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Wild Geese: Exhibition

As part of this months Wild Goose Festival, The Stove cafe is currently sharing an exhibition of works produced by Fife College Learners at HMP Dumfries made as a direct response to the festival. The exhibition includes a flock of paper cut out birds, alongside two wall mounted works. Following a prolonged period in lockdown the festival was welcomed by learners as a breath of fresh air and working on this festival has been a welcome distraction during the present climate.

The learner who produced the watercolour on board painting said: “I would say the grey Largs arrive first – they are a much larger goose than the barnacle goose. About 50 went over flying very high, just a dot in the sky. They fly in family groups with 4/5 hatched gosling chicks that fly together. They return to the same place so their return to Scotland is passed onto their goslings. They like to feed as a family group and this too is passed on in this migratory journey. Food includes eating grass, rotting potatoes and chats – they love that!”

The conceptual goose painting is made up of lots of different geese contributing to the overall picture. The learner felt that this showed the comparison between all the geese working together and similar experiences within the learning centre and wider community. Individuals have tasked they need to complete to contribute to the successful journey together.

The geese will be on display in the Stove cafe until Saturday, 24th October.

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Musings Project Updates

Glaciers in the Stove Cafe

FORTUNA | FOGGYDOG | CHILD’S | SOCKS | DENNISTOUN | ANT HILL | BYRD | LEONARDO | DECEPTION | CREVASSE | PINE ISLAND | POLAR TIMES | SHAMBLES | SHARK FIN | UTOPIA | ZEPHYR | ROSE VALLEY | MYKLEBUSTBREEN | KUTIAH LUNGMA | KING OSCAR | SUN | SALMON | SILVERTHRONE | RADIANT | CHAOS | CROWFOOT | FOX | GREY | HELHEIM

There are 178,000* glaciers currently around the world. How many of them can you name?

People name things for lots of reasons; to claim ownership, to map, to locate, to commemorate or congratulate, to know or mark a time, or a place or a landscape.

In the naming of things we gain familiarity. It is easier to image a glacier called Foggydog, than one without a name.

If we can’t name them, how will we miss them when they are gone?

At the moment, 10% of land area on Earth is covered with glacial ice, including glaicers, ice camps and ice sheets. Glacial ice store about 69% of the world’s fresh water, if all land ice melted, sea level would rise by approximately. 70 metres worldwide.

Glacial ice often appears blue when it becomes very dense. Years of compression gradually make the ice denser over time, forcing out the tine air pockets between crystals.

Since the early 20th Century, glaciers around the world have been retreating at unprecedented rates. Many are retreating so rapidly that they may vanish within a matter of decades. Glaciers are considered among the most sensitive indicators of climate change as they are so affected by long term climatic change such as precipitation, mean temperature and cloud cover.

In the Stove cafe as part of our Christmas decorations, we have christened over 80 of our festive baubles ceremoniously after some of our favourite glacier names, alongside the co-ordinates so you can look them up yourself. Pop in for a closer look.

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CCS’ Library of Creative Sustainability: Case Study

Creative Carbon Scotland have just recently launched their Library of Creative Sustainability, a digital resource for people working to address environmental sustainability and climate change, and we are one of their case studies!

The new digital resource showcases best practice examples of collaborations between sustainability partners and artists seeking to make the world a better place and is aimed for people working to address the challenging issues of environmental sustainability and climate change, demonstrating the benefits of collaborating with artists and cultural approaches to help achieve their aims.

Their initial launch includes five case studies, featuring:
SLOW Clean-UP civic Experiments in Chicago, USA
WATERSHED+ in Calgary, Canada
HighWaterLine an international installation by artist Eve Mosher
Sutton Tidal Attenuation Barrier and Falkenham Saltmarsh Tidal Management Scheme in Suffolk
And The Stove in Dumfries!

Find out more about the library and the other case studies shared online here

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Flight

As part of the upcoming launch of Kathy Hinde’s Luminous Birds installation in Dumfries, Stuart Macpherson will be introducing the first in a series of pieces of his newly commissioned work Flight. Both works launch on Wednesday, 7th September, starting from the Stove at 7.30pm, ahead of the switch on of Luminous Birds at 9pm at the Globe Inn. Full details available on our events page here

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Flight – Is a moving soundscape/composition influenced and inspired by the migration of barnacle geese from Svalbard to Caerlaverock. Taking the idea of Migration from Kathy Hinde’s Luminous Birds installation, Flight explores the ability to move from one place to the other, using multiple sounds sources to create something that mimics the movement of the birds. Individual parts are composed to work together as a movement.

This opening is an introduction to the piece which will continue with further developments and performances through until November. You are invited to come along and immerse yourself in the first run coinciding with the opening of Luminous Birds at The Stove.

Stuart Macpherson is a freelance bassist and composer based in rural Dumfries & Galloway. He has been involved in numerous projects and performances, mostly recently the highly acclaimed orchestration of GRIT by Greg Lawson at the Edinburgh International Festival. He also plays in a recently formed quartet with local musicians Wendy Stewart, Gavin Marwick and Ruth Morris. Short-listed twice for the Martin Bennet Prize for Composition Stuart’s work ranges from soundscapes such as his work with Chinese pole artist and performer Phil Hardie on Welcome my Son to pieces written for Red Note Ensemble and Mr McFalls Chamber. His compositional work has been taking an expansive swing towards more experimental pieces and collaborative work such as this.

Special acknowledgement to Sound recordists Geoff Sample and Simon Elliott who have very kindly allowed their recordings of the geese to be used for this piece.

This commission is supported by:
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cooncil
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Borderlands II – Journeys to the Ice Age

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.

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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.

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Image: The corer used for the Peat Coring workshop, accompanied by artwork by Kate Foster
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Musings News

Quest 3 at SUBMERGE

“Quest” is an ongoing environmental project by artist Jan Hogarth, exploring our relationship with the environment, land, and water. Jan’s working practice grows out of a deep love of the land (in the broadest sense of the word—by “land” I mean water, trees, animals, mountains, etc.), an empathy for it, and a deep desire to heal it. Jan has been working with Sheila Pollock, a practitioner in the healing arts for over 30 years, and invites others who love the land to become involved in the environmental art quests.

In Celtic tradition, healing wells, springs, and the sources of rivers were thought to possess sacred and healing properties.

“Quest” explores rituals and the truths behind them to create and invent new environmental art rituals aimed at healing the environment. The idea of searching for the source of the Nith originated from a local rumour that the Lynors of Dumfries Guid Nychburris took spring water from the source of the Nith and carried it with them when they rode the boundaries of the town. My friend Sheila, who has been working in the healing arts, and I went in search of the source of the Nith, which is located at Dalmellington in Ayrshire. Instead, we found an environmental catastrophe in the form of open-cast mines and landfill sites, with no access to the source due to the activities of the open-cast mine operators. It was shocking—how could this river be healed when its source serves as an example of how we take from the land without empathy for our energy consumption? This seemed to act as a metaphor for the wider issue of climate change. The problem lies with us—our lack of love for non-human life and our lack of reverence for nature, water, and the land.

Sheila has worked with Jan on the Quests project, focusing on the energy of water and its places, and exploring how to lift that energy and raise its vibration. Through dowsing, there is evidence that the vibration of the water she worked on during Quest 1 was raised, and that improvement has been sustained. The Nith presents a significant challenge due to its source in an open-cast mine. Sheila and Jan will be discussing this on Thursday evening at the Stove as part of their work.

Jan’s install in preparation for SUBMERGE

Quest is part of SUBMERGE, an exhibition featured in ArtCOP Dumfries, running daily from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm until Saturday, 12th December.

Jan and Sheila will be discussing Quest as part of A Question of Scale

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