Mail Art with The Riverside Museum

Curator of the Glasgow Museums' Communications Collection - Heather Robertson has contributed another strand to NothingAboutUs with the GOVANMAILART project.....folk from the Riverside Museum have been sending mailart to people in Govan....now the replies are starting to arrive - Check the blog - here

Glasgow, Art, TV and Govan

Matt Baker and Tara Beall ...contemporary art as a collective action

BBC Scotland's Newsnight last night looked at the launch of the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art and featured NothingAboutUs - you can watch the clip here (you need to scroll to 16 mins 40 secs)

High-Slack-Low-Slack-High

We are delighted to profile another GI project with works relating to the Clyde - Nothing About Us has been working closely with High-Slack-Low-Slack-High to ensure that there are no diary clashes between the two projects - so that visitors to the festival (and maybe even the participants!) get to see both works

 

High-Slack-Low-Slack-High

A suite of sound works presented as part of Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art and made in response to the tidal range of the River Clyde, Glasgow with artists:
John Cavanagh, Minty Donald/Nick Millar, Douglas Morland, Nichola Scrutton and Hanna Tuulikki.

Monday 23 April - Hanna Tuulikki - Bell’s Bridge/Millenium Bridge, G51 - 3.15pm

Tuesday 24 April - John Cavanagh - Riverside Museum, G3 8RS - 3.45pm

Wednesday 25 April - Nichola Scrutton - Dixon Street, G1 4AL - 4.05pm

Thursday 26 April - Douglas Morland - Clyde north waterfront between Victoria and Glasgow Bridges, G5 - 4.45pm

Friday 27 April - Minty Donald/Nick Millar - citywide - 5.25pm (and throughout the week)
 

Saturday 28 April - all five works - Trust Hall, Clydeport Authority Headquarters, 16 Robertson Street, Glasgow, G2 8DS - performances at 5pm and 7.30pm

-  a vocal work performed with megaphones, whose musical structure derives from tidal data - a composition using sound samples recorded onboard Clyde-based vessels, including a nuclear submarine and a Dutch barge - a vocal tone poem accompanying a ritual dredging of river water, later used in a performance on musical glasses -  a chorus of ships’ horns interweaving the noise and pulse of the Clyde with the rhythms of the city - a piece for voice and ‘signal’ sounds that takes its temporal form from flashing navigation beacons on the Clyde -

All events are free but booking is essential for the Clydeport Headquarters performances as the Trust Hall has a limited capacity.
Email highslacklow@gmail.com to book a place.

Minty Donald
M+44(0)7932 080560

High-Slack-Low-Slack-High
http://www.glasgowinternational.org/index.php/events/view/high-slack-low-slack-high/
http://www.glasgowinternational.org/index.php/artists/view/minty_donald/

Reconvening the Govan Parliament

On Saturday 31st March about 100 folk gathered on a mound by the Clyde at Govan to honour this  ancient place of assembly. More than 2000 years ago people built a giant earthwork (known as Doomster Hill) by the river - a hill that was to become the parliament hill of the kingdom of Strathclyde for 200 years around the year 1000AD.

The ceremony was part of the Govan Together event 'Seeds for the Future', which celebrated one year of Govan Together activities, and also a wee celebration of GalGael's 15th anniversary. It was conceived and led by Matt Baker and Tam McGarvey, and the 2000 year timeline read on the mound was written by Tim Clarkson and Matt Baker.  (Although the 'Reconvening of the Parliment' wasn't formally part of 'Nothing about us...,' the timeline that was read out is also featured on our blog as series of posts on Govan's History.) Event management was by Fablevision Studios on behalf of Govan Together.

Processing from the Pearce Institute to the mound in the Riverside Housing Scheme (far right is John 'Jack' Sweeney - former Trades Union activist and carrier of the Govan stone for the Scottish Democracy Cairn )

Marchers arrive at the mound and the firebasket lit by the GalGael - Riverside Museum and Tallship in the background

Assembled around the fire

The public gallery - Riverside housing

Reading the timeline - centre (holding paper) Tam McGarvey and Brian McQuade (eminent Govan historian and 2012 Olympic torch bearer), also holding paper = Gehan MacLeod and on her left Allan and Ricco of the GalGael

Enjoying the fire

photos by Ben Rush

Good Day at the Museum

Riverside Museum and the Tallship photographed from the Southside

Tara and I were invited to present Nothing About Us to the weekly staff meeting at the Riverside Museum on Friday. The Museum has been brilliant so far and the project is beginning to feel really balanced, with a sense that it is a conversation across the water from both sides.

However, we were still a bit anxious about how the project would be received by the entire staff of the Museum. 10 minutes into the meeting a Learning Support person called Catriona piped up....'the museum was gifted a set of marine signal flags a year ago and no-one has really found a use for them'....this led to  a general conversation about ways that we could use the flags to signal across the water by hanging them on the Museum.

t s Beall with one of the donated signal flags in the Museum office

We moved on to the Tallship and had another excellent and inspiring chat with Lisa and Andy from the team.....planning workshops for folk locally and ways that the Tallship itself could be physically involved in the project (more later on that...top ideas from Lisa)

Returning to the Museum it seemed that the staff ahd been thinking about our earlier presentation...people sought us out with ideas. In particular Heather Roberston (Curator 'Communications Collection') had prepared at least three proposals for us of ways that group she was already working with could be part of the project....happy days - more later on this for sure.