The Materials Processing Institute’s (MPI) modern methods of steelmaking will be on display at MIMA’s Teesside World Exposition of Art and Industry, celebrating the history of the industry and exploring its future in the North East.
The Expo opens at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA) on 25 June and runs until 9 October 2016. It is being organised as a response to the closure of the SSI steelworks at Redcar in September 2015.
Teesside-based MPI is a not-for-profit company, which continues to make steel on Teesside, at its specialist Normanton facility. It also works with industrial innovators to conduct research for the materials, process, energy sectors and rail. At the exposition, MPI will exhibit a range of raw materials involved in its processes alongside finished products, as well as the history of its site.
As well as exploring the area’s history and steelmaking heritage through documents and artefacts, the exposition will also feature a forward-looking showcase of new industrial technology. MPI, along with two other local industry specialists, has been invited to exhibit and display what the future holds for North East industry.
The exhibition will be sourced from and feature contributions from local collections, regional companies and international artists. It will aim to capture the industrial character of Teesside, depicting its foundation – from the extraction of raw materials, to production and the import and export of goods.
Chris McDonald, CEO of MPI, said: “The Teesside World Exposition of Art and Industry is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate Teesside’s proud industrial heritage and to look forward to its positive future.
“At MPI we are proud to offer innovative support to industrial research and development, helping to build the next generation of North East industry.”
Alastair Hudson, Director of MIMA, said: “It’s vital that an institute like us starts to take part in and tackles the issues that matter. The loss of large scale steel production is as much a cultural crisis as an economic one and we need to play our part in finding new industries, skills and solutions to keep the region economically healthy.
“That’s why the project profiles new local industrial processes and opportunities, as well as art, to understand that creativity and business are not separate but work together to shape our society.
“This is more than an exhibition; it’s an active project to make a real contribution to changing the situation. In doing this we revisit the history of the Institute movement, the organisations that were established in Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution, where learning through making, art, engineering and technology were all made accessible to many.”