Onward Together As One is a debut project borne out of a partnership with Northumbria University offers bold and inspiring commentary on the Great North Run this September, as artists Hope Stebbing and Oliver Perry - graduates of the university’s Fine Art course - launch a striking sculptural installation.

The project is a pop-up art installation, in which large sculpted letters spelling ‘onward’ ‘together’ ‘as one’ will be shown in three specific locations around the route of the run, near Gateshead Stadium, on the border of Gateshead and South Tyneside and in South Shields.

The art pieces will appear on the morning of Sunday 13 September and disappear with the 57,000 runners after the race, the artists’ have taken the idea of over fifty thousand individuals moving through the course as though they were one, all connected and communicating, ebbing and flowing, moving forward together.

After learning of their successful commission, the duo took signage and in particular, road signs, as a starting point for exploration. Examining the importance of signage to both the everyday function of the roads the Great North Run follows and how this is altered, yet still necessary, during the race itself. Hope and Oliver knew that their installation must both disrupt the landscape and work with the environment of the run. What would be critical in the creation of the installation would be the font in which the letters would be sculpted. Oliver and Hope deliberated over a number of fonts, before settling on Aperçu, feeling strongly that it not only aesthetically complemented the project but that the meaning spoken directly to the concept of Onward Together As One.

Aperçu - a comment of brief reference which makes an illuminating point

Read more about Hope and Oliver and the Northumbria University commission

Supported by Northumbria University, IdeasTap and S & B EPS Limited