What Are Words Worth 2U2?

28th April 2026

Programme Northumbria is delighted to present What Are Words Worth 2U2?, an interdisciplinary, cross-artform festival that asks what language does, who it belongs to, and what it costs.

Bringing together researchers, artists, and writers, the festival celebrates and interrogates translingual practices; queer, reclaimed, unstable, and overheard vocabularies; vernacular, dialect, and informal speech; legal, bureaucratic, and institutional languages; and poetic, performative, and invented forms.

Curated by Matthew Hearn and Sarah Jackson, the programme features research and practice by Northumbria University staff, students, and alumni, alongside selected works by invited artists and writers including Anthony Vahni Capildeo, Karen Davies, Emily Hesse, Steven Lowery, Harry Man and Endre Ruset, Potato Press and George Shaw.

What Are Words Worth 2U2? kicks off with a day long programme of events on Wednesday 29 April. At 11am you are invited to join Lecturer in Law Emma Patchett in Creative Loitering: The Art of Going Nowhere? taking place at locations across campus.

At 3.30pm, Gallery North will host an artist talk by Turner Prize-nominated artist, George Shaw, ahead of the Private View from 5pm.

Other highlights include a panel featuring the co-founder of Viz Simon Donald, a reading by winner of the Windham-Campbell Prize for Poetry (2025) Anthony Vahni Capildeo, a gallery talk by Martyn Hudson on the work of multidisciplinary artist Emily Hesse (1980–2022), a hands-on poetry and printing workshop, and a lecture on 1970s grassroots arts magazines by art historian Sam Bibby.

Click here for more details, and a full programme of events.

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School of Design, Arts and Creative Industries

At the School of Design, Arts and Creative Industries, our subjects play an important role in shaping social and environmental equity.

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Cultural and Creative Industries

The Cultural and Creative Industries are among the fastest growing and most innovative sectors in the UK. Our research in this area focuses on the opportunities and challenges this creates for education and skills, health and wellbeing, the environment, civic identity and pride in place.