Matthew Burton, Senior Lecturer in Illustration, reflects on The Northern Festival of Illustration, held between September and November 2025 in multiple venues across Hartlepool.

 

The Northern Festival of Illustration presents the ‘Stories of Home’ exhibition at Hartlepool Art Gallery, a curated showcase of works from established contemporary international illustrators, working across a variety of mediums. ‘Stories of Home’ explores how we use illustration to tell the stories that matter most—those that define where we come from, and what we call home.

 

‘Stories of Home’ intends to provide a celebration of visual storytelling, rooted in the belief that illustration is a universal language and holds a unique power to capture emotion, communicate identity, and preserve culture, through artwork, sculpture, picture book, comic, and animation.

 

In addition, the exhibition hosts shortlisted entries from the 2025 Festival of Illustration Prize, supported by the AOI. From over 1700 international submissions, the exhibition showcases 30 Festival of Illustration Prize finalists from three categories; Established Illustration Prize, Emerging Illustration Prize and new for 2025, sponsored by The Aardman Academy, the Emerging Animator Prize.