Darlington residents’ stories of home, migration and friendship are now part of a new exhibition at Hopetown, where film, textiles and community-made work will remain on display until 3 January 2027.
Connected Communities: Stories and Cultural Practices in Darlington opened during the first week of November. It brings together personal reflections on belonging, cultural exchange and everyday life, shaped with refugees, migrants and people who have long called the town home.
Built from a year of shared work
The display is not a collection assembled at a distance. It grew from a year-long arts and project led by Professor Azadeh Fatehrad, Professor of Art and Public Policy at Teesside University, working with community and cultural partners across Darlington.
Creative workshops and storytelling sessions gave participants ways to explore memory, tradition and their relationship with the town. The resulting exhibition uses several forms rather than asking every story to fit one format: moving image sits alongside textiles, spoken and written accounts, and other creative work developed through the programme.
Teesside University’s research record describes Connected Communities as an active, co-designed project that began in January 2026. Its focus includes the ways everyday creative activity can reduce isolation, build adult language confidence and make different cultural experiences more visible. Those are the project’s aims, not published measurements, and the exhibition offers the public a chance to see the work that has emerged so far.
Professor Fatehrad has described place as something shaped by relationships and carried traditions as well as by buildings and recorded history. That idea gives the exhibition a clear local purpose. It asks visitors to consider belonging as an activity people take part in, rather than a label fixed by birthplace or length of residence.
Earlier activity linked to the project brought together the Institute for Collective Place Leadership with Creative Darlington, the Centre for Local , Hopetown, The Forum and Darlington Assistance for Refugees. Workshops and events during Refugee Week formed one stage of that work before the current exhibition brought material together at Hopetown.
A new layer to Hopetown’s story
Hopetown is best known for telling Darlington’s railway story. Its 1833 Goods Shed forms the entrance to a wider site that includes North Road Station Museum, the Carriage Works and live railway engineering. Placing Connected Communities there adds the experiences of present-day residents to a visitor attraction rooted in the town’s industrial past.
That setting matters because Darlington’s identity did not stop developing when its railway landmarks were built. The exhibition treats migration, friendship and shared creative practice as part of the town’s continuing history, giving space to experiences that may not usually sit inside a venue.
The public display is also a practical next step for a research project built through participation. People who did not attend the workshops can now encounter the contributions together, while participants can see individual memories presented as part of a wider account of Darlington. The university has not published visitor numbers or measured for the exhibition, so its longer-term impact remains to be seen.
Planning a visit
Connected Communities runs at Hopetown Darlington, McNay Street, until Sunday 3 January 2027. Hopetown currently opens from 10am to 4pm, Tuesday to Sunday during term time, with Monday opening during school holidays. Site admission is free but a ticket is required, and some exhibitions or activities can carry a separate charge. The university announcement does not state a separate price for this display, so visitors should check Hopetown’s current booking information before travelling.
Further background is available from Teesside University.