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Musings News

Let’s Talk Education

By Morgan Love

The Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) was implemented into the Scottish education sector in 2010, and to mark twenty-years since Scotland last held a national debate on the future of education, the Scottish Government invited groups of people to host conversations focused on the ways in which CfE has been successful, and to investigate what potential improvements can be made for the future.

The championing of education has been a pillar of my life from an early age. Having grown up with a grandparent who was unable to partake in primary education, due to a physical disability, it was sustained throughout my childhood that education is not only a tool that can be used to build a balanced and well-rounded life, but also a gift that should not be taken for granted.

It is for this reason that when the Let’s Talk Education* initiative was brought to my attention, I wanted to use it as an opportunity to gather together organisations working within the creative sector in Dumfries & Galloway, and begin to look at how how we can utilise our networks, skillsets and experience to make a difference in our region and pave the way for a new vision for Education.

Armed with official questions from the Scottish Government and a few topics of interest, I facilitated a discussion with a group made up of eleven practitioners from eight separate local organisations (alongside two educators), and embarked on a conversational journey that provided so much more than expected.

Initially, I set out to explore three topics that could be fed back to the Government, these were:

  • The barriers to accessing creative industries
  • The link between mental health and art
  • How we can aim to implement STEAM (science, technologies, engineering, arts, and maths) over STEM (science, technologies, engineering and maths).

While these three topics became the core of the conversation, the feedback from the participants and insight shared allowed the discussion to evolve, branching out and offering opportunities for further discussion on topics including; the limitation of time and resources for educators, exploring methods of teaching popular in Scandinavian countries, and how education and culture feed into one another.

The overriding takeaway I had from the discussion was that our town, and wider region, is filled with organisations and individuals who care passionately about the young people who live here and about supporting new ways of engaging with them and developing opportunities for them to express themselves through creativity.

My hope is that this conversation is just the beginning, highlighting what could be possible if likeminded people come together and talk about important issues such as accessibility and inclusion.

For me, by facilitating this event, it has become clear that continued involvement with established education providers is an important way for us to engage with young people, to showcase the possibilites and to role-model what is achievable when passion and devotion are at the heart of what you do.

Morgan is one of three Associates currently engaged in a 10-month commission through Creative Spaces at The Stove Network. Creative Spaces is a project for the under-30’s that supports the development of those seeking a career in / currently working in the creative industries or community engagement and encourages artistic responses to cultural issues that impact young people in Dumfries & Galloway. Find our more about Creative Spaces here.

*https://www.gov.scot/news/lets-talk-education/

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Musings News

Creative Placemaking and How it is Being Implemented Within The Scottish Cultural Sector

Anthony Schrag and Caitlin McKinnon’s paper, “Exploring the Boundary-Crossing Nature of ‘Creative Placemaking’: The Stove as ‘Adaptor/Converter’” features in the internationally renowned publication, Field.

Field is a journal of socially-engaged art criticism and responds to the remarkable proliferation of new artistic practices devoted to forms of political, social and cultural transformation. Frequently collaborative in nature, this work is being produced by artists and art collectives throughout North, South and Central America, Europe, Africa and Asia.

Schrag and McKinnon’s paper explores, in depth, the concept of creative placemaking, and the role of The Stove Network in developing and spearheading this idea within its current methodology and its approach in Southwest Scotland. 

Creative Placemaking, is defined by The Stove Network through the WWDN project as: a community led approach that uses creative activity to support collective decision-making and positive change for people and the places they live. This paper explores the relationships between people, place, and creativity, (Creative Placemaking) and “how this ‘new’ concept of place-based creative works is being implemented within the (UK/Scottish) cultural sector, with particular attention placed on The Stove, in Dumfries.”

The Full Paper Can Be Accessed Here

Dr Anthony Schrag, co-author of this paper, recently contributed to ‘kNOw One Place’, Scotland’s first forum dedicated to the discussion and ambition of creative placemaking, produced by The Stove Network and supported by South of Scotland Enterprise and Culture Collective (funded by Scottish Government and coordinated by Creative Scotland). This future-thinking discussion on how communities can use creativity to lead the development of their places, featured a series of online webinars and a mixture of open space discussion and expert reflection, exhibition, and original artworks. Drawing people from public, private, independent, and charitable sectors together to share and co-create an agenda for creativity and placemaking for the future.

In the following video, Anthony explores Creative Placemaking, specifically focusing on the idea of a ‘boundary crosser’ using his recent paper as reference:

Matt Baker, Orchestrator, The Stove Network emphases the critical role that creativity can play in the development of community led planning.

“The focus of creative placemaking is to bring under-represented voices from the community into conversations about the future of the area in which they live, through active creative projects. To bring together people, communities, groups, and organisations, public, private and third sector agencies to develop common ground on community-led planning and enterprise.”

Watch Matt as he explains what Creative Placemaking means, in this context, and how it is making an impact through What We Do Now (WWDN), The Stove Network’s creative placemaking pilot project that has been underway for more than 12 months in Dumfries & Galloway. This ground-breaking, collaborative project works with artists, communities and organisations in Castle Douglas, Dumfries, Langholm, Sanquhar and Stranraer.

Caitlin Wallace, an Inspire Graduate with Dumfries & Galloway Council, has explored further the relationship between artists and Places through the strategic partnership Dumfries & Galloway Council has with WWDN.

Caitlin Wallace

Working closely with the project to understand the opportunities within Creative Placemaking for community-led planning and development, specifically as a tool for communities to develop their own Place Plans, Caitlin spent time interviewing the participants of WWDN about their projects and Creative Placemaking approach to working within their communities.

Caitlin’s Findings Can Be Found Here

Throughout the WWDN pilot Katharine Wheeler, Partnerships and Projects Development Lead at The Stove Network explains;

“Our focus for the project was to connect artists and community organisations together, to develop creative activities and projects in their communities with the intent for wider social change and wellbeing for those involved.”

Katharine Wheeler, Speaking at kNOw One Place in September 2022.

In this review, Katharine looks back on the first 12 months of the project and not only celebrates successes, but also identifies challenges and opportunities for the future.

Read Katharine’s Reflections Here

This approach to collaborative working practice, leads the way to a new future of creative placemaking in Southern Scotland. To discover more about WWDN and Creative Placemaking in Southwest Scotland, visit: whatwedonow.scot 

Exploring the Boundary-Crossing Nature of ‘Creative Placemaking’: The Stove as ‘Adaptor/Converter’

About the Authors

“Dr. Anthony Schrag is a practicing artist and researcher, and Senior Lecturer at Queen Margaret’s University (Edinburgh). The central focus of his work examines the role of art in participatory and public contexts, with a specific focus on social conflict, agonism and ethics. His PhD and current research examines the notion of ‘Pro-Social Conflict’ within participatory and social-practice projects. His most recent publication The Failures of Public Art and Participation (co-edited with Cameron Cartiere) was released in Sept, 2022. He is currently the Primary Investigator on a RSE project developing a Rural Art Network (Scotland). He has worked nationally and internationally, including residencies in Iceland, USA, Canada, Pakistan, Finland, The Netherlands, and South Africa, among others. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants including Royal Society of Edinburgh, The Hope Scot Trust, Creative Scotland, British Council, Royal Scottish Academy, the Dewar Arts Award, Standpoint Futures as well as a Henry Moore Artist Fellowship.

Caitlin McKinnon is an SGSAH funded PhD Candidate exploring Arts Management Education. Caitlin has sought to immerse herself in the arts and cultural world in a variety of different positions. Highlights include co-founding a community arts zine in her hometown, volunteering with a Toronto Artists Collective during their takeover of a vacant subway kiosk and working at the Lakeshore Grounds Interpretive Centre to run story-based workshops for the local community.  More recently, Caitlin has worked on several different research projects commissioned by Creative Scotland, British Council (Scotland), Engage Scotland, as well as organisations such as Out of the Blue, the Stove, and SESQUI Canada. As a developing researcher, Caitlin’s research interests include discourses of arts management, professionalisation, cultural policy, and relations of power in the cultural sector.”

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Musings News

Accessibility and Inclusion, Reflections: Winston Denerley

Guest Blog Post by Winston Denerley

Over the past few months Winston has been working with the Stove team, and particularly the Creative Spaces and Soap Box projects to help us explore how to make our programming more accessible for the D/deaf community. We’ve learned a lot and really enjoyed having Winston as part of the team, and are looking forward to the conversations going forward!

Still of the BSL version of the Learn page available on our website here

“It was a really interesting start to my time with the Stove Network. I was proposing a project consisting of a Deaf Hub/Festival within the Kirkcudbright Arts and Crafts Festival. Due to complications with COVID-19, this had to be delayed and put on the back burner. While speaking with Katharine Wheeler about this project idea, she mentioned the Stove’s need to be more accessible, aware and inclusive of people with disabilities. Because of my lived-in experience of the deaf community, current studies of British Sign Language and passion for inclusivity, we felt as though I would be able to fulfil the organisation’s need to be more inclusive.

Over my short time working (remotely) for the Stove Network, I have really enjoyed being the voice for people that need it and invoking necessary change. To do this I have created British Sign Language interpretations of the website, contributed to meetings, been involved in a successful panel on Inclusive Communication and held an ‘Accessibility in the Arts’ conversation on the 28th of May. Both the panel and the conversation had a diverse mix of organisation representatives and disabled people allowing for important discussions to be had about access in the arts industry. In the panel discussion, I was a part of the team answering questions about my own experiences, however with the conversation I was a host asking questions and prompting responses from the speakers. I really enjoyed playing both roles as speaker as well as host and look forward to hosting/being involved in future conversations and discussions about important issues!

Screenshot from some of the content that went out on the Creative Spaces social media accounts in relation to the Accessibility in the Arts conversation

It has been really interesting to see a somewhat closed off industry learning to be more inclusive and accepting of different types of people. Through this, I have begun to wonder the significant changes that could be made to the world if all businesses, organisations, and corporations understood their lack of awareness and inclusivity and took large strides to change this. By doing this, some groups may no longer feel as though it is society that disables them because they are given the vital support they need. 

My mind is brimming with new ideas and projects, so I am excited to see what the future holds working with an exciting and constantly developing organisation that has all the right intentions. Conversations discussing important issues, content aimed at different audiences with different needs, project development support and so much more – the future looks bright!”

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Musings

Quarter-Life Crisis: Where was Martin Joseph O’Neill at 25?

By Hayley Watson

Feeling secure in your 20s is tricky at the best of times, and our generation are lucky to have a housing crisis, yet another recession and a global pandemic punctuating our continued ‘coming-of-age’ panic. Add a desire to pursue a creative career into the mix – if you’re reading this I don’t need to tell you how unstable this can feel because you likely already know – and you’ve got a recipe for a real headf..iasco. This interview is part of a series where I ask established creative professionals, people you and I might view as ‘real adults’, what they were doing at 25. I have my suspicions that they were probably as confused then as we are now and I’m determined to prove it.

This time around, I spoke with Stove curatorial member Martin O’Neill. Martin is a Dumfries-based artist, writer and producer and hosts The Stove’s monthly open mic night, Brave New Words. Looking back at his 25th year, Martin reflects on leaky flats, cats and the power of language.

Tell us a bit about yourself and where you’re at now!

I’m a multi-disciplinary artist, writer and producer who’s trying to find a less pompous way of describing himself.

I live in Dumfries, born and bred.

As a ‘practice’, I’m interested in spaces, people, stories and inviting the imagination in. I’m sort of all over the place in that. But it’s usually about telling, and inviting the stories, that are often unheard, undervalued, or underappreciated. I also want people to have fun and share unique experiences together, even if it’s not in the way that I might have planned or predicted. All the better if that’s the case.

You were 25 between 2015 and 2016 There’s a lot going on in the world in 2020, but what was happening in 2015 and 2016? What’s the biggest news event you can remember from this time?

I can’t really recall what happened last week, so five years ago is sort of like a half-remembered dream, foggy snapshots of bad lager, cash in hand jobs, leaky roofs and 3AM jam sessions. That said, I cheated, and a quick Google search reminds me that the atrocious Charlie Hedbo attacks in Paris happened in January of that year and 2016 brought with it a new raft of misery in Brexit, Trump, the death of David Bowie and the Pulse nightclub shootings in Orlando. I remember quite vividly the news of the shootings in Orlando. As a gay man, this was particularly devastating. Shaking me to my core, it brought with it a stark reminder of the work yet still needing to be done in the fight for LGBT rights across the world, and a shiver that it could well have been me in that room.

Where were you living? Who with?

I was sharing a leaky 3 bed flat with two female musicians at the time. And a cat. And then several more cats (she had kittens).

Did you have a job? What was it?

I had started as a CT member at the Stove Network in, I believe, May/June of 2015. I was also working 7 days a week in the magnificent Coach & Horses.

Is there something you did when you were 25 that no one knows about?

Mostly everything I did at that time in my life was pretty public, either in a desperate attempt at notoriety or just the nature of what I was up to. Gigs, Brave New Words, installations, it was all there in the public domain, and still is, in all their amateur glory thanks to social media. Some awful graphic design was done in that time. And poetry. Bad, bad poetry.

What was your dream job at the time?

Whatever it was, it was usually about wanting to tell stories, so whether that meant being a poet, novelist, folk musician or dramatist, it revolved around that constant need to keep writing. I was also beginning to explore my practice as a visual artist and designer. At the time, I was way too conscious of the ‘27’ Club. Not so much for the untimely tragedy that befell them, but how much, and the quality of the work, their elite members had achieved in the time it took me to get a flat, find some steady paid work and land the occasional gig for extra cash.

If you had to choose one memory from your 25th year, what would it be?

The first Brave New Words. A really special night where some mad idea that folk might want to hear poetry together actually paid off. Who’da thunk?

If you could tell your 25-year-old self one thing, what would you say? And what do you think your 25-year-old self would say to you?

To my 25 year old self: You should be writing.

My 25 year old self to me now: You should be writing.

Are you where your 25-year-old self thought you’d be now?

 The last five years are such a blur of anxiety and chaotic thinking, that any thought of where I’d be in five years was clouded by some self-imposed pressure to complete something so short-term I can’t even recall what it might have been. Turning 30, that pressure seems to have eased off a little bit. You never do your best work when you’re worried about how you might be perceived. It’s better to just get on with it. And if it fails, move on, fail better.

We sometimes focus too much on success and forget how much our failures help us grow. What were your biggest failures from back then?

Too many to name. Mostly to do with poor communication. Mostly every problem is down to that. Just make sure you’re on the same page as others.

Finally, do you have any ‘words of wisdom’ for the 20-somethings reading this?

It’s not that far away from me so take this with a pinch of salt, I’m barely 30 as it is! But I suppose there’s an energy in your mid-twenties that’s really powerful, especially when you’re working with other, often older, more experienced people. You’re questioning, provoking, challenging and you’ve all the time in the world.  And that is so important. Be loose. Be creative. Make the mistakes and don’t overthink everything. But be mindful of others lives. Everyone has something to bring to the table. Everywhere. Also, language is a really powerful thing. Don’t let others use it to disempower you or make you feel small. But also, don’t play into those hands in thinking that is the ‘norm’ and adopting those same bad behaviours, it’s not, and it’ll bite you in the ass one day. Make sure to step outside of yourself every once in a while. There’s a whole world of lives herein, allow yourself to be passive. That’s when the best ideas come.

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News Project Updates

Speeding Backwards: Kyna Hodges

by Kyna Hodges

As part of the ‘Speeding Backwards’ project there was to be a woman’s build weekend. The weekend was to help plan and construct a bicycle trailer that will house a dark room and equipment for taking photographs using the wet plate collodion process (you can learn more about this here) The build up to the weekend was nerve racking, still the questions of ‘Can we? Can’t we?’ floating aground with the restrictions seeming to change daily.

But the day finally arrived, food planned and workshop laid out! On the first day Emily Tough, Beck Tucker and Myself all got to know each other and then went into the workshop to get to know the tools. One of the most empowering things as a woman learning construction can be understanding the use of tools and what they can do. It gives you an idea of what is possible and how. We applied the tools to the task of creating a box that we designed and began to execute. I took portraits of the interns using the wet plate collodian process that the trailer is destined to house.  

 On the second day our female builder Alice Francis arrived and we set to work looking at how to construct the trailer, it was so inspiring being around all these different creative and problem solving minds. When having meals together it helped to cement us as a group and come at a problem with the same energy. After lunch we set about looking into the interns individual projects that they had been asked to prepare. The weekend ended on a high of everyone getting a start and insight into their own projects and the mass giveaway of tools!  

The next phases of the project are to complete the build and begin to contact primary schools about seeing them in the spring. This is when the other intern Faye McKellar will be joining to deliver educational workshops and create a slow moving wonderment down the coastline of Dumfries and Galloway. 

To learn more about Kyna Hodges’ practice, you can email her at [email protected] or visit her website https://kyna-hodges.com

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Musings

Source to Sea: A Reflection

Post by Nithraid Producer, Sal Cuddihy

Nithraid River Festival has been running as an annual event for the past eight years and I have had the absolute privilege of being the producer for the last five of them.  Last year’s event saw flood, rain and high winds pushing our team to the limit with adapting last minute to still deliver as much of the event as we physically could. After 2019 we thought, “Well, we’re not going to get anything more difficult than that”. Boy, were we wrong.

When the news hit in March that the entire world was under threat from a global pandemic, we were left with complete uncertainty and dread – much like the rest of the world. What is this thing? Are people going to be safe? How long will it last? When did lockdown and furlough become common words that we use in almost every conversation?

It became apparent very quickly to our team that even though the festival was scheduled to be in August, there was a high chance that the event would have either have to be cancelled completely or we were going to have to try and adapt the festival to a digital format – so we decided to flip Nithraid on its head. We looked at the core values of the festival and the reasons why we do it and who do we do it for?


To cut a long story short – we came to the conclusion that we do it to celebrate the River Nith. We celebrate its history and uses, we celebrate its beauty and we use it to inspire our creativity. We use it to teach our children about the wildlife and environment (special mention goes out to Huffy the Heron!) – but most of all we use it to connect with communities. With all of this in mind, we created the Nith inspired ‘Source to Sea’ project, exploring not just Dumfries but the entire River Nith and the communities that it travels through. Throughout lockdown, it was obvious we were on the right path as all over social media people were photographing the river on their daily walks and were appreciating it as they never had before.

Once we had a concept, the challenging part was trying to figure out how we were going to share all of these elements of the river as well as creating and sharing activities for families and children who were finding themselves stuck at home with little to do. We were delighted to have one of our fantastic funders, the Holywood Trust, on board with our reimagined River Festival. The Holywood Trust were a huge support to Nithraid and our entire team throughout the whole project, and we wouldn’t have been able to do this without them – thank you! This scale of online activity was very much new territory but I have the privilege to work with much more tech savvy individuals than myself and we were able to come together to figure out how to present our festival online. I think as it stands, we are now in Version 652 of the project as it turns out there was more than one problem that arose on a very regular basis. I give them all my love and respect for not running away at Version 150 (I will do the embarrassing shout out at the end!)

As we come to the end of our journey, we’ll be pulling all over the research together and sharing it with you in a beautifully designed map, created for us by local artists and graphic designer, Jamie Stryker. This map is the culmination of everyone’s incredibly hard work over the past 6 months. We’ll also be sharing Hugh McMillan’s lovely Source to Sea poem, where he has a dedicated verse for each area that we explored.

One of the hardest things about the lockdown was the difficulty in being able to research and that we were unable to reach out communities and go out and explore. But now we have information, footage and stories about the River Nith that you can use to learn about these communities yourself. I hope the project does what we set out to do and celebrates the river that connects us and brought so many people a sense of calm in amongst the chaos.

Big shout out time!

And a special thanks to Derry and Greg from BattleStations who trekked through the Carsphairn hills with  a lot of kit to try and find footage of the source of the Nith – which turns out wasn’t where I told them, sorry! You got the shot though!

All of those that took the time to chat to us as we were researching the content. One of my favourite moments was when Bob Clements told us the story of the Thornhill’s Rock Festival on the back of a lorry that was plugged into a house!

Finally, a massive thank you to the team that has held this all together. You have done so much more than these basic titles I have written but I have rambled enough and don’t want you thinking I have gone soft.

  • Rob Henderson – web design and master of tech-like witchcraft
  • Kirstin McEwan – marketing and social media queen that makes this stuff look easy!! It’s not!
  • Ruaridh Thi- Smith – project support and all round support to my sanity.
  • Liam Morrison- Gale – community lead & ultimate research Jedi Master
  • Jamie Stryker – Graphic designer and hero that makes the best maps in the whole wide world!
  • Martin O’Neil – Programmer, Word Wizard and keeper of the creativity.
  • Graham Rooney –  Stove Project manager and dude that keeps every single one of us from spontaneous combustion.

Thank you all! All the best,

Sal Cuddihy
Nithraid Producer

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