In pictures: Cragside-inspired exhibition begins
- Published

Four installations by artists from the North East have been placed around the National Trust’s Cragside estate in Northumberland. Inspired by Lord and Lady Armstrong, who helped create Cragside House in the 1860s, the exhibitions will be on show until 3 November.

Suzanne Hutton, Michael Branthwaite and Janine Goldsworthy, based in Gateshead, covered a frame with more than 1,000 cranes and trucks to celebrate engineering, as part of the Building Dreams exhibition.

Irene Brown, from Newcastle University, created Fulmination, which shows a miniature Cragside House being repeatedly struck by lightning. She says it symbolises Lord Armstrong’s life interest and achievements in generating power.

Cragside House was the first house in the world to be lit by hydro-electricity. The images that represent electrical discharges have been printed on the sails of three full sized sailing dinghies on Nelly’s Moss Lake by Wolfgang Weileder from Newcastle University.

Kate Hunter, events coordinator at Cragside said: "The installations will showcase the spectacular works of regional artists. Our visitors will be able to discover the wonders of Cragside and see for themselves the amazing place which Lord and Lady Armstrong created."

Gateshead-based Jo Coupe's work sees an electrical current running through roses suspended in a copper sulphate solution in five large tanks which, she says, represent our need for wonder and magic.