About the Film

This film documents Courting Power, a haunting and inventive installation by artist and researcher Johannah Latchem, staged in the historic courtroom of Newcastle’s Guildhall. Working as an arts videographer in Newcastle means spending time in exactly these kinds of hidden, layered spaces, and Courting Power gave me the chance to explore both the visual and sonic texture of a genuinely unique historical environment.

The Guildhall’s Courtroom

Built in 1655, the Guildhall is one of Newcastle’s most significant heritage landmarks. Over the centuries it housed the Assizes, the Mayor and Sheriff’s courts, and an Admiralty court, sitting at the centre of the city’s civic and judicial life. Its grand courtroom, spanning over 92 by 30 feet, features oak-beamed ceilings, ornate panelling and period paintings that once witnessed the weight of justice, and at times, social unrest. In 1740, a crowd of 3,000 rioters stormed the Guildhall during a grain riot, shattering records and leaving a lasting imprint on its walls.

The Case of Margaret Hebbron

Latchem’s installation centres on the real life case of Margaret Hebbron, tried in this very courtroom in July 1834. Margaret was sentenced to 14 years’ transportation to Van Diemen’s Land, now Tasmania, for receiving a silver watch. Historical newspapers recorded that as her sentence was pronounced, Margaret’s screams rang through the hall, a moment of raw human emotion that Latchem set out to explore both artistically and scientifically.

A Soundscape Built From the Room Itself

In Courting Power, Margaret’s scream is transformed into an eerie, siren-like tone, projected from the dock. The sound was designed using acoustic analysis to replicate how a woman’s voice would actually have carried from that exact spot in the room. Standing in the dock, visitors are enveloped by underwater sounds recorded at a real prison hulk mooring site in South Shields, evoking the ships that would have carried prisoners like Margaret into exile. Soft whispers drift through the courtroom, punctuated by the sharp crack of a judge’s gavel.

Tim Shaw, a sound artist from Newcastle University’s Culture Lab, worked closely with Latchem to build this immersive sonic environment. Archaeologist Gianluca Foschi’s meticulous 3D scans of the courtroom added another layer again, revealing how the room’s architecture affects acoustics, and how certain voices, particularly those of women, might have been amplified or stifled by the design of the space itself.

Filming as an Arts Videographer in Newcastle

While filming, I focused on the Guildhall’s finer details: the carved wood panelling, the play of shadows across historic paintings, and Latchem’s newly crafted oar mace, referencing the courtroom’s Admiralty past. The building’s neoclassical facade and turbulent history added another layer to the piece, connecting the room’s past civic functions with the present-day artistic exploration happening inside it. Projects like this are exactly why I enjoy working as an arts videographer in Newcastle: they bridge art, history and technology, giving voice to the silenced and showing how a space itself can become an agent of storytelling.