Artwork No. 2 – Jetty Project. Wolfgang Weileder

In 2003, a forty metre section of the downstream end of Dunston Staiths was destroyed by fire. The resulting gap has left a significant absence as part of the Staiths. Leaving only the piles of the original structure in the mud, the fire divided the jetty effectively into two, leaving the downstream end isolated, and access across the two impossible.

Artwork No. 2 for the Jetty Project, Gap, addresses this absence. Using reclaimed timber and traditional construction techniques, and with the involvement of Newcastle University architecture students, the physical presence of this historical absence will be explored off site, in a scale reproduction of the missing section.

 
The existing ‘gap’ as seen from the south bank of the Tyne

Gap has been constructed in Wolfgang Weileder’s studio at Newcastle University and will be installed in the Great North Museum: Hancock on 19th March 2015 where the installation will be photographed before being dismantled again.

The artwork Gap under construction. Gap is a scale replica of Dunston Staiths’ missing section.

Close up detail of Gap’s replication of Dunston Staiths’ missing frames