Tim Etchells (born Stevenage, 1962, lives and works in Sheffield) works with performance, video, sound, photography, installation, neon and LED technology. He collects words and phrases, using text to address the viewer, convey narrative and to communicate ideas. His work explores the contradictory nature of language with its ability to create uncertainty and ambiguity in playful and poetic ways.

For the Great Exhibition of the North, Etchells has made a large-scale site-specific LED text sculpture, With/Against 2018, which occupies a prominent position above South Shore Road. The work looks out across the River Tyne, and can be viewed from Gateshead Quayside or from the neighbouring Newcastle waterfront, providing a point of connection between the two.