New immersive space-themed exhibition and performance opens at Beamish Museum

Artist Sarah Stamp presents Imagining the Unknown: The Reckoning of Space, a new immersive exhibition and performance opening at Beamish Museum from 9 to 30 May 2026.

Presented in partnership with Beamish Museum and commissioned as part of the Light Years programme, the work transforms Beamish’s 1950s welfare hall into a fictional future “research lab” exploring the first Space Age.

Set in a fictional far-future, the exhibition imagines how our current understanding of space might one day be interpreted as “ancient history”. Drawing inspiration from the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58 – the same period in which Beamish’s 1950s welfare hall was built – the work explores a pivotal moment when space travel moved from science fiction into reality.

Visitors will encounter The Reckoning of Space – Leek Show, a fictional community event inspired by traditional North East leek shows. Through sculpture, craft, text and storytelling, the exhibition playfully reimagines how future societies might look back on twentieth-century ideas of space, science and progress.

The installation includes:

• Mars Rocks – textile sculptures imagining extraterrestrial geology
• Architectural Prototypes – DIY models of speculative Mars habitats
• Souvenir Postcards – imagined artefacts from a future “space empire”

On the opening day, Saturday 9 May, live performances will introduce visitors to Tonya, a fictional researcher from Better Living Technologies, who delivers a guided “audit” of the Space Age through storytelling and speculative fiction. Developed in collaboration with theatre-maker Rosa Postlethwaite, the performance invites audiences to reflect on knowledge, imagination and how societies make sense of the unknown.

Quotes

Helen Barker, Executive Director – Collections and Programmes at Beamish Museum, said:

“Beamish is a museum rooted in the stories of everyday life, so we are delighted to host Sarah Stamp’s Imagining the Unknown in our 1950s welfare hall. The work offers a playful and imaginative way to connect the social history of the 1950s with the excitement, uncertainty and ambition of the Space Age. We are very pleased to be working with Light Years and Durham University to bring this creative exploration of science, heritage and imagination to our visitors.”

Sarah Stamp said:

“Imagining the Unknown brings together my interests in material culture, speculative fiction and the ways communities create meaning through objects and shared rituals. I was really interested in the idea of a future society looking back at our Space Age in the way we might look back at earlier moments in history – trying to piece together what people believed, feared, hoped for and imagined.”

Ged Matthews, Director of Light Years, said:

“Beamish is a place of time travel. Somewhere we step from the present into the past. Sarah Stamp’s work beautifully reverses that idea, inviting us to imagine a far-future researcher looking back at our own Space Age as ancient history. The 1950s welfare hall is the perfect setting: a place rooted in the old industrial world but built at the very moment society was beginning to look beyond Earth.”

Light Years connects world-class space research with creative practice, enabling people across County Durham to explore the future of science, technology and the North East space economy.

This collaboration between Beamish Museum and Light Years forms part of the Into the Light programme, a place-based collaboration designed to drive long-lasting growth in County Durham. It aims to cultivate talent, widen access to creative education, enhance the skills of the cultural workforce, and break down barriers to working in the creative industries. The museum is hosting the County Durham Creative and Cultural Skills Hub as part of the programme.

Imagining the Unknown: The Reckoning of Space will be on display at the museum from 9 to 30 May 2026. Please note, museum admission applies.