Monkfish Productions CIO

28/09/2023

You'd all be welcome to join us THIS EVE online for a final Monkfish Productions CIO hurrah! x

Don't forget to come along to our final online event this evening at 6pm - we'd love to see you there!

If you'd like to join us, please email [email protected] and we'll send you the link.

28/09/2023

Don't forget to come along to our final online event this evening at 6pm - we'd love to see you there!

If you'd like to join us, please email [email protected] and we'll send you the link.

26/09/2023

We're particularly proud that Monkfish was part of Newcastle’s Holocaust Memorial Day Programme two years running with A Little Bit of Good In The World.

Exploring the 2021 theme, Be the Light in the Darkness, we produced a short film on how Newcastle is and can be a place of hope and light. It was written and performed by Sky Hawkins and filmed by Andy Berriman.

25/09/2023

Our Producing Place project was all about creating site-specific art and work within communities.

We interviewed a whole host of creatives about their practice and ran events in Saltwell Park, Gateshead, including a sharing event featuring artwork from local groups, created during workshops with artist Damien Wootten.

Illustrator Erin McGrath even created a fantastic roadmap for us, to highlight best practice when producing place and space based work.

23/09/2023

If you'd like to join us for our last ever Monkfish event, don't forget to let us know you're coming!

Our final 1-hour online reflection will take place on Thursday 28th September at 6pm and we'd love to see you there. Please email us at [email protected] and we’ll email you the link.

21/09/2023

Now that the cat's out of the bag and we've announced that Monkfish is closing, we thought we'd take a look back at some of the projects we've worked on over the years, which have given us the chance to work with so many wonderful artists and creatives.

One of our favourites was A Little Bit of Good In The World, which was all about exploring the everyday things that make life great. We got to work with artists including the lovely Josie Brookes Illustration and Melanie Kyles, who ran creative sessions with the young people at Projects 4 Change.

They came up with some really beautiful creative work!

19/09/2023

📢 So long! Monkfish Productions is closing down.

Monkfish Productions has been in operation since 2007 as a CIC and more recently a charity (CIO). Since then, we have created spoken word and multimedia performances and installations and, more recently, focused on combining a range of artforms to support artists and communities to reimagine existing physical spaces.

During Monkfish’s life span, we’ve held a funeral for dead fictional characters, measured the heartrate and blood pressure levels of performers in real time, reclaimed a former Department of Work and Pensions office as a place of Xmas anarchy, eaten more than one banana in recreating Beckett’s masterpiece Krapp’s Last Tape, and composed a soundscape with the residents of a former pit village featuring a cameo appearance from a local bee colony. All these endeavours are just a smattering of all the wonderful things we done and the people we have worked with – too many to mention here, sadly. We’ve co-made creative shenanigans with communities in Newcastle and Gateshead and have been inspired and moved by the resilience and ingenuity of all the communities and artists we have worked with. There are so many of you out there and we are in awe of what you do.

A particularly proud moment for us was to have been part of Newcastle’s Holocaust Memorial Day Programme 2 years running with A Little Bit of Good in the World. And all of this, or much or it, would not be possible without all the funders, venues, and partners that we have worked with and been supported by along the way. Special thanks to Arts Council England, who have been an incredible support for much of Monkfish’s run.

But the only thing in life that is truly constant is change. And after 17 years, our Artistic Director Claire Murphy-Morgan is starting a new life chapter. She’s been the mainstay of Monkfish throughout and, to be frank, no Claire, no Monkfish. So, it’s with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of Monkfish. There will be a final 1-hour online reflection on Thursday 28th September at 6pm. If you would like to join us, please email us at [email protected] and we’ll email you the link.

So long, farewell and thanks for all the (Monk)fish ❤️