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Tag: Dumfries

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Football in Our Street – ONS Rematch

In August we reclaimed the High Street of Dumfries town centre with football (albeit in a cage – next time we can try without!).  Celebrating the long standing friendship of local football club Greystone Rovers with Norway started in a 1940 match between Dumfries locals and Norwegian exiles resulting in a draw.  A rematch was called and eventually played in Bergen in 1951 beginning a series of exchange visits over the years since.  With Greystone Rovers 80th anniversary upcoming in 2018 they are keen to resume their friendship and exchange opportunities for their club members.  Graham Muir, club manager, has supported The Stove’s Our Norwegian Story project as an important recognition of how beneficial these friendships can be.

This event tied in with the Our Land festival of events across Scotland looking at land use and the importance of community ownership of these spaces.  The Stove wrote an article to highlight how our events can reach out to tackle wider national issues which can be found here on The Common Space website:

www.commonspace.scot/articles/9000/our-land-its-time-buy-back-our-high-street

Our Norwegian Story continues to develop, with the depth of stories bubbling up from under the surface, with personnel memories knitting together these more historical events.

Stay tuned for more next week – Films, food, drawing big maps and stitching our story into existence!

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Football in our Streets
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Activity outside The Stove
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The Greystone Rovers youth team
The Greystone Rovers youth team
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Screen printing T-shirts with Sarah Keast
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Memorabilia from the 70 year relationship between Greystone Rovers and SK Brann was on display in The Stove
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Time for Subbuteo

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Its Time to Buy Back Our High Street

read the full article here
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Here Comes Nithraid!

September 3rd sees The Stove’s fourth staging of Nithraid, a fun family event that takes place on and around the river. Nithraid is a celebration of the town’s long relationship with its river, highlighting the way the Nith connected Dumfries to the rest of the world through trade, goods (including Coos) and sail power. It is created and produced by The Stove Network and is part of the groups mission to make creative opportunities for local people to be involved in the future of Dumfries

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Matt Baker, lead artist on Nithraid, says, “It’s really exciting to see the event continue to grow and change with each passing year, for 2016 we’ve been overwhelmed by the support of local businesses and community groups – Dumfries is definitely pulling together for the Nithraid! New for 2016 we have the inclusion of Coastal Rowing and we’re also very lucky to be able to offer such high quality food produce, as well as a range of arts and activities on the Mill Green.”

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The daring sailing race, starting from the Solway Firth and sailing right up the River Nith into the centre of Dumfries, is made possible by one of the highest tides of the year. While waiting for the boats to arrive, The Stove invites you to enjoy the ‘arts and food village’ at Mill Green, opposite the Whitesands, from 12 noon until 4pm. Join in with art activities and demonstrations for all ages, listen to acoustic music, visit a mini market of local food producers, as well as watching the procession of the legendary Salty Coo, starting from Dumfries High Street down to Mill Green, where the winning skipper has the honour of lowering the Coo and releasing her into the river.

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For more information, including how to take part, please visit www.thestove.org/nithraid

Sponsors for Nithraid 2016 include McDermid Supply Co. Ltd, Dumfries Timber Co, Monaghan’s Jewellery, Farries Kirk and McVean, People’s Project, Lowland Accountancy and Luke Moloney Architect.

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Kathy Hinde’s Luminous Birds

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Stunning sonic and light installation to visit Dumfries, Dundee and Glasgow from 7 September.
The large-scale work will illuminate lanes and public places in Dumfries, Dundee and Glasgow with an animated flock of origami-style birds suspended overhead in celebration of the Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design 2016.

Composer, sonic and visual artist Kathy Hinde will be bringing her stunning sound and light installation Luminous Birds to locations across Scotland this autumn.
As a key event in the Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design 2016, the sight and sound spectacular will illuminate public spaces in Dumfries (7 September – 14 November), Dundee (12 September – 19 November) and Glasgow (16 September – 16 November) as hundreds of origami birds flock overhead.
Luminous Birds is designed and hand-crafted by Cryptic Associate artist Kathy Hinde and encourages members of the public – from commuters to day-tripping families to night owls winding their way home – to ‘look up’ and appreciate their day-to-day environment. The innovative design of the mechanical birds (created from paper, plastic and metal) will transform their surroundings using synchronised lighting and spatialised sounds that create the effect of birds flying overhead. The action of many birds, flocking together, is one of nature’s most amazing phenomena – an ultimate act of cooperation, hundreds moving together in harmony.
“I’m particularly excited about showing Luminous Birds in Scotland during the autumn because many birds will be on their migration passage at that time, with huge flocks of Barnacle Geese resting near Dumfries and Pink Footed Geese further north near Dundee.” said Kathy about the work premiering in Scotland. “I want to create the effect of birds flying just above people’s heads, through alleys and lanes right in the heart of towns and cities, highlighting some of the many beautiful aspects of bird flight, through light and sound.”
Cathie Boyd, Artistic Director of Cryptic said: “We are delighted to be able to show the work of Cryptic Associate Artist Kathy Hinde on such a large scale, with Dumfries and Dundee being inspiring firsts for Cryptic. We are developing dynamic relationships with new partners and communities across all three locations and further afield – encouraging everyone to come and experience this mesmerising event.”
Especially for Dumfries, The Stove has commissioned musician and composer Stuart Macpherson to create an accompanying sound work and performance artwork, that will pop up during and around Kathy’s Luminous Birds. More information on Stuart’s commission coming soon!
Luminous Birds is a free, non-ticketed event, to be viewed after dark; it opens at The Globe Inn, Dumfries High Street on 7 September, with further flocks appearing at The Howff, Meadowside, Dundee on 12 September and Kingarth Lane next to Govanhill Baths, Glasgow from 16 September. Celebrating its historical design as both a water tank and dovecote, the Mackintosh Tower at Glasgow’s The Lighthouse will also host the birds from 20 September up to 8 January, encouraging visitors to journey upwards through evocative soundscapes before reaching a flock of birds fluttering and chirping in harmony at the top.
The installations will feature an accompanying free workshop programme led by Kathy Hinde, encouraging members of the local community to create their own origami birds. In Dumfries, these workshops will take place as part of Nithraid, The Stove’s annual boat race and river festival on Saturday, 3rd of September.

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Snapshots Dumfries

Snapshots – a fast paced photography competition was first conceived by blueprint100 member Elli – invited competitors to challenge themselves and their camera to a day of exploring the town through different topics in the form of a photography marathon.

2 Hours, 12 Topics, 12 Pictures

In the run up to the competition, photographer and Stove member Kim Ayres joined the blueprint100 Open Tuesdays, to offer help, hints and inspiration to those interested in taking part.

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An ambitious 20 participants raced off at 10am, keen to win the ‘golden camera’ that was first prize, and most returned bedraggled and worn out and in need of coffee!

The judging panel was comprised of Kim, stove curatorial member Martin J O’Neill and Elli herself, who spent the following two hours judging all of the images that had arrived back at the Stove.

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Image credit: Kim Ayres
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Following on from the competition, Martin hosted a workshop with blueprint100 members developing narratives from the collected photograph sets, to work into short pieces of poetry and prose in the run up to the next Brave New Words.

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A selection of our favourite images from Snapshots Dumfries are available to view here

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ONS Artist in Residence

Those of you who attended our Norwegian Skill Share, Dugnad at the beginning of the month may have met our new artist in residence, Kirsten Bertelsen, who has joined the Our Norwegian Story team.

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Kirsten Bertelsen (b. 1966, Denmark) lives and works in Copenhagen. She graduated from MA Psychology at University of Copenhagen, Denmark (1991-1998) and BA (Hons) Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College, UAL, London (2012- 2015).

She setup Gesamtkunstwerk Aps (2008-2015), an independent cultural agency specialized in strategic development of arts institutions, and their relationship with local communities. She has worked in association with the Danish and Scandinavian Arts Councils and is currently working on a 10 year/long term art trail in the region of Sör Tröndelag in Norway.

Over the last 3 years, she has developed a project in Norway, working to link young London based artists with the region Sør Trøndelag north of Trondheim. Every summer four artists travel to the island of Stokkøya to work for 4 weeks. The residency is part of a long term plan to ignite the area, instilling a sense of belonging amongst the residents on the island, which will hopefully encourage younger generations to come back and settle when they have graduated with their degrees from universities in the bigger cities.

Exhibitions include Strangelove Moving Image Festival, London (2015), Metaphoinica Film Festival, London (2015), The Kings Cross Curious Festival, University of the Arts, London (2015), One to One Charting the Personal Terrain, The Rag Factory, London (2014) and In Between States, Mile End Art Pavilion, London (2013).

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Norwegian Skill Share – Rope Making and Knot Tying with Cluaran. Image: Ronnie Galloway

As an artist, she has a strong interest in the role art can take outside the bigger cities and how artistic methods can contribute to an investigation of values about place and about belonging. She takes pleasure in research both from reading, and studying archival material, from talking to experts, and from listening to the stories of local people. Kirsten is from Scandinavia, and has been working intensively in Norway making her a great asset as Our Norwegian’s Story artist in residence to help bring this part of Dumfries’ story to life. So if you have any questions or stories please do get in touch. She will be living in Dumfries for 2 months during Autumn, and she will be very happy to meet you.

Kirsten Bertelsen – [email protected] – 07583548048

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