A week long residency followed by performance by dance collective Orphaned Limbs exploring connections and notions of ‘home’, When in Roam. The residency included live music performance from musician Ross Whyte, and open performance workshops.
Working alongside Orphaned Limbs, ‘stovies interactive’ Michael Sullivan and Donna Winter were commissioned to make responsive work alongside the When in Roam project.
The performance itself, a mixture of projection, dance, spoken word and sound took place across both floors of the Stove, followed by a Q&A with the performers and artists involved.
blueprint100, The Stove’s emerging artist group have launched their mission for the Spring, to take over Glasgow! blueprint100: an exhibition, will run every Saturday from 12 noon to 4pm at On The Corner, a great wee venue near the Barras on London Road full of energy and enthusiasm.
Artists taking part in the exhibition:
Emily Cooper
Sebastian Summers
Hayley Watson
Rhiannon Dewar
Jade Walters
Victoria Blackaby
There will be a closing event to mark the end of the exhibition, details on this coming soon!
Huge thanks to exhibition co-ordinator Michael Moore, artist support Cate Ross, the emergency install team, and the fabulous guys and gals at On The Corner.
As Scotland continues its fascination with Nordic culture, The Stove Network in Dumfries has received funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund for their project, Our Norwegian Story, which will map a trail through Dumfries’ town centre celebrating its links with Norway during WWII. This is another example of a local arts project being successful in bringing national investment to the area to create activity in the town centre for the benefit of local people and businesses. The Stove has been awarded funding by Heritage Lottery Fund for a series of public events highlighting ‘Our Norwegian Story’
During WWII Dumfries’ population was nearly 20% Norwegian harbouring the headquarters for Norwegians in exile and as a result became the birthplace of the Scottish Norwegian Society we know today.
Norway House, or Norges Hus in Dumfries. Note the shot down German tail fin attached to the front of the building.
The project comprises of a series of imaginative public events, led by the artists of The Stove Network, that create opportunities for Dumfries to tell its Norwegian Story. Work begins with participation in Dumfries Museum’s Viking event Summer Wandering on Saturday May 14th when The Stove building becomes Norway for the day. June will see a Norwegian Market as part of the town’s Guid Nychburris celebrations. Other events planned to highlight this important relationship include football in the town square hosted by local club Greystone Rovers, Norwegian skill-share and story-telling events, musical composition workshops, performance, creative mapping, as well as the launch of the Norwegian Trail itself in March 2017.
Working with research and design collective Lateral North the project will use this important part of Scotland’s history for people to learn about the stories of our past in a way that can also help re-imagine our future and connect to the wider Nordic Scottish Connection.
Project Leader Katharine Wheeler says, “We are very excited to have received funding for this project and be able to start our programme of events. It allows us to record, preserve and learn about this part of Dumfries’s story in a contemporary context as well help to re-establish connections with Norway providing exciting new cultural opportunities”
Stories and memorabilia gathered during the life of the project will be included in an online archive to provide a lasting legacy for future generations to access and share. The trail itself will be an interactive app that guides local residents and visitors around places of particular significance, learning about this part of history in a fun and contemporary context.
The Stove Network are currently seeking a creative practitioner to work on Our Norwegian Story on a ‘Research-Led Residency Commission’ – details on how to apply available here
Anyone wishes to find out more about the project and its calendar of events should contact Katharine Wheeler at [email protected] or call 01387 252435.
Borderlands II was a two day conference, including an amazing peat coring at Kirkconnel Flow, organised by Stove member and environmental artist Kate Foster, with delegates arriving from Northumbria and Cumbria, The Borders and D&G, as well as further afield.
The peat coring, led by Dr Lauren Parry, was a time travelling experience back to the Ice Age through the samples of peat and eventually down to boulder clay, six meters down in the depths of the bog.
The second day was spent in the Stove, including exhibition and talks given by a range of speakers including story teller Malcolm Green, Dave Pritchard on wetlands, and Nadiah Rosli’s focus on Peatlands of South East Asia.
Image: The corer used for the Peat Coring workshop, accompanied by artwork by Kate Foster
As part of our ongoing Reel to Real cinema series, on Thursday 21st of April, we hosted a screening of Blueberry Soup, a documentary exploring the constitutional change in Iceland following the 2008 financial crisis, and the re-invention of democracy through the rewriting of the nations constitution.
Following the film screening, there was a Q&A with the films director, Eileen Jerrett via Skype live from Seattle.
The red cards had become popular during recent protests in Iceland following the Panama Papers release, and caused Eileen to begin her #messagestoIceland, sending supportive messages to those still pushing for constitutional change in the country.
Reel to Real is our regular cinema series of issue based and topic films, followed by open discussions, workshops and food share events encouraging our audiences to engage more indepth with some of the themes and topics discussed in the films screened.
Today our new friend and sign painting ninja Ciaran Glöbel led a group of Stove members in an inspirational workshop on the art of hand painted lettering.
An example of Ciaran’s work – you can see more at his website
Ciaran talks alphabets
There is a resurgence of interest in the traditional art of sign painting – this is partly because the sameness and ubiquity of computer generated plastic signage is wearing thin and partly because street artists (graffiti etc) are rediscovering the old arts of hand painted signage as a language for their work. Ciaran Glöbel is good example of this – he is a street artist who for the last two years has been making a living as a sign painter.
Letters by Elli, Ciaran + Jo, Katie, Lyndsay
Single stroke brush lettering practice
The day was rounded off with a public screening of ‘Sign Painters’ a movie which is a moving call to arms for artists to take to the streets and bring back the quality and originality of bespoke designed and hand made signage and street art.
‘I think every human being has the ability to alter their own environment with their bare hands.’ ……absolutely goddamn right!
Just imagine how different Dumfries High Street could look if all the independent traders had hand painted signage by local artists? #MakingDumfries
Thanks to Katie for organising everything and Ciaran for being so generous with his knowledge and having great banter
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