Current and upcoming exhibitions

Current exhibition

North East Speak Their Name Suicide Memorial Quilt

Saturday 10 May 2025 - Thursday 12 June 2025

The North East Speak Their Name suicide memorial quilt has been created by some of those who have lost loved ones to suicide in our region. There are three quilt panels, with 120 squares – behind each square is a much-loved person. The squares have been crafted with love and care, honouring each precious person lost to suicide. People came together as a supportive community to create this powerful artwork. They shared stories and treasured memories and encouraged one another to ‘speak their name’. Work from Darlington Borough Art Collection will be displayed alongside this exhibition.

Upcoming exhibitions

Whistle Stop

Saturday 14 June 2025 - Wednesday 23 July 2025

The Whistle Stop exhibition will showcase Stockton and Darlington Railway's (S&DR) momentous history. Whistle Stop, presented by the S&DR200 Festival, gives visitors the chance to step back 200 years in time to see important documents and images from the birth of the modern railway. The exhibition is an introduction to the very start of the S&DR story.

The documents have been brought together from archives across the UK and include engineer drawings and rarely seen maps, as well as cultural paintings, poems and cartoons depicting the adventurous and strange inventions of the age.

Alongside Whistle Stop we’ll be showing a selection of works in Darlington’s Borough Art Collection and Local Studies Collection, relating to railways, including documents, drawings, engravings, paintings, prints, and photographs capturing some of the many wonders of railways, including some of the people involved, bridges, locomotives and stations.