Riverside Escape with Robin Webb and Gateshead Youth Assembly
This artwork contains rapid flashing, flickering lights, or high-contrast patterns that may trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy or other visual sensitivities. Viewer discretion is advised.
Riverside Escape is a short film piece taking us on a journey. It was created by animator Robin Webb in collaboration with Gateshead Youth Assembly, following a route through Riverside Park to Dunston Staiths. Drawing on the perspectives of young people from across the borough, the film blends real locations with imaginative visual responses to explore how rivers, towns, and the people who move through them are deeply connected.
Developed over the summer of 2024, the work began with a shared walk. On a sunny Saturday in July, a group of young people documented the route using a range of digital cameras. Together they captured fleeting moments, overlooked details, and the rhythm of the landscape.
In sessions back at the Youth Assembly, they reflected on the journey with other members of GYA through conversations, modelling, painting, and drawing, responding to the public sculptures and spaces encountered along the way.
These creative responses inform the final animation, which moves between observation and abstraction. Everyday elements flowing water, walking paths, passing conversations are slowed down, reframed, and given space to resonate. The accompanying audio layers fragments of recorded sound captured on the walk and conversation from Gladstone Terrace.
How teenagers connect to public spaces like the riverside can be very different to what we might expect. The shifting images reflects how the relationships between people and places are always changing. For many, they felt the park was a space to unwind and connect with friends.
Rather than offering a single narrative, Riverside Escape invites viewers to bring their own interpretations. The film creates a shifting atmosphere that can feel calm, mysterious, or quietly powerful, encouraging a more attentive way of seeing familiar places.
At its heart, the piece reflects on how places are shaped not only by buildings and infrastructure, but by memory, movement, and collective presence. It asks viewers to slow down, notice their surroundings, and reflect on how they move through the world and how the world moves with them.
Now almost two years later, there have been lots of changes along the Tyne Derwent Way. The onging work in and around Riverside Park has meant the space is more welcoming and accessible to residents. When have you last moved in and through the Riverside Park?
