared struggles and solidarities, a concept so important at this time of heightened global division.
"The pose itself, created through workshopping various stances with local dancers, was about balance. They told me that if their pinky fingers at the top of their clasped hands slipped, if they weren’t touching, they would fall. This illustrates the precarious nature of collaboration and the effort involved at keeping it alive. Support and solidarity is a living breathing thing.”
North Shields MP Sir Alan Campbell said: “The new sculpture welcoming people into our town is hugely symbolic of the community spirit of North Shields and is part of the ongoing regeneration work across the town.
"It is very fitting that we are marking the 800th anniversary of our town with such an impressive piece of art which represents the spirit of togetherness and connectedness that the people who took part felt about North Shields. A big thank you to Helix Arts and everyone involved with this project and the wider North Shields 800 celebrations."
Councillor Carl Johnson, Deputy Mayor for North Tyneside and cabinet member responsible for Regeneration, Culture and Economic Development said: “This impressive public artwork takes its inspiration from the community of North Shields, many thanks to Helix Arts and all the local people who have taken part and contributed their ideas.
“This is one of a series of new public artworks around North Shields, and is a feature of the improved gateway at Stephenson Street, which offers safer routes for pedestrians and cyclists and a more welcoming entrance to the town.”