The Stove Network
What’s in store at The Stove this year? With building works continuing downstairs in The Stove this month ahead of our regular opening times from next month, the Stove’s operations and curatorial teams are busy preparing and planning for a bumper 2016 year. Select each image below for more details.
From Moxie DePaulitte – The Stove The Stove Herald
Throughout the year, we strive to stay connected with all our members and ensure that everyone has the opportunity to easily share their hopes, wants, and needs regarding the development of The Stove and the collective creation of a better Dumfries. Whether it’s more formally at the members’ Housewarming event, during Cultural Wayfinding sessions, over Tea with Moxie (yes, that’s still going strong if you’d like a chat and a cuppa!), at drop-in sessions, during live events, through the speechbubbles project, or even in casual encounters on the street—the core team is eager to hear your thoughts, suggestions, and ideas for moving forward.
The Stove has truly blossomed since opening its High Street doors earlier this year, and there are many more exciting adventures on the horizon. Here’s a quick recap of the ideas you’ve shared with us and how we’ve responded.
Spoken word and creative writing were high on people’s agenda, with many suggesting an increase in related events. In April, Open Mouth burst onto the scene, led by Sarah Indigo and Eryl Shields, who conducted performance and creation workshops with school students during the day. Its success has led to Brave New Words being developed into a regular Open Mic night at The Stove. The next session is this Friday, 30th October, and is open to everyone (whether musical or spoken word—Brave New Words welcomes all original writing). In the run-up to Christmas, several other word-based events are planned, including the Wagtongues Pop-Up Bookshop at the end of November. Additionally, there is an open-call out for new writing for exciting art installations in the closes of the town.
A number of conversations around food were sparked at the Housewarming event, perhaps inspired by the delicious chai tea made by Open Jar and the bannocks baking over the open fire in the square. Attendees were eager to explore the power of nourishment in all its forms, suggesting ideas such as gatherings; gardening experiments where people could learn how to grow and cook seasonal produce; cup return schemes for the café; as well as film evenings and talks centred around food and produce.
We’ve also been discussing community gardens, rewilding initiatives, and collaborations with groups across the region to provide opportunities for exploring the intersection of growing and art.
The latter was explored during our recent film season at The Stove, where films such as Moo Man, Vanishing of the Bees, and The Lunchbox were accompanied by inspiring talks and equally delightful, relevant treats.
We also hosted an incredible talk by Alice from Social Bite, who shared their journey of building an amazing network of sandwich shops from scratch, which help the homeless get back on their feet and into work.
Work has begun on The Stove Café, which will provide a vibrant meeting place in the heart of Dumfries and serve as a base for further creative exploration of how we think about, grow, distribute, and cook food. The tender was won by Angela and Colin Green, and we are very excited to see the opportunities this new development will bring.
We are eager to hear from anyone interested in hosting groups in the early evening. For example, we have a regular Craftivism (Creative Activism) workshop starting on 28th October. These sessions aim to encourage people to linger a little longer after the shops close and further our commitment to breathing new life into the town centre.
The Craftivism workshops also align with other ideas raised by members. Many expressed interest in forming Skill Sharing groups and engaging in Mindfulness initiatives. Craftivism promotes both and we hope it will serve as a catalyst for other Skill Sharing/Skill Swap events.
It was also suggested that we take The Stove beyond the building and engage in more projects across the region. One such project saw The Young Stove working with school-aged children in the woods near New Galloway. They ran a workshop called Survival Art School and later gave the youngsters a tour of their show at Gatehouse of Fleet. Another example was the co-production of EAFS—a wonderful off-grid adventure in the grounds of Morton Castle. Among its many magical aspects, EAFS encouraged the sharing of food as a means of human connection and engagement, evoking a primal need to break down modern social barriers and foster friendships and communication around shared nourishment.
People asked for drumming, and what a line-up we gave them! Not only did we fill the day with the incredible Rajasthan Heritage Brass Band—bringing smiles to everyone they encountered—but we also hosted an evening workshop with local drumming groups. This spectacular session brought the community together in a loud and joy-filled way.
Looking ahead, the future vision for Dumfries includes suggestions for giant water slides, Segways instead of Orange Bike Schemes, permanent block parties, adult ball pits, and drive-in cinemas. It’s clear people want to feel the love returning to the town centre.
Phrases such as:
have been echoed repeatedly. While perhaps less thrilling than foam bowling alleys, these suggestions are far more tangible and provide a solid starting point for meaningful change.
Regeneration has clearly begun, with many commenting on the positive difference The Stove has already made to the High Street—but much more remains to be done.
We’ve had inspiring public sessions working with Lateral North to explore how interventions and Cultural Wayfinding can help develop Dumfries, making it more welcoming and easier to navigate—just as has been achieved in other towns. There’s even more to come, including an event surrounding Norway House next month.
Since its creation, the building has taken on a variety of roles. It has been a messy creative space for The Young Stove and other artists, an exhibition venue, and a site for workshops, meetings, gatherings, and music gigs. It has welcomed a broad mix of people from diverse walks of life, which makes us very proud. It has also become a hub for exchanging ideas—a place where inspiration is shared, where ideas can be brought and nurtured to grow.
Music has been another hot topic for members and the public, and we have been developing a music strand since The Stove began through our Dumfries Music Conference. Since 100 High Street opened, this has continued to grow through partnerships with local music groups such as Small Town Sounds, Music Plus, and Electric Fields. These collaborations have led to fantastic gigs showcasing local talent, including Rudi Zygadlo, MØGEN, and Mark Lyken. You can even learn guitar at The Stove now with lessons from guitar teacher David Bass.
Other topics raised in discussions include:
So, let us know what you think! Book in with Moxie for a cuppa, send an email, or drop our Herald a line on Facebook. The Stove is ever-evolving, and its quiet energy is building all the time—so get in touch and let’s see how we can sail together into the next phase.
P.S. If you’re ever wondering what’s happening at The Stove, please check our Events page, or look back at what’s been going on via our Blog page.
We asked ourselves a question: “Can a sign above a High Street building ever do anything other than promote and brand? Can it ask questions, be part of a conversation with other signs… Can our High Street ever become a space that prioritises people as well as sales?”
Whose downturn is this?
As a species, we show ourselves to be resilient and endlessly adaptable, but what true opportunities exist between the moss and the ‘for sale’ signs? How do we reimagine the spaces between the High Streets we remember and what remains when our High Street no longer meets the bottom line of the multinationals?
Our town centres have grown out of a need to gather, connect, meet, barter, and exchange. Dumfries owes its place to the river, the cattle marts, and the passage of people. Yet, from our largely rural context, Dumfries has also served as a gathering point—a melting pot where communities meet and exchange not just economically but socially, forming our connection to the wider world.
‘A marketplace (rather than a “market”) is a sociable space where buying and selling take place surrounded by other activities—a place to see friends, hear stories, and argue about ideas. Crucially, unlike a Starbucks or a department store, it is a space where your welcome is not determined purely by your ability to spend money.’*
Dumfries stands at a crossroads, questioning its identity and place within the world. While Primark may not have arrived, there is an air of anticipation and change quietly murmuring amongst a growing number of the town’s communities. Now is the time to search for the new role we can play in shaping the future of Dumfries—to reach out for a possible, renewed Dumfries.
Dumfries is not dead, merely sleeping. Hidden Dumfries lies in plain sight, behind the sagging bus stances and solitary street furniture.
Now is the time to act.
This action does not require grand master planners or large-scale redevelopment, but rather a little collective energy and small, positive acts. Testing and experimentation, problem-solving, and lightweight interventions can pave the way towards a more active High Street, and a more vibrant town centre. Small actions can highlight, question, explore, and initiate discussion, growing from an inquisitive response to our everyday surroundings.
This is a call for new distractions.
Can we create a new visual language for our High Streets?
*Dougald Hine, Space Makers, quoted in How to Save Our Town Centres, by Julian Dobson.
Our ambition to Get Dumfries Talking is coming to pass—people are really getting stuck into the #OpenHouse speech bubbles and finding great ways for the town to express itself:
Taking part is super easy—just pick up a speech bubble from The Stove (or from cafes and shops around the town), write a message in the bubble, snap it with your phone, and post it to Twitter or Facebook with the hashtag #OpenHouse.
From Andrew Gordon
High streets across Britain are fundamentally changing, and Dumfries is no exception. The combined impact of the economic downturn, out-of-town complexes, and online shopping is leading to an increasing number of town centre closures. The effect on Dumfries is unmistakable, from the closure of national chain stores to long-established family-owned businesses, each leaving behind empty husks in what were once regarded as prime locations. With their vacant displays, these unwanted buildings contribute to a worrying sense that the town is in perpetual decline.
However, there have also been signs of new life. The Electric Theatre Workshop has transformed a disused shop into a space for practising and performing theatre, as well as serving as the central hub for the winter festival, Big Burns Supper. Although shops have struggled, cafés and restaurants continue to generate business, prompting several new openings and refurbishments. These changes remind us that high streets have historically been places to “debate and meet”, as retail consultant Mary Portas stated in her 2011 report for the UK Government. It is her opinion that high streets must return to this role as “multifunctional, social spaces” if they are to serve any purpose in the future, with commerce forming just part of their civic service rather than dictating it.
The Stove Network shares this vision—it aims to demonstrate that rethinking the way we use vacant buildings on the high street can have a profound and beneficial impact on the local community. By opening its new accessible public arts space at 100 High Street, it will place creativity and risk-taking at the centre of local efforts to reimagine Dumfries as a contemporary regional capital.
The retail chains that previously occupied these spaces were focused on telling us what we want. The Stove, however, will respond to what we need—a collaborative effort between artists and others in the town to cultivate a place that serves us as citizens rather than consumers. This includes involving the public in the operation of The Stove itself, with the Tuesday Drop-In sessions being one example. These weekly meetings will invite everyone to discuss The Stove’s operation and share their ideas about what it should do more of to contribute towards the regeneration of Dumfries town centre. The Charter14 event, held during last year’s Guid Nychburris festival, asked Doonhamers to put forward their ambitions for the town’s future as part of a new “People’s Charter”, and is another example of The Stove Network’s approach.
By offering ready access to art and the tools of its creation in the very centre of the town, The Stove aims to thoroughly involve the people of Dumfries in bringing about constructive change to the place we call hame, turning an otherwise forlorn relic of times gone by into a symbol of a new future for Dumfries—one conducted on our own terms. “High streets will thrive if we re-imagine them,” Mary Portas suggests, and what better way could there be to inspire new ways of thinking about the high street than through art?
All images are of Charter 14, Guid Nychburris Day Festival, June 2014.
All images: Colin Tennant.
Open House sees The Stove Network populating The Stove at 100 High Street for the first time since building works began last year. It welcomes the town and the wider network to stop by, get involved, and experience some of what we hope to bring to Dumfries’ town centre. Open House is a series of varied events designed to showcase both The Stove’s versatility as a physical space and the ambition of the project for the town centre.
We begin with the third annual Dumfries Music Conference (DMC) on 24th and 25th April. As in previous years, DMC 2015 will feature workshops, talks, film, live music, expert opinion, and creative collaboration. Through a collection of brilliant partners and guests, we hope to educate, inspire, and entertain. DMC 2015 will mark the official opening of The Stove Building at 100 High Street. In celebration of this, we are going to fill the entire building with colour, music, and people.
On 28th April, The Stove hosts Open Mouth—a day of spoken word, performance, and cooking. During the day, The Stove building will hold workshops for school students, followed by a performance workshop at 5pm. A public performance begins at 7pm, featuring Moffat-based Sarah Indigo alongside other performers from the Scottish spoken word scene, as well as young people who have attended the daytime workshops.
Open Mouth has been specially created and delivered for The Stove Network by Sarah Indigo, Eryl Shields, and Open Jar Collective.
Produced in collaboration with Wigtown Festival Company.
On 29th April, House Warming invites everyone to drop by (12:30pm–4:30pm) to explore The Stove building, have a chat, and make a T-shirt.
From 6pm, there will be a Stove Members Gathering, featuring a public bonfire and Bannock-making in the town square with Open Jar from 7:30pm.
At 7pm on Saturday, 2nd May, join us at The Stove for the public launch of HAME, an impressionistic journey through Dumfries & Galloway, voiced by those who call it home. Film, voice, field recordings, and subtle music will intermingle and connect across two floors and extend into Dumfries High Street.
HAME is a film and sound installation by artists Mark Lyken and Emma Dove, specially commissioned for the opening of The Stove at 100 High Street, Dumfries.
Every Tuesday, starting 19th May and running until mid-June, you are invited to Drop-In @ The Stove—pop in for a brew and a blether about The Stove and the town.
What would you like to see The Stove doing? What are your ideas for the town centre? What would you like to do at The Stove? We’ll be open, and we’d love to hear your ideas! Drop-In will run from 12 noon to 6pm every Tuesday, so just drop in as you pass by.
Keep up with the latest updates on Open House via our social media on Facebook and Twitter, using #OpenHouse.
