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We're Back!
by Ruth Barker 22 Apr 2010 in The Editorial: The Commissioning Season
Hello Hello Hello,
it seems like an age since I saw you last. For those who’ve been trying to access the site over the past couple of weeks I can only apologise. We were forced to take PAR+RS offline while we sorted out some vital maintainance and admin issues that simply couldn’t wait. But I’m now very happy (you don’t know how happy – really) to say that everything PAR+RS-side is now shipshape again, and we’re back with a bang right into Gi!
We will of course be covering a lot of the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, but we’re also about to launch a new Spring / Summer Season on Temporary Public Projects so there’ll be lots of new articles to browse – do get in touch if there’s something you think we should know about. Gi is important though, as it’s a time during which a lot of international – and national – visitors come to Scotland to see what it is we’re doing here. Of course, not everything in the Festival has a relationship to contemporary public art, but it’s inarguable that much of it does – not least in the structure of the Festival itself, and the DIY ethos that still permeates it.
We’ll be picking out some of the best projects for your perusal in a public art themed Most Wanted; and we’ll have plenty of coverage of Jodi Rose’s Welcome to Bridgeland project, which is launching with an event tomorrow (Friday) at the South Portland Street Suspension Bridge in Glasgow (that’s the old red foot bridge on the River Clyde, next to Jamaica St Bridge). Please come down for the 8 o’clock start – hope to see you there!
We’re also looking forward to Jacqueline Donachie’s Speedwork Symposium, which PAR+RS has sponsored – save the date now and come down for a fantastic event at House for an Art Lover on April 29th.
For now though, I’ll have to leave you. I’ve got plenty to do getting ready for the new Season…
More later, and thanks for bearing with us through the temporary interruption.
R.
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Community Engagement- an magasine
by Rocca Gutteridge 22 Mar 2010 in Artachat
Another article that caught my attention-
from a-n magazine a couple of years ago now… -
in transit
by Jodi Rose 22 Mar 2010 in Welcome to Bridgeland
Almost time to leave now for the bus en route to Helsinki (I am flying but that’s another story) after a wonderful Glasgow sojourn.
Relaxed and reconnected after the weekend – tambourine lesson on the front lawn in Saturday sunshine, talk of invented rituals and ideas for the ‘opening’ ceremony. Lowsalt initiation of Vestiges Park BBQ on Sunday: perfect weather, great company and tasty food. More excellent development conversations about mediums…
Thanks to all the magnificent Lowsalt crew, household and friends for their incredibly warm generous welcome and adventures.
That’s my very short teaser update, next stop Manchester!
Vestiges Park BBQ -
Podcasts, Central Station and further research...
by Rocca Gutteridge 22 Mar 2010 in Artachat
The podcast for “we don’t need no gallery education” can now be viewed at:
I have decided to use Central Station as a way to host these podcasts as their software is quicker than mine and I hope it will widen the audience and debate for Artachat further still.
Along the same lines of education I am currently writing up an Object Biography for my Masters. The project is titled. “Word of Mouth Cafe: An Alternative Education Space” and explores cafes as alternative spaces for learning as well as taking a deeper critique into the Artachat project itself (which of course is held at the Word of Mouth cafe).
I hope I will be brave and post this Biography up once its done for anyone’s perusal and comments!
But for now I thought I’d post up a couple of useful web links I’ve found while researching the project:
http://e-flux.com/journal/view/127
http://www.engage.org/scotland/
Article by Iain Biggs:
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*if you cannot find us it is because we have fallen off your maps
by Jodi Rose 19 Mar 2010 in Welcome to Bridgeland
Here we are again. Interfacing through the computer.
Brain meld.
We have to stop meeting like this.One day, you and I, on a bridge…
Don’t you sometimes wish everything would just stop?
Not forever, in some fatal morbid way.
The relentless incessant never-ending having to get things done.
Keep all the plates spinning, the balls in the air, the belief that what you’re doing is worthwhile and somehow maintain the faith that it will all work out?
No?
Yes!Whatever it is on those plates, we all seem to be enacting the same impulses. Survival, love, annihilation, distraction, control. I need to be outside this for a moment. This flesh, this world, this mind, this skin – you can tell I haven’t been meditating lately. It’s a jumble in there. Thoughts emotions ideas fleeting impressions all cracking up against each other, shattering and dissolving to the winds. Let’s not even start the debate on the value of culture…
That’s what I like about bridges – and art. They give you a moment to be released from whatever it is your day demands of you. To not be whoever you are. Imagine some other worlds. Well, they do when they’re working. Sometimes it’s transcendent.
I have that weird homesickness feeling for a place I’ve never been. I know it, I dream myself there – it just won’t materialise.
This is my motivation for Bridgeland. A space to create the world we can imagine together – not as a utopia, or a dreamstate – but to be inhabitable. Not that I can claim to imagine for anyone else.
Although I would like to imagine on behalf of those who need it.Seriously, if you can’t start to imagine somewhere different, then how on earth can you ever start to make it real?
I went to visit the Vestiges Park today. It’s under construction, a beginning sculpture park – wonderful, magic. The scaffolding was in place and a sign taking shape. The feminine knotweed has taken over the land, winding roots so deep that the site can’t be developed commercially – a brilliant ploy on the part of nature.
“A Collective Intervention into a Forgotten Landscape
Vestiges Park does not exist, cannot exist, will not exist. The artists involved deny all knowledge of the project and the authorities are mute. In some cases these artists may not actually exist – they split, double, multiply, evaporate, condense, dissolve and merge until truth and fiction, science and magic become indistinguishable. Vestiges Park is a chimera – there and not there – dare to find us, dare to enter and let us take you to the edgelands, the rotting places where nothing is as it seems…
…and if you cannot find us it is because we have fallen off your maps
*Jim Colquhoun
Vestiges Park is inspired by the 1844 anonymous publication of ‘Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation’’. The book, written by Scottish journalist Robert Chambers, exposed a cosmic theory of transmutation which pre-dated Darwin’s ‘Origin of the Species’ by 15 years."
This is the Lowsalt group project happening simultaneously (with Bridgeland), in the wilderness next to glasgow sculpture studios, and I think part of a unique vision. It’s an amazing community to be so warmly absorbed into, with such passionate artists, craftspeople and musicians creating deeply rich synergy. Taking me into their home at Maxwell Palace (ironic in case you’re wondering, although it is bohemian palatial and wonderfully abundant) and opening all kinds of local connections and welcoming spirits…
Today we visited the marvellous wardrobe mistress of the Scottish Opera, and arrange the hire of the most fabulous costumer – sorry my lips are sealed, you’ll just have to be there!
We have no map for Bridgeland, the way to arrive is up to you. I hope you will be here there now and then.
