JOURNEY
Journey is a sculptural artwork, featuring over 3000 train tickets – each one representing a journey, a person and a story. Sewn together, they become a larger statement exploring ideas of connection, belonging and humanity.
From January to July 2024, Beth collected train tickets from across the UK and spent several days working at Middlesbrough railway station, engaging with staff and station users. She gathered tickets from many travellers passing through the station, striking up conversations about their journeys and discovering what brought them to Middlesbrough from across the world. The coloured threads used to bind the tickets together recall the old Edmondson railway tickets, which came in a number of different colours and were used on the rail system until the mid 1980s.
Journey was displayed in Middlesbrough Train Station between September 2024 and March 2025.
Journey was commissioned for Middlesbrough’s Most Creative Station - a project delivered by Navigator North as members of Middlesbrough Cultural Partnership, and supported through The Cultural Development Fund, a Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) fund administered by Arts Council England.
Photo credit Rachel Deakin