Inspirational Toilets at Beamish!
11/03/2008
An exhibition celebrating the most famous public toilet in North East England will be on view at Beamish Museum from 15th March 2008! ‘The Westoe Netty Exhibition’ in the Museum Entrance Building is a project undertaken by eight employees of Northumbrian Water, people using the services of NECA South Tyneside, Sight Service and young people from South Shields.
Inspired by the Westoe Netty and by the sanitation collections at Beamish, a colourful array of decorated toilets, toilet seats and clay sculptures has been created. Old-style slipper bedpans have been decorated by the Northumbrian Water employees and these will be exhibited alongside the work by the other artists. Their work has been influenced by the amazing collection of painted toilet bowls, chamber pots and related artefacts at Beamish.
The Westoe Netty, a late nineteenth century gentleman’s public toilet from Westoe in South Shields, has been saved and will be rebuilt at Beamish this spring with support from sponsor Northumbrian Water. When the Netty appeared in local artist Bob Olley’s painting of the same name it secured the fame of the building in North East England and beyond. In the same way that Bob Olley was inspired by something quite ordinary, the work in the exhibition has been inspired by objects from the Beamish collections which were once in everyday use.
In 1996 the Netty was in the process of being demolished, Bob Olley and a group of enthusiastic volunteers stepped in and dismantled it brick by brick and moved the pieces to a local shipyard.
Beamish collected the Netty in 2007 and plans to begin rebuilding it in The 1913 Town this spring. The rebuilding of the Westoe Netty at Beamish has been made possible by the generous support of Northumbrian Water.
E N D S
Media contacts:- Jacki Winstanley, Publicity Manager at Beamish, tel. 0191 370 4024, fax. 0191 370 400, email jackiwinstanley@beamish.org.uk
:- Alistair Baker, Communications and PR Manager at Northumbrian Water, tel. 0191 3016 851 / 07711 793493