Midnight Streetlight Smalltown Rain is a project between artists Martin Joseph O’Neill, Colin Tennant and composer and musician Stuart Macpherson. First conceived as a short poem MSMR has since moved onto include a series of artworks and interventions throughout the High Street and side streets of Dumfries town.
Come Dawn, a 12 hour writing project from 7PM to 7AM took place at the Bakers Oven in November. A performance installation, the writer sat typing whilst in real time, the words were projected onto the windows of the empty unit in front of a live audience.
Working from a manuscript of 60 pages the collective were commissioned by the D-LUX Festival of Light to produce an artwork showcasing one of the poems to be projected behind the Stove. The artwork deployed Burroughs’ cut-up method of writing in a live performance lasting four hours, four nights a week, where a single poem was transformed continuously by adding and subtracting the words, manually blocking the light of the projector through a window using paper and tape.
The regional project is inspired by the narratives of the small town at night and is to continue throughout the year in installations, performances and interactive artworks throughout the town.
Midnight Streetlight Smalltown Rain was a Stove Members project, supported by DG Unlimited and the Dumfries and Galloway Council.
We have received some great news to end the year – The Stove Network has been awarded the best Creative Regeneration Project in Scotland 2016! The prestigious Scottish Urban Regeneration Form (SURF) Awards took place in Glasgow last week, at the Award presentation dinner. Launched in 2003, these awards have become the benchmark for best practice and innovation in community regeneration in Scotland. This is an award for everyone connected to The Stove. We’ve all been a part of making a new momentum of change in Dumfries – whether taking part in projects, attending events, or simply being a member and telling others that The Stove is something worth checking out.
During their visit to the Stove back in October, the judges of the SURF Awards noticed a buzz about the town and could see that a big part of that was down to The Stove. It’s fantastic that other people are looking at Dumfries as somewhere that is trying out new ideas. The SURF Awards are a way of profiling and sharing these ideas. It’s been great to find out about other projects across Scotland as well, and we’re really pleased to be have been nominated alongside them
The judges commented, “The Stove Network demonstrates that a strong and uncompromising creative vision stimulates debate, giving the local community a greater voice in issues affecting Dumfries, from frequent flooding to high street regeneration. It was clear that The Stove Network has had a significant and transformational impact on Dumfries, and that the energy and drive demonstrated by the creative team, their partners and the wider community will continue to revitalise Dumfries and make a real difference to the place and to people’s lives.”
The SURF Awards identifies and celebrates success in revitalising Scottish communities. The other projects shortlisted alongside Dumfries were from Easterhouse in Glasgow and Falkirk. Since 1998, the SURF Awards have promoted regeneration initiatives, large and small from across Scotland. Town centres are now looking at different ways of sustaining themselves, and creativity and the arts have a big part to play in this.
Over the last 8 months The Stove has been part of a major community-led project within Dumfries to take positive action to create a new, beating heart in centre of the town. This initiative has gone through a series of working titles including: ‘#MakingDumfries’ and ‘Living on the High Street’ (search these terms in our website and social media and the detailed story will emerge) – but for now Midsteeple Quarter is the title that most of the diverse partnership involved in the project will recognise.
Midsteeple Quarter re-imagines a strip of empty shop buildings on Dumfries High Street as a community-run mixed development of live-work/ education/ enterprise/ social spaces.
Empty properties on Dumfries High Street (above) re-imagined as a vibrant mixed development
The project began with the #SquareGo events in March 2016 which saw The Stove taking over Fountain Square in Dumfries to ask local people how they would like to see the Town Centre re-invent itself for a new era when market towns like Dumfries will not be dominated by retail.
People marked their ideas in chalk directly onto the paving of Fountain Square
The main themes identified at #SquareGo were displayed in The Stove Cafe for 2 months for further discussion and additions
Repopulating the town centre was one of the strongest themes identified by the #SquareGo project
In the same week as #SquareGo John Wallace’s documentary ‘A House on the High Street’ was premiered at The Stove.
The film inspired local resident John Dowson to convene a meeting of stakeholders in the town centre to see if a practical action plan could be agreed to take forward the ‘re-populating’ idea. NB ‘slum’ clearances in the 1960’s emptied the centre of Dumfries with people re-locating to the housing estates at the edges of the town – now less than 1000 people of a total town population of 40,000 live in the town centre and John and his wife are effectively the last remaining residents of the High Street itself.
The initial meeting identified the run of empty buildings on the High Street starting from Bank Street and running up past the Midsteeple as the location for a core ‘block’ that could establish a new pattern of inhabitation and uses for the High Street and start the re-population of the centre.
Midsteeple Quarter marked in red
Artists impression of a mixed live-work development (indicative only)
A core aspect of the project is for local people to literally take back ownership of their town centre. Currently most of the buildings are owned by Pension Funds and other corporate ‘absentee landlords’ – these owners have no stake in the town beyond the relative value of the assets on their balance sheet. New legislation is being passed by the Scottish Government that will grant powers to community groups to take ownership of underused assets in their area – the Dumfries initiative was written up on the Common Space web platform as part of the Common Weal’s ‘Our Land’ festival in August 2016
Around this time The Stove Network established itself as the Community Development Trust for the town centre of Dumfries and was accepted as a full member of Development Trust Association of Scotland – see here for the definition of a Development Trust. The Stove then became the gathering point and lead organisation for a diverse community partnership that supported the idea of the Midsteeple Quarter and were playing a positive part in making the project a reality:
The Stove Network, Loreburn Community Council, Third Sector Dumfries and Galloway, University of the West of Scotland, Crichton Institute, Dumfries and Galloway Chamber of Commerce, MakLab, Dumfries and Galloway Council, D+G College, Loreburn Housing Assc, NHS, South Scotland MSPs, Dumfries and Galloway MP, Prominent local individuals and professionals
The vision for the project was further developed through a Visioning Session attended by 28 people representing the stakeholders listed above.
Stakeholders Gathering 6th October 2016 at The Stove
The Stove Network then circulated and action plan for group which had the priorities of:
Interacting with the Local Plan being developed by Dumfries and Galloway Council for Dumfries – to build in special conditions for the Midsteeple Quarter, enabling mixed development to be supported by statutory processes
Holding an national Architectural ‘ideas competition’ for Midsteeple Quarter to shape an identity for the project that local people and other stakeholders could get behind
Formation of a Community Benefit Company for the project that would be able to offer Community Shares to local people to fund the purchase and development of under-used properties in Midsteeple Quarter
Taking ownership of the ‘Bakers Oven’ building (from Dumfries and Galloway Council) in the Midsteeple Quarter and developing this in partnership with University of West of Scotland as an enterprise and education hub with residential accommodation above
The Stove Network has created drawings to define the idea of the Midsteeple Quarter – these have been shortlisted in the Futuretown Scotland competition run by Scotlands Towns Partnership. The drawing were done by Dion Corbett an recent graduate of Strathclyde University who has returned home to Dumfries to build her career here and is working at The Stove.
On 15th and 16th November, the Midsteeple Quarter project will be occupying the Bakers Oven building for local people to see progress and talk about their ideas and ways to be involved in making this vital project for the town come to fruition. Details about this ‘Chapter One’ event are – here
For more info about the project, and/or you’d like to get involved, please contact Matt Baker at matt<at>thestove.org
September brought Our Norwegian Trail to life with the most recent Mapping Event.We scribbled, played, discussed and stitched Our Story into creation on a beautiful sunny day despite half of our team being struck down by one of those Autumn bugs.
Large chalk drawings are always fun!We had lots of young helpers join in our antics outside on the pavement as well as a few inquisitive chats and walks down memory lane.
Artist Deirdre Nelson joined us over the two days with large printed squares of Dumfries.Embroidery silks at the ready she helped passers by stitch significant places in Dumfries’ Norwegian history as well as other personnel significance onto our maps.We are looking forward to welcoming her back to continue – and maybe tidy up slightly some of our own attempts – for the next ONS event STORY on the 10th, 11th and 12th of November, come join us!
If you have a place or a memory that relates to Dumfries’ Norwegian Story please do get in touch, we are keen to make this story truly Dumfries’.
Jordan Chisholm is a student at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland studying Contemporary Perfomance Practice. She is currently doing a placement at The Stove and writing a blog about her experience with us – this is her first post..
Jordan (with blue hair) performing in the Salty Coo performance she co-designed and produced with Dillon Colthard for The Stove’s Nithraid 2016. Photo Kirstin McEwan
When I was thinking about where I wanted to do my placement for third year – I had no doubt in my mind that I wanted to do it in Dumfries. I moved to Dumfries, in 2012, when I was seventeen years old. When I left school, I had a university offer to do Criminology but I wasn’t entirely sure if this is what I wanted to do. My mum has stayed in Dumfries for around fourteen years and it was decided that I would move in with her, to be in a new environment with no one I knew.
I’d visited Dumfries many times at the weekends and over school holidays but living there on a daily basis was something extremely different. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the town. As an ‘outsider’ coming from Edinburgh; I felt as though I really did not belong in this beautiful space and I could not explain why. I guess this was something internal and I spent most of my first year living in Dumfries travelling back to Edinburgh; there was something I was not prepared to let go and starting a new life was not as simple as I had anticipated.
Time passed and I began to open my mind. I met new people and started to do new things. I began to explore Dumfries in a new way; it was like a playground – full of magic, wonder and uncertainty. I still feel much of that uncertainty today – over four years later. However, I am not scared by this anymore; instead it inspires me and it always leaves me wanting more.
Dumfries changed me. It changed the way I look at things, it changed my opinions, it gave me a platform to do things I never thought I was capable of doing, it gave me something to be passionate about, it allowed me to learn about myself and who I could be, it shaped my future, my hopes and my dreams; Dumfries changed my life. But could I change Dumfries?
When I think about what I may want to do in the future; giving something back to Dumfries is at the top of my list. You see, in this misunderstood town, where there may not be very much to do, there are hundreds of people who all share the same love and understanding of what this space really is. Dumfries has a strange pull to it; and this pull is of upmost importance to the future of the town. We have to work together to allow people to feel proud of where they come from – to make them want to stay. This is what I want to be a part of. A part of the regeneration of Dumfries through art, creativity and sheer hope. I want Dumfries to give everyone what it gave to me, and I don’t want them to have to look very hard to get what they are looking for.
The Stove Network is situated in the centre of Dumfries. It is a fully accessible public arts space/facility/resource for the population of the town and the wider region. It is a support network that creates opportunities and connections for the creative community and integrates with the local economy and wider society. One of The Stove’s aims is to use the arts to engage and empower people for themselves, the places they live and society at large. This aim is vital to my own learning and development; I knew that this was where I had to be for placement. I wanted to know how they manage to do what they do in a town that says no much more than it says yes. I wanted to live and breathe their commitment to the Dumfries community and I wanted to be around people who share the same desires as I do; who can show me how to make a positive difference with an understanding of the quality in process as well as the product.
Although I knew why I wanted to be at The Stove, I was still extremely nervous on my first day and I did not know what to expect. It reminded me of my earlier ‘outsider’ feelings but I pushed these to the side and arrived with no expectations as to how my first week may turn out.
I was met by curator, orchestrator and public artist; Matt Baker. The motivation for Matt’s work is to have an effect in the place for which it is made. I find it comforting and reassuring having the opportunity to be mentored by someone who vocalises that they became an artist to change the world.
As part of Nithraid 2016, The Stove commissioned emerging performance artists Dillon Colthart and Jordan Chisholm to lead the procession of the Salty Coo, a now annual event starting in the town centre and finishing in the river with the Nithraid’s mascot and icon, the Salty Coo raised to a great height overseeing the sailing race’s conclusion.
‘It began with a blog post, advertising various commission opportunities for young artists in and around Dumfries & Galloway. It seemed fitting that Jordan and I would apply for both in hopes of our creative flare being challenged and displayed by the time Nithraid came around in September. We were excited, nervous and determined to bring something theatrically unique, as well as highly political, to the streets of Dumfries.
Upon receiving Nithraid’s ‘Salty Coo Procession’ commission from the Stove Network in early July, we became overwhelmed with joy and immediately began to brainstorm ideas creatively over various different types of coffee within local coffee shops throughout Dumfries with some paper, a pen and a desire to spread awareness through theatre and performance.
We came up with an idea to base our performance on the theme of ‘acceptance’ through queer performance whilst maintaining the meaning of the Salty Coo, which was to give something back to the river. Creatively, we challenged ourselves to incorporate movements with a strong message and create something which was both visual and aurally stimulating.
Grasping the attention of an audience in Dumfries, a place which has so much potential in terms of heightening awareness of LGBT, queer performance (such as drag) and acceptance was challenging yet liberating. We thought of ways we could get performers involved from more than just a theatrical background and made our goal inclusiveness though performance.
The process was overall smooth. We worked together well, got to learn more about one another than we already knew, based our teamwork on compromise and began to find a balance between our personal relationship and working relationship. It was interesting, as we have so many of the same views on various issues, yet positively challenged each other constantly to bring out our best creatively.
When the performance eventually came around, after weeks and weeks of preparation, we were ready to present the Salty Coo in all it’s glory – with rainbow coloured costumes, a kilt wearing – all tartan – unicorn, comic costumes, flower heads, white capes and colour bombs within the river to conclude. Our connection with the river has never been so strong, and the Coo never looked so good.
This opportunity is something which was indeed challenging in terms of managing our own time and being given a complete creative freedom, as we wanted to do our Salty Coo justice, as well as making the team at Nirthraid proud. This was an excellent commission for anyone looking to further their practise in the arts, whatever you may specialise in. From our preview performance – confined within plastic bags and smothered in paint – to the ‘Salty Coo’ installation and multi coloured procession, our procession came full circle, and we couldn’t be more proud of what we achieved.’
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