Ok folks, it’s that time of year again – the Empty Shop Open is here!

Now in its third year, the Empty Shop Open is becoming something of a tradition for the North East arts scene. As always submissions were open to anyone, with no criteria, brief or limitations other than the contributing artist must be based in the region. In effect the show amounts to a celebration of creative talent and a completely democratic opportunity for local artists to present their work.

This year saw record numbers of submissions (which we are well chuffed about) and was even harder to select. We’ve tried to make choices that not only reflect the quality of the work we’ve received but also trends that we’ve spotted in the regional art scene which were reflected in the submissions.

The art work is selected, the date is in place, all that’s left is for everyone to come down and have a bloody good night.

It’s once again being held at our HQ building in the city centre and similar to last year there is stuff to see in some of the other spaces too.

If you haven’t been to HQ in the past few months you won’t have seen Cardiff based artist Spike Dennis’ site specific installation in our stairwell gallery. A detailed post on the work will follow soon but as a little taster it took us two days to install and involved building a temporary floor!

In the Pink Room we are hoping to have another site specific installation as part of this year’s open, more details to come on that too.

So, basically the 28th is going to be a big night – expect the usual art, drinks, music and good people… see you all there.

The 3rd Annual Empty Shop Open

Opening night: Friday 28th January 2011 | 6pm – 10pm

Exhibition runs Saturday 29th January – Sunday 6th February | 12pm – 4pm daily

Empty HQ
35c Framwellgate Bridge
Durham City
DH1 4SJ

For a map – click here

Transportation
Empty Shop HQ is less than 5 minutes walk from Durham Bus Station and a 5 – 10 minute walk from the train station.

From Newcastle/Gateshead
Trains run regularly and take 10 – 15 minutes

A night bus service runs on Friday nights into the early hours of the morning

From Sunderland
The Go Ahead Northern number 20 runs from Sunderland to Durham. The last service from Durham is at 11:34pm

From Middlesbrough
The Arriva X1 is an hourly service from Middlesbrough to Durham and runs til the early hours of the morning.

Please double check respective websites to make sure no changes have taken place.

Help spread the word

If you would like to help us promote the event you can download a high quality version of the poster Download Link