The Stories of Our Freedom: Stockton Rising showcases original work co-created by local participants from ARC’s regular creative engagement classes, refugees and asylum seekers who now call Stockton home, and their award-winning associate company of learning disabled theatre makers, Full Circle.

The exhibition documents the creative process behind Our Freedom: Stockton Rising, a special live event reflecting on what freedom means to members of Stockton’s community, 80 years after the end of the Second World War.

Featuring visual art, written materials, artefacts, and recorded footage – plus new versions of work from the live event, specially filmed in locations across Stockton – the exhibition offers a window into the question: ‘what does freedom mean to you, here and now?’

Work shaped by the communities of other North East venues will also join the exhibition from Tuesday 18 November. However, this is more than an exhibition. It’s a raw, uplifting, and unfiltered celebration of community, identity, resilience and place – told through the voices of those who live it. Above all, it’s a call to connect and experience what freedom means to Stockton, and the North East, through the power of creativity.

Opening hours Tue: 10am – 6pm / Wed: 10am – 7.30pm / Thu: 10am – 9.30pm / Fri – Sat: 10am – 6pm (closed Sun – Mon)