This March, join us at the Stove as we celebrate International Women’s Day 2024 with programmed events by, for and to celebrate women!
On the first of March we are kicking off our short series of #IWD events with a screening of Wildfire; part of our Reel to Real programme.
Reel to Real: Wildfire (March 24th):
This powerful film explores the complex bond of sisters Lauren and Kelly, navigating loss, trauma, and community secrets set on the Irish border.
The film is triple F rated in that it is written and directed by women and features significant women on screen; and in this case all three by writer/director Cathy Brady.
Doonhame Queens: Open Mic Poetry & Pamphlet Launch (March 8th):
On March 8th (this year’s official #IWD!), join us for an evening of powerful words and heartfelt expression at Doonhame Queens.
We will be celebrating the launch of ‘Mucky Pup’, a pamphlet of poetry by Elieen H Irvine. Edited and put forward by Susi Briggs, the Galloway Scots Scriever of the National Library of Scotland.
Doonhame Queens will also feature an open mic. Whether you’re a seasoned poet or just starting out, come share your work in a supportive and encouraging atmosphere.
Our final event in our #IWD mini-series is our March edition of Dumfries Women’s Signwriting squad. This monthly meet-up is a space for women of all ages and backgrounds to learn and practice sign writing. It’s a fun and interactive way to develop a new skill, meet new people, and build a supportive community. No prior experience is necessary, so come with an open mind and a willingness to learn!
So, mark your calendars! International Women’s Day is just around the corner, and we can’t wait to welcome you to the Stove. What stories will be shared? What voices will be heard? Let’s connect, empower, and raise awareness for gender equality.
As we get closer to the end of 2023, we want to say a big ‘thank you’ to all of you, our customers, communities, friends, advocates, and colleagues for the support and dedication you’ve given us over the last 12 months.
Thanks to your support and that of our funders, partners and dedicated team, The Stove has been able to support people, both locally and across the region, to work in the creative sector, participate in creative activity and develop new community-led initiatives and enterprises.
You lot are awesome!
We want to wish everyone a wonderful holiday, however you choose to spend it, and all the very best for 2024 – We look forward to welcoming you back to The Stove in the New Year.
The Stove Office and Stove Cafe will closed from 3pm Friday 22nd Dec, and reopen on Tuesday 9th January at 9am.
From all at The Stove, we wish you a happy festive season.
An opportunity to showcase your work and practice at The Stove.
The Stove Network is looking to commission an artist/creative practitioner(s) or community group to engage creatively with 100 High Street’s award-winning Stove Cafe through our ‘ConversingBuilding’ project.
It brings together a variety of creative works and projects that address local issues and engage with our local community, promoting and exploring ideas related to both local and global topics.
Ranging from subjects like ecology, heritage, and local democracy, Conversing Building delves into ideas, and discussions through diverse creative mediums, including sound, textiles, print, and visual art approaches to invite and inspire conversation and interaction with everyone that walks into our doors.
About the Commission
This is an open brief for creative practitioners to apply their own creative approach to the environment.
Practitioners of all types are invited to work with the Stove’s creative department and cafe team to realise a ‘takeover’ of the cafe space. drawing their own creative interpretation into the environment.
We are open to all forms and styles, from printmakers to installation.
We encourage applicants to consider how their work may address or speak to local concerns in an open and inspirational way.
Considerations
Our cafe is a busy space, and we are unable to lose out on seating spaces. Proposals must take into consideration how the work will complement the established environment of the cafe and not disrupt the day-to-day running of the enterprise.
The Stove Cafe is a place where people work, eat, chat, drink and play so do consider this with your proposal.
Proposals should consider how creative interactions with the space are sensitively balanced with the rhythm and life of the cafe and how interaction is best served within it. For example, proposals which require significant floor space are unlikely to work, as too proposals which centre on projected image/film may not be feasible due to daytime lighting obstructing the view.
Traditional exhibitions or previously exhibited work are invited however applicants must consider how the work relates to/compliment the Conversing Building projector, contributes to dialogue connected to our town centre location, and how they may go about re-imagining the work for the space in question.
Previous examples of Conversing Building projects can be found here.
Fee and Materials
The total fee and materials budget available is £1,750.
How this budget is split is subject to your proposal and will be agreed with the selected artist or project before the start of the commission, but must be inclusive of all additional costs including travel and VAT.
Schedule:
Application deadline: 5pm, 14th January 2024
Selection process: Week beginning 15th January 2024
Final selection made: 23rd January 2024
Installation dates Week beginning: 11th March 2024
Exhibition running time: 18th March – 13th April 2024 (inclusive)
Exhibition takedown: 15th April 2024
Application Process
An outline of your approach. (max 500 words). Submissions can also be made via video or audio file. If you would like to submit your approach in another format please do enquire with us as we are happy to accommodate any accessibility requirements in this regard.
Up to 3 examples of your work
A CV (or similar) outlining your experience to date
Proposals should be sent to [email protected] with the heading: Cafe Culture: Arts Commission
If you would like to speak to a member of the team to discuss your idea, please get in touch.
The Stove is showcased as a leading example of how art and cultural activities can lead change, for and with the local community.
Colin Smyth MSP for South Scotland addresses the crucial role the culture sector plays in our local communities in Parliamentary debate, and spotlights Dumfries based organisation, The Stove Network along with Lift D&G and Midsteeple Quarter as examples of where Art and Cultural activities work to support communities.
Dumfries Town CentreLift D&GMidsteeple Quarter
“…The Stove have used arts and cultural activities to bring together diverse communities to drive positive placed-based solutions to the challenges people care about, for example, the future of their town centre. Using arts and culture, not as an end in itself, but as a means to deliver a wellbeing economy.”
Colin Smyth MSP
Dumfries Fountain Guid Nychburris / MOPBack 2 Back
“The Stove is honoured to be highlighted in this way in Holyrood. The ‘Culture in Communities’ report by the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture Committee of the parliament is an important examination of the deep value of participating in culture in communities throughout Scotland. The recent and very welcome announcement, by Scottish Govt, of increased funding for culture is an opportunity to look more deeply into the recommendations of the report and make an innovative shift in the way we support culture in Scotland with dedicated funding for participation in culture, in a similar way to how we fund participation in sport for its health benefits.”
Matt Baker, CEO of The Stove Network
As the Scottish Government builds a budget for culture, Colin Smyth urges; “… we need to better recognise the wider role of culture in delivering that wellbeing economy… by better ring-fencing funding streams for community participation.”
Watch Colin Smyth’s speech here:
Matt Baker addresses the topic of participation in culture and the issues surrounding the current funding model for culture in his blog “A Culture of Participation aka Growing Our Own Culture” published in April 2023.
In the blog Matt discusses the need to review the current role culture plays in supporting communities and suggests a new approach – Participation in Culture Initiative Framework, which could include a percentage for culture across government departments, accountability/collaboration across departments in implementation of participation in culture, regional/place-based approach to implementation and Innovation in funding models.
Hear about the Dystoveia Escape Room from the Creative Spaces Team. This project transformed Room 2 in the Stove into a dystopian escape room in August 2023.
Why an Escape Room?
On one of the blessed sunny days in June, our creative producer Mia asked us two million-dollar questions: what kind of things do we like to do for fun? And how could we bring that to D&G? After a great creative session where each of the CS team individually mind-mapped our answers, we discovered a common thread between us: an escape room! Why did such a thing not exist here?
We initially thought this might be too ambitious an idea for a bunch of amateurs. However, a good friend of mine (shoutout to Seb Summers) kindly booked us a slot at his escape room in Glasgow. Our visit to Riddle Rooms, led to us learning a lot about what makes an escape room good and the mechanics behind it. The possibilities of what we could create ourselves seemed endless, so deciding our theme early was key for honing our ideas. This made us consider the room as an unravelling story as opposed to a random mixture of puzzles.
OUR CONCEPT:
Dumfries has fallen under the control of an oppressive regime. Your team of rebels have managed to infiltrate the high-security government control room and the town is locked down on red alert as they try to hunt you down. It is up to you to save the town in time and to escape before state officials discover you.
Following an in-depth storyline that unveils the secrets of Dumfries and the authoritarian regime, you and your team must work together to uncover hidden clues and solve a variety of puzzles to progress and beat the clock.
We wanted our participants to feel like they had stepped into a parallel universe, completely different to the town they knew. So, we blacked out the windows, turned on the AC, and set the scene with a distorted video of our mole (played by the talented Sahar) leaving instructions for the rebels (the participants). Without a huge budget to work with, we circulated our props list far and wide and managed to collect a lot of cool stuff that helped transform the room. Finishing touches like a doomsday timer, fake cobwebs, chains and hazard tape really pulled the room together.
What we hadn’t anticipated was how much of our planning time was taken up by logistics. Without any access to fancy tech, we had to come up with solutions (painful zoom trialling and walkie-talkies) to make the scenario feel as realistic as possible with close to zero in-person contact with the room. The timings of the room also required a lot of planning. Every participant in an escape room approaches the experience differently with unique problem-solving skills. In the end, Room 2 had transformed into a complex labyrinth of puzzles, where we made sure the room wasn’t too easy or too difficult to complete in the hour – something we discovered when trialling the room with different groups of people.
It’s time to escape…
Once the escape room was set up and ready to trial, we had two teams come and test the room for any bugs or potential problems that would cause any mishaps. The trials were successful for two reasons; it Identified what worked and what didn’t, and it revealed itself to be a fully-fledged legitimately enticing escape room.
The night we opened, all our participants were keen to get started and they all had brilliant positive feedback once they had escaped the room. Each team that participated were all enthusiastic and up for an evening of puzzles and hilarity which made each game as lively as the last. Whilst being informed of the room rules and the mission brief, it was clear that participants were becoming increasingly intrigued and excited to get started. Perhaps this was because the room’s particular story was unique to Dumfries/The Stove. With the aid of a lot of in-house equipment, we were able to create a convincing atmosphere which was as functional as it was aesthetically immersive. As the creators and facilitators of the evening, we had an enjoyable night. This felt fantastic, as we had come so far since our ambitious idea a couple of months previous. Since we had no major technical issues or mishaps, it was safe to agree it was a successful night. We felt like we had accomplished something great when there was a demand to potentially do it all again!
WHAT WE LEARNED…
Dystoveia was a very popular and successful event. With only eighteen spaces available (three groups of six) we didn’t have to do much advertising before it sold out, and we found that there were many friends and family who expressed interest after all the spaces had already been taken.
Once the groups had booked, in hindsight we could have gotten in touch earlier to tell them the time slot we wanted them to come in for. If we were to run this event again, we would also request contact numbers from those who signed up so we could communicate with them more easily.
We learnt that arranging the room and the puzzles took a lot more time than expected when we began constructing the space. We only gave ourselves a week which felt quite rushed, but thanks to the Stove team’s flexibility we were able to have two trial runs to iron out any mistakes or sticking points before the day of the event.
TOP TIPS
A free escape room in a town without any escape rooms was a brilliant idea, and it sold out very quickly! If you are looking to create an escape room from scratch, here are our learnings.
1. Make use of resources online for puzzle ideas – there are lots of ideas out there, and many are cheap, low-tech and relatively easy to put together.
2. Develop a strong back story, narrative and characters for the escape room – the fun in the experience is largely due to how immersive it is, try to completely transform the space.
3. Do your research – visit at least one escape room with a group of friends/teammates and record what you learnt.
4. Find people to help you with trial runs – you will learn a lot!
5. Don’t put too many distracting decorations in the room – everything will be seen as a potential clue so make sure you do a deep clean and make sure nothing is in the space that you don’t want to be there.
Thank you to everyone who got involved with Dystoveia; from testing puzzles, lending décor to the space, to coming along to the event! It was a team effort, and we definitely couldn’t have done it without you!
By our 2023 Creative Spaces Team – Martha, Sahar & Korey.
This year, our famous Salty Coo was carried along Mill Green behind a piper, before being dunked in the Nith by a group of vikings!
On 2nd September 2023, we welcomed teams of sailors, coastal rowers, canoes and kayaks at the tenth annual Nithraid River Race. Our competitors entered the Nith at Glencaple at high tide and raced to Dumfries and back, battling for the best time.
Competitors getting ready to race in Glencaple.
Although there was the occasional cloud, we were fortunate to have a bright warm day for racing. The nice weather brought lots of people to the banks of the Nith, who enjoyed spectating the race. The day brightened as the afternoon went on, creating perfect conditions for those who joined us to watch and take part in the activities at Mill Green.
Some of our racers watching the tidal bore come in at Glencaple – with some kayakers enjoying the wave!
Produced by The Stove Network and supported by Dumfries & Galloway Council, Historic Environment Scotland, and EcoArt, this year’s race saw the return of competitors from previous years, as well as new racers who travelled as far as the Firth of Clyde, and North Queensferry to compete. This year we had a great mix of kayakers, coastal rowers and a few sailors who enjoyed their surroundings on the Nith.
Wigtown Bay CRC before the race.
The first vessel left the banks of Glencaple at 1:03pm, with sail boats setting off first, followed by rowers and finishing with kayakers.
Coastal rowing boats preparing for the race to start.
This year, each boat had to transport precious ‘cargo’ – flags created by young people during EcoArt’s flag making workshops.
As the boats arrived at Mill Green, each boat delivered their flag and it was raised over the Suspension Bridge, creating a fantastic visual spectacle for those enjoying the race in Dumfries and signalling the halfway point of the race.
Rows of colourful flags adorn the Suspension Bridge, marking the halfway point of the race. (EcoArt is a grassroots charity connecting community, art & sustainability. Find out more about the LAND project and EcoArt here.)
“Nithraid celebrated its 10th Birthday this year with one of it’s most successful turnouts! We had over thirty vessels of different shapes and sizes competing which really brought the river to life, making it feel like aproper celebration. Thank you to all of the spectators that lined the banks of the Nith to cheer our racers on! It made a very special day even more memorable. Nithraid is all about celebrating our town’s river, and we are delighted that so many people took part, watched and enjoyed the activities planned for the day.”
Sal Cuddihy, Nithraid Project Manager and Head of Production at The Stove Network
The public watching the boats arrive at Mill Green, whilst enjoying stalls and activity.
In addition to the annual River Race, the Stove Network led a series of family-friendly activities at Mill Green, all free of charge and accessible along the banks of the River Nith, including:
‘If Fishes were Wishes for the Nith’ by Elizabeth Tindal, Freelance Ranger.
The Missing Museum Drop-In
Nith Life Community Visioning
Boats arriving in Dumfries
Before the second leg of the race could begin, we had the annual tradition of the dunking of the salty coo! The coo (our mascot) symbolises the historic journey made by herds of cattle, led by their farmers, across the river at low tide, from Maxwelltown on the west bank to the cattle market at Whitesands on the east side of the river.
Our Salty Coo was taken in procession across Mill Green, led by a piper, before being returned to the water. The vikings from Cluaran took care of our coo on her voyage in the Nith. Hello coo!
After a quick rest and and refreshments from the Robert Burns Centre, our competitors were ready for the second leg of the race.
Racers get ready for the second leg of the race.
Our sailors and rowers were first to depart back to Glencaple, with our kayakers canoeists setting off at the same time for the final stretch!
The Nithraid team ready to time the second leg of the race. Team rowers setting off for Glencaple.On your marks, get set…Go!
Beyond Mill Green, there was various activity for the public to enjoy at the Coach and Horses and the Dougie Arms. At the Coach, there was an exhibition by artists Fraser Irvin, Neil Patterson, Leanne Bradwick and a live performance of ‘Nithraid’, a poem by Davey Payne. Both pubs hosted live music throughout the day till late at night!
We can’t thank our competitors enough for all the hard work and effort each of you gave to this year’s race. You are all winners in our eyes.
However, it is also important to give credit to those who were succesful in achieving the best time!
The Nithraid 2023 winners:
Category
Team / Boat Name
Total Time
Coastal Rowing
Firth of Clyde Rowing Club
01:25:51.00
Rowing
Lady Moira
01:10:45.00
Sailing
Egret
02:12:21.00
Kayaking
Phil Dean
01:10:56.00
A MASSIVE thank you and well done to all who took part in our tenth anniversary race. We are had a fantastic day, and we hope you did too!
The Nith Inshore Rescue team.
Thank you also to EcoArt, Simon Lidwell & the Cluaran Heritage Project clan, Nith Life, The Missing Museum and Elizabeth Tindell for the wonderful entertainment and activity at Mill Green; the safety boats who were out on the Nith all day to keep the competitors safe; Nith Inshore Rescue, who do the vital work of keeping our waters safe all year-round; Dumfries and Galloway Radio Unit who helped with parking and safely directing boats and competitors in Glencaple; all those who volunteered at this year’s event to help us set up and facilitate the race; and the businesses around Dumfries who set up special live entertainment around the town to help us celebrate Nithraid – The Dougie Arms, and Coach and Horses Inn.
Our Salty Coo en route to the River Nith.
– The Stove Network
For more information on Nithraid, visit our webpagehere.
We use cookies to improve your experience on our website, analyse traffic, and personalise content. By using our site, you consent to the use of cookies. Please read our privacy policy for more information.
Cookie Preferences
Manage your cookie preferences below:
Essential cookies enable basic functions and are necessary for the proper function of the website.
Name
Description
Duration
Cookie Preferences
This cookie is used to store the user's cookie consent preferences.
30 days
Statistics cookies collect information anonymously. This information helps us understand how visitors use our website.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool that tracks and analyzes website traffic for informed marketing decisions.
