In 2008, photographic artist Jo Howell was in the second year of her BA Hons in Photography, Video and Digital imaging when she created this series with Sunderland band Sheer drop.
The Bunker in Sunderland has been synonymous with the Sunderland music scene my whole life. It is the backbone of grassroots music production in the City and it has been since its founding in 1980. It’s a small space with huge ambitions and it has quietly guided some of Sunderland’s most talented artists.
The website for The Bunker says:
The original Bunker was born as a youth project in Borough Road in 1980 before moving to Green Terrace in 1982 and finally settling in its current home in 1983.
From Toy Dolls to Kenickie, The Futureheads to Field Music there has been a strong and independent grassroots music scene thrashing it out behind The Bunkers unassuming walls for decades.
Bands were formed, broken and remade but the music was always constant. The building itself had a fine and varied history from being a well known bakery to a respected bike shop. The Stockton Road location has always been a thoroughfare for travelling between Sunderland and the surrounding villages.
Perfect for entrepreneurial activity.
Sunderland is a music city 2025
These photographs are now 17 years old! The band members are now spread across the world leading their adult lives.
I’ve been very lucky to have grown up alongside Sunderland’s music. I have friends in bands and we all partied together.
As for me, I have sang a few songs and smashed together colourful bricks on GarageBand but that’s as far as my musical talent extends.
When I was at Sunderland college approximately 5 years before these photographs we would go round the bars (underage) on buskers nights. There was lots of performances and we all frequented Sinatra’s on a Tuesday after drama for the karaoke.
For a second year university project we had to come up with a fake client and go through what we would do. Professional practice. I decided that my mates band Sheer drop would be the client and I would tag along Rolling Stones style.
I used a combination of low res digital photographs documenting practice, Polaroid photographs for portraits that they could interact with and my very first transient collages.
I still use all of these processes today and it was one project I did quite well in because no one was dicking around the way I was dicking around.
Scans, interactions and intimate background scenes that most people don’t get access to. It was rough and ready and spontaneous in nature.
To be honest it was the first project that I had really enjoyed for a while. I’m at my best when I can just run with the tangents that my brain throws at me.
The other project I was proud of was my ‘Scratched’ series of darkroom portraits where I brought the sitters in to interfere with their portraits however they saw fit.
I think that my systematic approach to projects began here.