We supported the development and delivery of SCRAN, a live commissioning programme centred around food, gathering and participation.

Delivered in Peterlee Town Centre, SCRAN invited artists to create work in situ, working visibly and publicly within the rhythms of the high street. The programme included shared meals, live events and open making, turning everyday space into a site of encounter and exchange.

Across the programme we worked with artists including Lady Kitt, Pink Collar Gallery, Max Cooper Clark, Cal Dyer, Jon-Luke McKie and Roisin Crowley-Linton, alongside a wider network of collaborators. Each commission took a different approach, but all were connected through a shared focus on food as a way of bringing people together, creating moments of generosity, conversation and participation within everyday space.

The commissions were also shaped in dialogue with the legacy of Gordon Matta-Clark, particularly his work Food, exploring cooking and gathering as artistic and social practice. This provided a loose conceptual thread across the programme, connecting the commissions through ideas of hospitality, transformation and the relationship between people and place.

We worked on the design and structuring of the commissioning programme, supporting how artists were brought into the process and how the work connected to the wider Place Lab Peterlee framework. This included balancing the need for a clear public offer with the flexibility required for artists to respond to place as they found it.

SCRAN was delivered in partnership with East Durham Trust and The Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark, as part of the Place Lab Peterlee programme by No More Nowt on behalf of Into the Light. The programme was nominated for Best Arts and Business Partnership at the North East Culture Awards as part of Place Lab Peterlee.

SCRAN tested how commissioning can operate differently in public space, creating conditions where participation is immediate, informal and embedded in everyday life.