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A year of creativity, collaboration and community will leave a lasting legacy in Berwick-upon-Tweed this week, as the town's Quayside Huts are transformed through a unique partnership between artist Martha Ellis, Berwick Academy and Berwick Town Council.

The vibrant redesign marks the culmination of Martha Ellis' year-long residency with Berwick Academy, where students have explored her distinctive artistic practice through workshops, creative projects and collaborative learning. Now, the techniques and creative confidence they have developed over the past year will move beyond the classroom and into the heart of the town. Working alongside Martha, students have helped create new distinctive designs for the Quayside Huts, giving the much-loved retail units a fresh identity that celebrates creativity, Berwick and its community. The transformation not only revitalises a key part of Berwick's riverside but also creates a lasting public artwork that will be enjoyed by residents and visitors for years to come.

The transformation of the Quayside Huts builds on the success of the students' end-of-residency exhibition, which celebrated the creativity and skills they developed throughout the year working with Martha Ellis. While the exhibition marked the culmination of their learning journey, the Quayside Huts project ensures the residency's impact extends far beyond the gallery, leaving a permanent creative legacy at the heart of Berwick. It is a lasting reminder of what can be achieved when young people are given the opportunity to shape the places where they live, creating something that will be seen and enjoyed by residents and visitors for years to come.

The Quayside Huts play an important role in supporting Berwick's independent businesses, providing space for local makers, artists and retailers. Their new appearance creates a more vibrant and welcoming destination, helping to celebrate the creativity that exists across the town while enhancing one of Berwick's most visited waterfront locations.

Martha Ellis said: "Working with the students over the past year has been an incredibly rewarding experience. Watching them develop confidence in their creativity and seeing their ideas become part of the town's landscape is a wonderful way to conclude the residency. I hope the huts become something the whole community feels proud of."

The project has been delivered in partnership with Berwick Town Council, whose support has enabled the students' creativity to become a permanent feature of the town.

Cllr Jane Turton, Mayor of Berwick said: "The Quayside Huts are an important part of Berwick's waterfront, supporting local businesses and welcoming visitors throughout the year. This collaboration has given them a new lease of life while celebrating the creativity of our young people. It's a fantastic example of what can be achieved when schools, artists and local organisations work together."

The residency forms part of a wider commitment to connecting young people with high-quality creative opportunities and ensuring that art plays an active role within the community. By bringing together education, public space and local enterprise, the Quayside Huts project demonstrates how creativity can strengthen both place and community.

The newly transformed Quayside Huts will be unveiled this week, offering a colourful new backdrop for Berwick's independent businesses and a lasting reminder of the creativity, collaboration and ambition of the town's young people.

The annual challenge has previously attracted entries from across the world, including Australia, the USA, Greece, Hong Kong, South Africa and Iran. All manner of subjects are welcome,  humorous, moving, historical, science fiction, poetic, mysterious. Submissions are open to everyone, and we welcome entries from all faiths, cultures, genders and races. The judges are looking for a Tale ‘such as Wilson may have published’.  

For the second year in 2026 there is a category for children and school age entries, enabling those to be judged separately from those of established writers.  Project Director, Andrew Ayre, explains: “The volume and quality of entries is getting higher every year, and after many years of providing local schools with an opportunity for young people to be published in our print volumes, we decided it was time to provide another, opportunity that is simple to enter, and provides a creative challenge to young writers.

“In fact, last year the winner of our school age category was based in Hong Kong. We are delighted to see just how far and wide the appeal of Wilson’s Tales is reaching.”

The competition was devised by members of the Wilson’s Tales of the Borders Project, and the winner will be announced later in the year. 

Authors and writers are invited to submit a complete Tale in exactly 100 words. A Tale that might have been published in ‘Wilson’s Tales of the Borders’ in the nineteenth century, but brought up to date. Crofters and inhabitants of the Borders bought the eponymous broadsheets to read as moral entertainment around the fireside of a Sunday evening, and enjoyed Tales that spanned the globe, keeping them enthralled and wanting more.  Circulation grew across the country and the world, outselling the stories of Sir Walter Scott.  So much for a mere three ha’pence. 

Commenting on the entries, Andrew Ayre praised the high standard of entries in 2025, saying: “We are consistently amazed by the variety of entries we receive, and the ever higher standards of these tiny Tales. Some entries are so richly layered that we now print an assortment of Tales on the menu of our annual memorial dinner to let guests appreciate the richness of a a giant story all happening in the readers own head from a mere 100 words.  

“Human experiences described with poignant and lyrical qualities which still leaves room for the reader to create their own interpretation. We are looking forward to this year’s competition being even more successful.”  

Jackal is delighted to present BINGO!, a new solo exhibition by North East artist Beth J Ross, running from 2 - 25 July 2026. 
Opening hours: Thursday to Saturday 11:00 - 15:00.

Bringing together film, painting and embroidery, BINGO! explores bingo halls as places of community, routine and collective memory, with particular attention to women's experiences. Drawing on archival photographs, conversations gathered through social media and materials collected through research in a working bingo hall, the exhibition reflects on the social importance of these familiar but increasingly overlooked spaces.

At the centre of the exhibition is a moving image work weaving together memories, images and stories shared by people whose lives have been touched by bingo halls. Alongside the film, Ross presents a series of large-scale abstract paintings created entirely using bingo dabbers. Colours are determined through a chance-based system, with colours assigned to numbers and selected using a bingo machine, transforming the familiar visual language of bingo cards into vibrant works of abstraction.

A quieter series of embroidered works, stitched onto played bingo cards collected during the artist's research, offers another perspective on bingo culture. Referencing craft, domestic labour, luck, loss and the female-dominated communities that have long gathered around the game, these delicate works celebrate everyday rituals that are often absent from cultural histories.

The Maltings (Berwick) Trust and Berwick Academy have announced an open call for a new Dance Artist in Residence, building on the success of the school’s first-ever artist residency programme. Funded through the North East Mayoral Strategic Authority Inspire Fund, the new residency will take place during the 2026–27 academic year and will bring a professional dance artist into Berwick Academy to work directly with pupils, teachers and the wider school community. 

The opportunity follows the highly successful 2025–26 visual arts residency led by artist Martha Ellis as part of the Living Barracks Berwick Shines programme, produced by The Maltings. The project marked the first time Berwick Academy had hosted an artist residency and demonstrated the positive impact creative practice can have within a school setting.

Ben Ryder, Deputy Head Teacher at Berwick Academy said:
“Martha has made a huge impact at Berwick Academy. Her work with students has provided enrichment opportunities that we would not otherwise have been able to offer. The Maltings (Berwick) Trust and funding from the Inspire Fund have enabled this partnership to continue and we are excited about the creation of a Dance Artist in Residence position for 2026–27.”

The new residency will focus on dance, movement and wellbeing, creating accessible opportunities for self-expression, creativity and connection through regular sessions in school. The appointed artist will work one day a week during term time, developing dance activity with pupils and staff, supporting curriculum development and establishing new extracurricular opportunities including a lunchtime dance club. The residency has been designed in response to challenges facing young people, including increasing anxiety, reduced engagement with school life and low self-esteem. Through creative movement and inclusive dance activity, the project aims to bring moments of joy, confidence and community back into the school day.

This summer, The Granary Gallery in Berwick presents Joan Eardley: The Sea at Catterline, a major exhibition developed in partnership with The Fleming Collection, exploring the powerful seascapes created by one of the most distinctive British artists of the 20^th century. Regarded as one of the most original and admired artists of her generation, Joan Eardley (1921–1963) is widely known for her tender, yet unsentimental, portraits of street children in Glasgow.  Alongside this celebrated body of work, however, she produced an extraordinary series of landscapes and seascapes inspired by the small fishing village of Catterline, south of Aberdeen, where she spent the latter part of her life. The exhibition is part of the RSA Celebrating Together Project across the UK, marking 200 years of the Royal Scottish Academy.

Eardley first visited Catterline in 1951 and was immediately captivated by its dramatic coastline and wild environment. Dividing her time between her Glasgow studio in Townhead and the remote coastal village, she eventually settled there, working from cottages overlooking the North Sea. Perched on the edge of a cliff above the village’s crescent-shaped bay, Eardley found endless inspiration in the surrounding landscape – from the buildings and farmland to the rugged shoreline. Yet it was the sea itself that became her most compelling subject. The constantly shifting waves, crashing against the shore, offered a way for Eardley to capture both the raw power of the natural world and the emotional intensity that characterises her work.

Initially finding the sea difficult to paint, Eardley’s approach evolved with the influence of abstract expressionism. The ever-changing movement of the water allowed her to push her practice in new directions, producing works of striking energy and texture. Often painting outdoors in challenging conditions, she experimented with a range of materials, incorporating artist’s paint, boat paint, newspaper, sand and grasses layered onto hardboard to convey the physical force of wind and sea.

The exhibition focuses on works made between mid-1950s and 1963, a period widely considered the peak of Eardley’s creative powers. Loans from the Royal Scottish Academy, The Fleming Collection, Aberdeen Art Gallery and private collections bring together a remarkable group of paintings and works on paper created in response to Catterline’s dramatic coastline.