We won’t use this blog to describe what happened inside the Glen Cinema, Paisley on Hogmanay 1929 – it is well documented online, in history books, and in the memories of the people of Renfrewshire and across the world. Instead we are using this blog as an opportunity to describe some of what we have learnt and experienced over the past two years while working on this project. (more…)
The delayed COP26 summit is to begin on the last day of October, amid the road closures and the rail strikes, the challenges of social distancing and – perhaps – of Scottish weather in autumn, over 30,000 attendees representing over 200 countries, businesses, NGOs and other groups will meet and attempt to advance the aims of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. (more…)
Over the past five years I’ve been in business as Gatekeeper Art. My small creative business is my full time occupation and when asked what I do I usually term myself as an artist and social historian with a community practice. I wrote a blog recently for CCSE called “Welcome to the Lockdown Lounge” which outlined how I had with my social historian “hat” on been designing and delivering heritage/ cultural related workshops online. (more…)
At the beginning of the Pandemic Lockdown period in March 2020, I began an online page – “Covid Island Diary”. I began to document and collate images, memes and political comment made by artists during the situation as it unfolded. I was extremely interested in the artist response to this immense world event. It became very clear, early on to everyone that as a society we rely heavily on artists every day. Designers, film makers, writers and musicians all helped to make an enforced lockdown at home more bearable for us all. (more…)