Support Us

Tag: Visual Art

Categories
Musings

Love Letters to Europe

At 11pm on Friday, 31st January 2020 as Britain officially exited from its position within the EU and began the transition process of finding a new way forward – the Stove’s Conversing Building project invited attendees of the Big Burns Supper’s Europa Picnic hosted by the wonderful Hope London, and visitors to the Stove cafe to pause and mark the moment with us.

Audiences were invited to write and share a love letter of their own to Europe: to a memory connected to a place, or to a friend, a stranger, present, past or future, and add it to a large map in our cafe, creating a map of inclusiveness, of welcoming, of respect and care for each other and all those who would wish to make this place their home.

“It’s going to be a letter about the future.”

The map was on display in the Stove from Thursday 6th-13th February. Thank you to everyone who took the time to contribute a letter to the collection.

Categories
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.

Categories
Musings

Nithlight by Night, a Reflection

By Philip Mairs

With the theme of this years Nithraid festival being salt and ritual – including salt’s local, historical and mythical uses – we thought of a way to combine all three of these things into something that could form the basis of Nithlight.

Nithlight 2019

Upon finding out about the Celtic connection to the history of salt in the South-West Scotland region, we thought about using vibrational acoustic-phenomena to create patterns in the element of salt. A lot of these patterns appear surprisingly Celtic. For the Celts, the Earth and its elements, including all water and salt, were sacred.This idea was made possible by using a vibrating metal ‘Chladni’ plate, so called because following the pioneering experiments of Robert Hooke in the 1600s, it is the German physicist Ernst Chladni’s name that became most associated with these figures.

We set about filming the patterns emerging on our own plate, with the intention of beaming the projection over a maze of ship masts.

The ship masts were to replicate an old galleon ship, used for trading in the 1700’s. We then began to extend this narrative out by introducing reworked old seaman’s recipes and orientating our soundscape around water, grainy sounds and symmetrical patterning. We also wanted to give context to the projected video, and so thought that having the source for the images on site in an ‘obelisk’ type structure that people could sing into in order to create patterns themselves would be compelling; creating an immediate connection between creation and content.

Despite it looking like the event might have to be called off due to the Scottish summer in full flow, the event went ahead as planned. The ship sculpture provided an intriguing backdrop to people (and the occasional animal) singing and howling into the microphone, often watching patterns emerging as they would do so.

The feeling of old seafaring was enhanced by the provision of the some of the only kinds of food and drink that would last on voyages- in this case those being hard, salty biscuits; along with homemade ginger beer.

We also enjoyed the workshop we hosted earlier on in the day, where we were able to give people an up-close experience of Cymatics, from one of its original methods- bowing of metal plates with a violin bow; to one of its more recent related developments of the plate being driven by a loudspeaker. ___

Nithlight was a commission as part of Nithraid 2019, led by artists Emily Tough and Philip Mairs. The commission was supported by The Holywood Trust.

All image credits: Jamie Thomson, see his Facebook page here for details.

Categories
News

Guid Nychburris’ Powerful Communities

This year the Stove took part in the Guid Nychburris Day Parade, an annual event in the Dumfries calendar that sees community groups and clubs in a variety of fancy dress taking to the streets in the evening parade that is the culmination of the days festivities.
In honour of the upcoming Nithraid festival, our Salty Coo returned early from her pastures to take pride of place on a small Mirror Dinghy – definitely the blue-est cow we’ve ever encountered!

Our resident seagull attracted the most attention on the parade route

Ahead of the Parade,  we opened out the invitation to smaller groups and organisations to take part in banner making workshops in the Oven and the Stove. The Parade is a great opportunity to share projects and community groups with an audience of thousands along the route, but it can be a bit daunting to take on a large float amongst a small group of volunteers.

On the day, we were joined by the blueprint100 team and some fantastic volunteers – familiar and new faces! and the DGMA multicultural association, who all produced a beautiful collection of banners in record time!

One of the DGMA’s brightly coloured banners

And we even won a prize! Placed third in our category, thanks to the efforts of our banner making team and all who attended the workshops.
The blueprint100 team will be hosting a series of banner making workshops in July and August in the run up to this years Nithraid festival on Saturday, 31st of August – and everyone is invited! Find out about upcoming workshops, or contact Jordan directly to host a workshop with your community group or organisation. For details, visit the blueprint100 Facebook page here or contact [email protected].

Categories
News Project Updates

International Women’s Day at The Stove 2019

Bella Green introducing the evening. Image credit: Kirstin McEwan

This year we were approached by students Bella Green and Candy, to host a day of activity at the Stove to celebrate and acknowledge International Women’s Day. The theme for our event – Wake Up And Love More – was inspired by Kate Tempest’s Tunnel Vision, a song from her latest album Let Them Eat Chaos.

Our programme comprised of banner and placard making workshop, a two week display in the Stove café, an evening of discussion, food and performance and a film screening to close the day. Due to poor weather, we had to put on hold our plans to occupy the High Street, but instead created a warm and welcoming space in the Stove’s café.

Bella Green introducing the evening. Image credit: Kirstin McEwan

On the evening itself, we were joined by Women’s Aid for Nithsdale and the Stewartry, who were able to share with us some of their work in the region over the past 20 years and their current challenges. Performances included poetry and song, and even a short quiz compered by stovie Kirsty Turpie!

Smash the Patriarchy bunting!

Our film choice for the evening was teen drama Skate Kitchen, directed by Crystal Moselle and featuring the story of Camille and the all-girl New York City based skateboarding crew, Skate Kitchen.

All donations from the evening went to Women’s Aid.

Thank you to everyone who helped with the preparations for the event, our performers and speakers. All image credits: Kirstin McEwan

International Women’s Day at the Stove was part of our Conversing Building project, an on-going programme of events and displays in and around the Stove building sharing ideas and projects with wider communities. To find out more email [email protected].

Banners created during our open workshop
Categories
Musings News

What we’re looking forward to in 2019!

We’re gearing up for another jam-packed year of exciting events, art and creativity to encourage, gather, educate and bring life back to our town centre so we thought we would share what things we’re exciting about in the year ahead. And, as always, if you’ve got an idea, need some space, advice on starting a project or want to partner with us – we’re here!

So here’s what we’re looking forward to in 2019 – diaries oot!

Literature

Our literature projects are all about unwrapping the potential of the written word to provoke and inspire new ways of thinking, and this year the Lowland Project will be taking a dramatic step forward with an ambitious community play. The play will be developed over the course of 2019 and will reflect our town in a transitional phase of its history. Stay tuned for more information, opportunities and events!

Nithraid

SAVE THE DATE: 31st August 2019!

Yes, that’s right – NITHRAID IS BACK! Dumfries’ annual River Festival and sail boat race held in celebration of our beloved River Nith is the biggest event in the Stove calendar and returns to the Mill Green for its SEVENTH year! Nithraid is getting bigger and better with artist commissions, stalls, performances, music, sound installations and art throughout our community, so don’t expect anything less for 2019!

Midsteeple Quarter

The Midsteeple Quarter Project had a brilliant year in 2018, rounding off with the news of the asset transfer of the former Bakers Oven to community ownership. For 2019, they are looking forward to creating an exciting programme of activity in The Oven which includes exhibitions, workshop spaces and events – all open to the public! Programme details will be shared soon, but in the meantime you can keep up to date with their news over on their website here: www.midsteeplequarter.org or by giving them a like on their Facebook page here: www.facebook.com/midsteeplequarter.

Dumfries Music Conference

After an incredibly successful 2018, the Dumfries Music Conference are back for 2019 with another programme of events for the year, offering people the opportunity to share ideas, learn new skills and make contact with some of the biggest movers and shakers in the industry. As well as their annual flagship conference in October, DMC’s 2019 programme includes ‘DMSHE’ in April – a female takeover month which will showcase the work of women working in the music industry. Expect panel discussions, workshops and a showcase gig – all led by some incredible females working throughout Scotland! #thefutureisfemale

The Stove Café

The Stove Café is the social heart of our social enterprise to bring new life to the town centre through culture and the arts and supporting community activity and career development for local people. This year, we’re looking forward to reimagining the café and making changes to improve on the look and feel of the space (The Stove Café 2.0!). Plans are busy being made at the moment but expect a big launch party in 2019 to celebrate a new era of the Stove Café!

Visual

The Stove building is a conversational space to connect with our projects in many ways, and this year we’re planning a ‘Public Space’ Exhibition to provoke discussion and engage everyone who steps into our doors. The Public Space Exhibition will use spaces within the Stove and outdoor public spaces, as well as use creative workshops, participatory activity and conversation events to welcome artists and the community to come together as well as host evening events and discussions located around the Stove and outdoor public spaces. We want artists and the community to come together!

Performance

Behavin’? This year we’re excited to be expanding our programme of performance, live art and theatre with an exciting mini festival in the works arriving this summer! To coincide with this, we’re working with the National Theatre of Scotland on the Start Residency. For more details click HERE!