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Maya Edwards: Harbourland Phase 2

Context

Maya was recommissioned for Phase 2 of the Harbour project in July-November 2024 to continue their creative engagement process toward developing a community design concept for the new piece of dredged land within the Waterfront re-development. Alongside gathering local insight for the co-design process, Maya hosted a programme of events and engagement at Creative Stranraer to test ideas and continue engaging people in the creative vision for the future of the town under the regeneration.  Visit Harbour Project Phase 2 Blog Update 1 here to read the first chapter of Maya’s journey. 

Harbourland is an Opportunity to Make a Whole New Part of Stranraer. 

As part of the process of extending the marina, some dredging must take place to make Loch Ryan deep enough for larger sailing boats. Within the plans for One Waterfront a new area of land will be created next to the East Pier using the material dredged from the loch. I’ve been working with local people to imagine what this new area of land could be:

‘The safest harbour is a world between land and sea. Harbourland is an ecosystem – a place to witness and protect many forms of life and provide a space for them to survive, thrive and connect with one another.  It is place that belongs to everyone and somewhere that will show the best of Stranraer to visitors. Harbourland asks: ‘how can we act like the oyster and build an area that benefits both people and the coastal biodiversity? What are the types of ‘surfaces’ that communities in Stranraer can attach to and make their own?’ 

Harbourland Polling Station Results 

If you came down and joined the thousands of tourists and celebrators at this year’s annual Oyster Festival, you may have come across the Harbourland polling station. As mentioned in the previous update, Oyster shells were historically used as the first ever ‘ballot cards’ during the early days of democracy in Ancient Greece. This year, I worked with the Rhins Mens Shed to create an interactive installation to bring this tradition back to modern-day Stranraer to inform the Harbourland consultation. Using the data gathered from countless conversations with local people, community organisations and from Raise The Sails Festival in April, I collated the main hopes for Harbourland into 5 key categories: 

  • A sheltered place to sit and bide a while,
  • Tidal rock pools for coastal wildlife
  • A place to share stories of Stranraer
  • A space for community events and festivals
  • Interactive play structures. 

Over the weekend, nearly 400 people cast their oyster shells to vote on what they would like to see as part of Harbourland. The oyster shells that are typically gathered for redistribution back into the loch were instead used to facilitate important conversations about the communities hopes for the future of the town, before making their way back to the water. We had older residents keen for interactive play structures so that they could ‘share the town with their grandchildren’ and ‘give them a reason to visit,’ along with younger generations of nature enthusiasts who were terribly excited at the prospect of tidal rock pools in Stranraer. 

A landslide amount of votes for tidal rock pools was the outcome of the initial consultation as seen below. All of the information gathered from the Harbourland Polling Station is being fed directly back into the Waterfront regeneration. 

Sandcastle Competition 

At the end of September, I staged the Great Stranraer Sandcastle Competition on the shores of Agnew Park. I designed bespoke Stranraer sandcastle buckets inspired by the topographical oyster forms that I’ve been working with for participants to take home for future days by the Loch. 

Sandcastle competitions are an ancient tradition for coastal communities, an excuse to spend time down by the water and exercise the creative potential of natural materials. We’re hoping to create a future waterfront that is a place where families want to gather and to feel more connected to. Stranraer’s waterfront regeneration is set to transform the town in new and exciting ways, and we’re keen for these designs to be co-created  to ensure a future landscape that reflects the needs of all communities – both human and sea species!  

Following from my ‘Siltcrete’ experiments, there’s a strong intention to make use of the dredged materials from Loch Ryan in the plans for the new piece of land in creative ways that benefit the unique natural environment. The competition gave people of all ages the opportunity to take part in co-designing future structures of the coast, to be inspired by the shapes of their local ecology, and to build ambitious sand sculptures down on a mostly disused shoreline. 

Over 70 people came down to take part and Stranraer beach was transformed with people coming together to play and find inspiration from their native oyster beds. The landscape was soon transformed into a mass display of everyday creativity and celebration of local site-specific ecologies. Teams won prizes from categories including ‘best sportsmanship’ and ‘most imaginative concept’, and as ever, the creativity of Stranraer’s community didn’t disappoint. Some of the sand sculptures included the story of Esmerelda the lost mermaid, Oysterland castle, Ailsa Craig and her lighthouse, and a whale who loved smarties! By the time the tide was returning, the coastline was covered in hundreds of oyster forms, reminiscent of a community made oyster bed. 

Harbour Hub Takeover 

As the final installation within this latest phase of the Harbour project, I will be feeding back all of the community ideas, events and interventions that have taken place so far, and what there may be to look forward to in the next stage.  This will take the form of a Harbour Takeover in the Creative Stranraer Hub (23 King Street). 3 display boards will detail each stage of the project, along with the initial design principles for the new piece of reclaimed land highlighted through creative consultation. 

Alongside the 3 display boards themselves, there will also be a window screening of underwater footage commissioned by the SCAMP (Solway and Marine Partnership) project to captivate passers-by as our evenings begin to get darker. The film by the Newton Stewart Sub-Aqua Club and John Wallace documents the underwater world of the of the Solway Firth and gives us an insight into some of the ecosystems that we are aiming to foster through Harbourland.  Huge thanks to the Community Re-Use Shop for their donation of a TV! 

The final aspect of the takeover is a community boat report created by artist and consultant Anne Waggot-Knott. Anne was our researcher/recorder/reporter in Phase 1 of the Harbour project and has been embedded within the project since its conception. The Community Boat Reports are interactive, informative documents which are designed to be folded up into the perfect paper boat. These are available for all visitors to read, build and take home. 

Come and visit the Harbour Takeover from October 16th through to November 11th at Stranraer Creative Hub. 

Until Next Time… 

If you want to find out more about the Harbourland proposal programme or the context of the project, please contact Maya on [email protected]

If you want to read more about the Creative Placemaking strategies currently taking place in Stranraer, please visit the What We Do Now resource written by Shawn Boden here.

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News

Dumfries in Concertina

In September 2024, as part of our Conversing Building project, we invited artist and Stove member Emily Tough to create an artist’s book celebrating moments of everyday life. Read Emily’s account of the project below.

The Stove Network’s Conversing Building is an ongoing project, supporting creative dialogues whilst activating spaces in and around The Stove building on Dumfries High Street. 

My response was quite a literal one, to involve and document the surrounding shops, shop keepers, people, and everyday moments. These drawings were taken on site, mostly throughout July and August ‘24, to start building up an illustrative impression of our high street. I think it’s important that we consider ourselves as part of a whole, and it’s all these people and interactions which make up a town centre. 

In my opinion, it’s the shop keepers who are the custodians of the place. Who generate the want for people to come into the town, who manage the upkeep of the buildings, and who also create their own communities. Keeping an eye on their regulars through the ‘how are you?’(s) which are given over the counter. 

I’ve had such a wonderful time getting to know people and the town centre through these drawings. Really enjoying the little moments, such as Eddy helping his friend go to the bank several times in a row. Or watching Leah at Flourish discuss community asset transfer with a visitor from Aberdeen. 

I’ve really appreciated the opportunity to show work in such a busy, used space, as is the Stove Cafe. I’ve had a lot of people this past month tell me they’ve seen and enjoyed my work. It’s been useful to have a friend who works in the cafe, who also features in the publication, as she’s given me little updates on the interactions people have had with it. 

I’ve had a few people ask me for postcards of some of these Dumfries views. It’s something I’ll look into, and hopefully have the chance to go out with my sketch book and record more of our town. 

I hope people have enjoyed seeing themselves, or people and places they know, in these drawings. 

Thank you to Katie Anderson at The Stove Network for this wonderful commission & to the kind people who let me draw them. 

Written by Emily Tough (@weagreeoneggs)

Conversing Building is an ongoing project, supporting creative dialogues whilst activating spaces in and around The Stove building on Dumfries High Street. Conversing Building began in 2017 and is supported by The Stove’s Public Art lead. The project invites local groups, artists, and collectives to share displays, exhibitions, activities, and interactive artworks within the Stove’s public spaces – including The Stove Cafe, stairwells, and exterior walls and spaces.

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News

The Travelling Gallery Returns to D&G

Travelling Gallery, a contemporary art gallery on a bus, is back, bringing its third season to Dumfries and Galloway this October. 

The Gallery will visit three sites across the region, featuring Repair Café, a 16 mm film by Scottish artist and filmmaker Helen McCrorie. The film was co-created with the residents of Strathearn in Perthshire as part of the Scotland-wide Remembering Together project, which aimed to bring ‘collective acts of reflection, remembrance, hope and healing to communities across Scotland’ in the years following the COVID pandemic. 

When asked about McCrories’s exhibition, Edinburgh Council Culture and Community Convener Val Walker said, “[The exhibition] promises to be an insightful exhibition that will inspire us all to reflect on the inequalities that were compounded by the pandemic, and the different ways we made our way through with creativity and connection. 

In partnership with the What We Do Now Network and The Stove, they will be visiting: 

The film engaged people of all ages through creative workshops, asking them to recall what helped them both during the pandemic and beyond. It weaves hand-drawn animation and footage of beloved community spaces with oral histories and evocative music by local school pupils and musicians. The soundtrack features a special arrangement of the song Strathearn by Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne of Strathearn, a contemporary of Robert Burns.

Exhibited alongside the film are a number of additional works that reveal some of the processes and thinking behind its making, including an interactive display with 16mm film reels, a colourful abstract animation and an atmospheric sound work.

McCrorie has also collaborated with Glasgow-based illustrator Annabel Wright to produce several drawings that bring to light more of the personal stories shared during the project: some sad, scary, or poignant, some hopeful, funny, or surreal. The work expands further upon the spectrum of insights and experiences from this time.

The gallery is free to visit and open to all. Visit Travelling Gallery website for more details.

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News Project Updates

Off The Margin with The Stove Network and WWDN Digital

WWDN Digital works with community groups and organisations to set up and run digital spaces, host collaborative programmes, and create shared online resources to increase communities’ access to technology and training in digital media skills. As part of its launch, The Stove Network hosted Off the Margin, a micro-festival celebrating Dumfries’ print heritage.

In this age of digital media outlets and information sharing, Off the Margin delved into the print heritage of Dumfries and investigative journalism more broadly.

As part of this programme, The Stove’s Artistic Director Martin O’Neill sat down for an insightful discussion with a panel of speakers whose expertise ranged from the history of investigative journalism to Riso printing techniques and working in the former news and print spaces of Dumfries’ high street.

While examining the current landscape in Scottish grassroots print and journalism, the panel tackled how communities, creatives, and journalists can reclaim their agency while navigating an era marked by an increasingly divided mass media and heightened public scrutiny regarding the accuracy and biases of printed media. This discussion revealed insights and sparked a hopeful community discussion on the potential future of print, media, and journalism in Dumfries and Galloway.

The discussion directly followed a screening of film-work Imprints in Time by Artist John Wallace, documenting the master printmakers and enduring machinery still in use at Solway Print while uncovering the printing heritage of Dumfries town centre.

The panel comprised of Judith Hewitt (Museums Curator East for the Dumfries and Galloway Council), Johnny Gailey (Out of the Blueprint Project Manager), Karen Goodwin (Investigative Journalist and Co-Editor of The Ferret), Pete Fortune (Doonhamer* and Printmaker), and John Wallace (Artist & Filmmaker).

Each panellist brought unique and specialised knowledge into the discussion. Hewitt shared her expertise on the unique history of early print protest, bringing to life Doonhamers’ struggles and lived experiences in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. From historical accounts of the Kings Arms (now Boots) to outlining how individuals used print to protest food inequalities, Hewitt brought with her a wealth of knowledge that leaves you returning for more. Out with the panel, she oversaw the exhibition ‘Fighting for Justice: Strikes and Protests in Dumfries 1770-1920’ as part of the Off the Margin period.

Gailey brought over a decade of experience in printmaking and youth engagement to the conversation, underlining the importance of teaching young people this skill and providing them with the means and opportunities to grow their confidence and creativity. At Out of the Blueprint, the eco-studio he co-manages in Leith, Edinburgh, he specialises in Japanese printing techniques such as RISO,
GOCCO, and provides mentorships for young artists. They offer affordable, sustainable, and ethical print services for the local community and reinvest all profits to support young people through residencies, publishing support, training, and education initiatives.

Goodwin works as a journalist and a co-editor for The Ferret, a media co-op where she reports extensively on social affairs and health inequalities. While on the panel, she highlighted the importance of community-owned news for tackling media bias and misinformation. Outside The Ferret Goodwin has written for many Scottish and UK broadsheets, magazines, and online platforms, including the Sunday Times and the Guardian, reported for BBC Scotland’s Disclosure, and has worked on other radio and film projects. She is currently writing and co-hosting the podcast ‘Sheku Bayoh: The Inquiry’.

Fortune’s working life began in the printers of Dumfries, having grown up in a golden thread family line of Doonhamer printmakers. Pete Fortune brings a vivid, real-life account of the industry, capturing his apprenticeship and the vibrant characters and community of the town at the peak of the printing era. He rounded the discussion out by proposing the lifelong fellowships that printmaking can craft. Fortune moved on in his career to become a social worker and is now a writer of memoirs and short fiction.

Wallace, the artist behind Imprints in Time, brought to the panel a career that expands across multiple disciplines, from installation work to filmmaking. His work delves into human relationships with constructed and natural environments, emphasising the idea of ‘insider art’, allowing locations that personally connect to the artist to be central to a film’s narrative. Inspired by the fusion of technology and the environment, Wallace incorporates live and historical data sources to craft the responsive, dynamic audiovisuals found in Imprints in Time and all his installation spaces.

‘Off the Margin Micro-Festival’ ran between March 22nd and 23rd, 2024, as part of the What We Do Now Digital Media Festival.

*A Doonhamer is a colloquial term to describe someone who is born and bred in Dumfries

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Musings News Project Updates

Creative Spaces X Conversing Building: Inspiration Donation

We got stuck straight into our first Creative Spaces project at the start of August, and I think I speak for all of us when I say we had a ball with it. We wanted our installation to examine the ideas of imposter syndrome in creativity and dissect what it is that makes a person creative. And so, the Inspiration Donation was born. It went through a couple of iterations before reaching its final form, but we were all dead chuffed with the final installation. We started off by going on a wee adventure to the local garden centres to check out clear containers (we did get briefly distracted by the fish on display at Heathhall Garden Centre) and had a roam about the Range to get the rest of our supplies together. 

We worked together on four panels of collage to demonstrate how we hoped the final product would look – we experimented with creating stencils for these too, along with the ‘feed me’ stencils that went up on the walls. It was great to start working together on some artwork, it was a fun way of bonding and building each other up as a team. The installation went up with the help of Stovie & artist Katie Anderson, who offered her expertise and guided us through the process. We had some brilliant donations from the Stove team after we had added our own inspirational pieces in (some Blu Tack, a feather and a funky rock), such as a vintage toy car, a post-it note that read ‘Sparkle Baby’, and a map of the town.

Our Conversing Building project was a super fun introduction to our roles at Creative Spaces. It was my first opportunity to work collaboratively on a creative project with other young creatives, something that felt quite daunting at first is now something I’m looking forward to doing more of in the future.

James

The Conversing Building project pushed us straight out the gate to create something that represented us, and in turn our community in Dumfries. It helped us work as a team and realise where some of our strengths lie”

Sonah

Conversing Building was a really interesting jumping off point for our time with Creative Spaces. Working on this project taught us how we fit together as a team, and got the ball rolling with our style and approach.

Anna

Creative Spaces is a Dumfries-based collective of young creatives, working with and advocating for our region’s young artists.

Situated in the heart of Dumfries, Creative Spaces collaborates with young creatives from across the region, providing young people with opportunities to engage in the arts. Whether it’s through events, workshops, mentorships, or our annual Associates Programme, we aim to enhance Dumfries and Galloway’s creative scene by offering free access to opportunities and paid commissions.

Keep up to date with the Creative Spaces team on Instagram: @creative.spaces_
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