Star and Shadow Cinema is a volunteer-run DIY space for Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, and the north east UK. It is set up as an open-to-join co-operative housed in a building it owns, dedicated to culture coming from and/or programmed by the grass roots - particularly cinema and music.
Emphasising the collective experience that makes Cinema special, Star and Shadow exists as a space for a dialogic
approach to culture through critical, active
spectatorship: watching, listening, thinking and talking collectively
and then possibly programming something yourself, as opposed to buying your ticket, sitting or standing in the
dark and then heading home.
There is no hierarchy -
there is no boss, just working groups and
meetings, email lists and a dose of honest disorganisation.
No-one is paid. The building is run and programmed by its
audiences, which means you are us - we don't do it for you, we do it with you! WE ARE YOU!
There is no single programming line - anyone can get involved and put a screening/gig/meeting/talk/party
on, as long as they are willing to contribute something to the running
of the building. Alternatively they can hire the space.
It operates a 'safe space' policy and strives to be Self-driven/ horizontalist/ experimental/
non-canonical/ independent/ critical/ internationalist/ dialogic/ inclusive/ subversive/
improvised/ co-didactic/ underground-overground/
transformative/ emancipatory.
The Star and Shadow evolved
from screenings, events and debates at the Side Cinema, Waygood Gallery,
and Bookville from 2001-2005. Made up of people from differing
cultural perspectives (artist-run spaces, radical left politics, direct
action, Free/Libre Open Source culture, organising against the
Gleneagles G8, LGBTQ+, DIY music/film) sources of inspiration came from European
underground film and squat culture, situationism, and a vision of
culture protected from state and market cultivated hierarchies of power
and commercialization. In 2006, The Star and Shadow redeveloped a building on
Stepney Bank, in the Ouseburn through the concept of a Building Festival
- a strategy for facilitating open participation in the construction of
a cultural space with the idea that building the space increased
ownership of the space which increased liklihood of programming the
space, a strategy we are now repeating in our new space.
We played host to a
genuine, alternative, independent and emancipatory people's culture up
until the building closed, at the mercy of a benevolent but capitalist
landlord. This leads to the reason for owning our own building -
liberating us from the risks of ephemeral transience that many projects
like this are exposed to in a culture of high city rents,
market-oriented urban planning policies and fluctuating state support.
In effect, through owning this building as a non-hierarchical,
volunteer-run, open co-operative, we are creating new commons! In an
era of austerity, escalating property prices and increasing economic
inequality, we are going for a
radical form of sustainability.