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Dumfries Town Centre Plans Showcased at National Event

The Midsteeple Quarter Project in Dumfries has been presented as a case study at a national conference on community land ownership in Glasgow. The event, which took place on Tuesday 6th March, was led by Community Land Scotland – a registered charity which was established as a response to the need for a collective voice for community landowners in Scotland.

Our very own Matt Baker delivered the presentation last week, and commented on new legislation from Scottish Government which has made places with a population of over 10,000 people eligible for community buy outs of derelict buildings and land that is blighting their communities. For years, absentee landlords have been able to hold our High Street to ransom – this national event in Glasgow showed that Dumfries is one of the towns in Scotland that is leading the way for local people to take back control of their town centres.Up until now, communities taking ownership of their land has been a rural affair, with high profile examples such as the Islands of Eigg and Harries and Assynt in the North West mainland. The event on Tuesday addressed the need for urban communities to use the legislation and opportunities of community empowerment to regain ownership of empty builidings on High Streets that are owned by absentee landlords.
The Midsteeple Quarter Project is an example of community-led initiatives and has been working to breathe new life into Dumfries town centre by developing a section of the High Street as a live/work quarter. This project is a response to the desire to re-populate the town centre. Long-term and careful consultation facilitated by the Stove Network, Dumfries High Street Limited and other partners have identified a block of mostly Georgian buildings in the heart of the town centre as the site for this bold initiative that will see local people developing their own High Street.

On Saturday 7th April, there will be a public launch for the Midsteeple Quarter Benefit Society, and everyone in the community is invited to join in the effort to take back control of our High Street.
People can keep up to date with Midsteeple Quarter Project by visiting their website: www.midsteeplequarter.org.

Categories
Musings

Beyond Burns

From Dr Gerard Lee McKeever
I was delighted to have the opportunity to run an event at The Stove in Dumfries in February. They are a really exciting arts network who have been a driving force in revitalising Dumfries town centre in recent years, part of a much broader flowering of cultural activity in the region.

Gerry McKeever introsducing 'Beyond Burns' at The Stove
Gerry McKeever introducing ‘Beyond Burns’ at The Stove

 Beyond Burns was an evening of poetry and talks about literary Dumfriesshire & Galloway, past and present – the first event funded by my British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. It was an opportunity to engage with the local public, aiming to inspire thinking about other literature connected to the region around the time of Robert Burns, as well as more contemporary writing.

Beyond Burns Galina Walls

After an opening talk in which I surveyed some of the early fruits of my research, I was delighted to give the stage over to three local poets: Hugh McMillan, author of many books and pamphlets including Not Actually Being in Dumfries (2015) and McMillan’s Galloway (2016); Liz Niven, widely published in Scots and English and recently the editor of I’m Coming With You (2017); and Stuart A. Paterson, the latest BBC Scotland Poet in Residence, who has a new collection titled Looking South (2017). All three poets gave performances featuring a mix of their own work, other local poetry and reflections on the literary history of the region, with particular stress on issues including place, gender and language.

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‘Knowledge Exchange’ and ‘Impact’ in academia have acquired the off-putting quality of all buzzwords. But literary scholars are among those best placed to engage with wider audiences. I’ve been really heartened at the response my project has had from the local community over the past six months. It’s clear that there is a significant wellspring of local knowledge and enthusiasm for eighteenth and nineteenth-century subjects. Through my involvement with the Oxford University Press edition of Burns at Glasgow, I was introduced to some creative ways of tapping into the massive public interest in Burns. Certainly no other D&G writer has his profile, but there is a real appetite for the wider literary-historical landscape here.

Beyond Burns Galina Walls Stuart Paterson
Stuart A Paterson
Beyond Burns Galina Walls
Liz Niven
Beyond Burns Galina Walls
Hugh McMillan

Engaging with three contemporary writers has also been a refreshing way of developing my thinking. Liz, Stuart and Hugh are all poets with a keen interest in the historical, geographical and political issues around living and working in this part of Scotland, with its unique perspective on local, national and global contexts. Further collaborations have already been mentioned – it’s great to reach beyond the traditional confines of scholarly research and participate in what is an optimistic moment in the region’s arts scene.

Beyond Burns Galina Walls

Beyond Burns was well-attended and closed with a Q&A session, before an after-hours writing workshop for keen attendees. The response to the event has been brilliant – I hope that it has helped to stimulate some new conversations about this rich literary history ­– including but also beyond the legacy of Burns.

Credit to Galina Walls for the photos from the evening.

Categories
Musings

Melting Pot with blueprint100

From Emily Cooper:

‘Open creative space is vital when it comes to fostering and nurturing creative thought and practice but it comes at a premium both in terms of cost and available footage. Studio space for young people can seem a daunting and unobtainable prospect and can be an almost immovable barrier when starting out.

Having a safe and inspirational environment in which young people can freely express themselves without fear of ridicule can be the catalyst that takes an “Artist”, whatever their chosen field, visual, word, music and beyond, from a being a timid foreshadowing of their full potential, to a confident and self-empowered young Artist (this time minus the air quotes).

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Throughout my time at Blueprint, I’ve watched as waves of young people reap the benefits of being allowed to take up space, sometimes for the first time in their lives. It makes me incredibly proud to be part of such a project, a project that has helped some young people, uncertain of their paths in life, and more worryingly uncertain of their ability and worth to both pursue careers in the arts independently and also get accepted into prestigious Art Schools.

Artists, by nature, often suffer from crippling crises of confidence. A ready made cure for this can be collaboration, at least in idea and discussion, if not in practice. Meeting with peers and engaging in debate, whether harmonious or discordant, can go on to create sparks which ignite some of the most vibrant and innovative artistic endeavours.

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With all these things in mind, following a successful pilot, Blueprint are launching a block of four Melting Pot sessions. Melting Pot is an open studio drop-in running on every Tuesday of March from 5:30pm- 7:30pm. Young people are invited to come and hang out in The Stove Cafe, to work on their own projects and feed off the creative atmosphere.

melting point blueprint100
Categories
Musings

Guerrilla Localism in Dumfries

Maureen Farrell's letter in the Standard earlier this month
Maureen Farrell's letter in the Standard earlier this month
Maureen Farrell’s letter in the Standard earlier this month

We were inspired recently by a letter in the local Standard newspaper from Maureen Farrell, looking at some of the locally-led community projects and initiatives kicking off in Dumfries and calling for a push from agencies and larger organisations in the region to join a new movement of locally inspired positive change for Dumfries.

For those who missed it in the paper on 6 February, we’ve decided to reproduce it here.

Thank you, Maureen!

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Having just enjoyed the delights that the Big Burns Supper brings to my hometown of Dumfries, I have realised that here is a home-grown success story, conceived by a local person, Graham Main, and brought to life by hundreds of volunteers.

It brings the town to life in the dead of winter, but as well as entertaining us, it most importantly brings money and people into our region.

Kirstin McClure Rowe and Leah Halliday are working on a project to bring artists, makers, and producers of crafts to the High Street to assist them in marketing their produce, but especially to revive the High Street. By having a variety of talented people show their wares, they hope to offer a range of unique products and help to market Dumfries as a town that people will want to visit.

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At the moment, Save Rosefield Mills is holding community consultation meetings to explore how we might rescue the beautiful mill in Troqueer that overlooks the River Nith. Luke Moloney, Mark Zygadlo, and Sheila Cameron are leading the battle. It would be such a failure if we let our heritage rot away. Again, it is a local initiative led by local people.

Rosefield Mills

The Stove is facilitating an attempt to bring housing and other services back to the Midsteeple Quarter. Matt Baker and fellow activists are leading this community-led initiative, which would help in repopulating our wonderful Georgian High Street architecture.

Belle Doyle is leading an attempt to improve the rail connections between Dumfries and the Central Belt with the Dumfries Railway Action Group. This would not only improve our access to Glasgow and Edinburgh, but it would also bring people flooding into this area.

These are all examples of local people doing it for themselves. These initiatives have sprung up now because people are tired of seeing the town of Dumfries fade away. We deserve something better.

There has been a lot of criticism of Dumfries and Galloway Council for not doing more, but we have to remember that local government is being hammered by austerity and is struggling to fulfil its legal duties in the fields of education, social work, litter collection, planning, etc.

Today I read an article by Aditya Chakrabortty about the regeneration of Preston, a town in Lancashire which had problems similar to our own. Preston turned its fortunes around by spending locally. They call it ‘guerrilla localism’. [You can read the article in full here.]

The local council, National Health Service (NHS), and other big-spending organisations were persuaded to spend whatever monies they received from government in their local area, keeping the money circulating there and bringing more employment to the town and its surrounding area.

They did this by breaking down contracts that had to be tendered into amounts that local firms could provide. This increased the number of local people who were in employment; they, in turn, spent their money locally, and the town and surrounding area prospered. By having the courage to take the initiative, local councillors in Preston rescued their town from fading away into obscurity. Why not Dumfries and Galloway, I thought.

I believe the examples I have outlined show that we have the people locally who are prepared to work energetically to make things happen. Now we need the local council, NHS, and other agencies that are centrally funded to examine what they do with the considerable amount of money they do receive and make it work for Dumfries and Galloway.

‘Guerrilla localism’ could turn around the fortunes of Dumfries and Galloway.

Categories
News

This is not just a car park.

An evening of short artist films, screened outdoors in our backdoor Greenspace, accompanied by freshly baked pizzas created by Shed Therapy’s Gavin Philips with support from some of our foodie Stovies!

Greenspace Reel to Real
greenspace
greenspace pizza

Our Greenspace project is an ongoing project within the Stove that looks to transform the backdoor area of the Stove creating a warm and welcoming level access to the building, as well as providing bike parking, and options to populate and take over an otherwise disused and neglected space within the town centre.

As part of our first outdoor Reel to Real, we screened a selection of films by local filmmakers, focusing on artists based across Scotland, including:

Emma Dove’s On Another Note
Colin Tennant’s Portrait of an Artist featuring our own Matt Baker
John Wallace’s Dumfries InBetween

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greenspace pizza
greenspace pizza


Thank you to everyone who helped out, and the filmmakers for kind permissions to screen their films. We hope to do more events in our Greenspace later in the year! This event was part of our Rabbie Burns Time – a week of events and activities celebrating the Bard and the Big Burns Supper in Dumfries. Photography credit: Kirstin McEwan

greenspace pizza
greenspace pizza
greenspace reel to real
Categories
Musings Project Updates

Tattiefields Community Evening

From Katie Anderson – Lead Artist for Tattiefields
Tattiefields has awakened a true fascination with all things tattie-related as I’ve spent the summer working and re-working ideas for a new public space as part of a housing development in North West Dumfries. From the names of potato breeds, to their origins, growing seasons and varieties, good recipes to creative projects – I’ve started to go a little tattie-mad.

We decided to host an evening to share this new obsession, towards creating a bit of identity for the Tattiefields site, and also to become the first point for sharing the proposed designs for the location. Exciting times.

Tattiefields 1

The evening included a creative workshop inventing potato men, women, children, animals and aliens…, a curry cooking workshop, the sharing of new designs, a tattie buffet and ended up with some film screenings and the impromptu judging of the best tattie people creations. The event allowed Kirsty Turpie and I to really embrace our love of food as art and art as food, with (I hope) excellent results!

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Tattiefields 3 KMcE
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Tattiefields 5 KMcE
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Tattiefields 7 MM

I’ve had some really great feedback to the designs, and now looking forward to getting into the production phases for the project! I am still very keen to speaking to anyone who is interested in developing a project to support vegetable growing, either in gardens in and around Lochside, or on site at Tattiefields in the Spring. If you have an idea or are interested in sharing some vegetable growing skills, please get in touch by email katie<at>thestove.org.

Tattiefields is part of The Stove Network’s Lochside Public Art Project, working in partnership with DGHP and Creative Futures Lincluden and Lochside.

Big thank you to project assistant Kirsty Turpie, Michael, Liam Templeton, Agne and Jimmy and Matt B for all the support in pulling the evening together. Thanks and image credits to Kirstin McEwan and Michael. To see the extended picture gallery, visit our Flickr page here

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