Bordeaux and Public Space

The Stove have been coined 'cultural ambassadors for Dumfries' as last week we packed our trunks and headed off for Bordeaux.

Why Bordeaux you might have asked?
To which we may have replied, 

'Although it is undoubtedly bigger, better and sunnier, Bordeaux has several interesting parallels with Dumfries: it was a one-time great trading port on a river; its historic buildings and waterfront had suffered from misuse and neglect. The difference comes in how it has succeeded in regenerating itself in the last decade or so, with a strong focus on culture and environment.' Indeed.

Regeneration and the River.
This is Bordeaux (before above, and after). Familiar, anyone? #CreativeDumfries

Bordeaux's vast infrastructure and city centre regeneration over the past 15 years has focused largely on the riverside, and the design and creation of people friendly places over vehicle orientated ones.

Time and again we gravitated towards the area, for meetings, coffee, discussions and - possibly our most favourite public space, the fountain –also known as the Mirror.

By day an engaging and constantly changing interactive space

By night a reflection to the reborn river front buildings and quays

The Mirror reminded one of the Stovies of Simon Faithfull's Shy Fountain - a fountain which only exists when no one is there… as we spent a lot of time trying to catch the Mirror's brief changes

The Mirror, which alternates between a shallow pool and ephemeral fog, forms part of the promenade extending along the river - filled with people on all manner and number of (human powered) wheels. Glasgow based artist Jacqueline Donnachie's Slow Down project has been tested in a few towns and cities, most recently in Glasgow in the run up to the Commonwealth which sees bikes fitted with chalks that mark the routes taken by cyclists in the city to encourage cycling use… Cycling Dumfries looks to improve cycling closer to home - how could we think about our transport differently? 

Jacqueline Donnachie's Slow Down Glasgow, commissioned by Velocity

The city centre's new look and feel, as well as Bordeaux's Unesco Heritage status, has had input too on a cultural front with the AGORA (Architecture, Urban Planning and Design) biennale which has grown out of the regeneration works in the town into a fully fledged national event of it's own standing. This year AGORA coincides with the Nithraid - taking place from 11th - 14th September.. but more on this later!

The first sunday of the month is Car Free Day in Bordeaux

Of course, as much as the city centre is all absorbing and beautiful, the Stovies got an itch to explore a little more into the periphery spaces of Bordeaux - so we took (the very sleek) tram up to the Bacalan area - which is pretty serious about it's regeneration on all fronts, as new builds and cranes jostled for space amongst established arts and social enterprise organisations.

Le garage moderne - a social enterprise with groups across France, teaches practical mechanics whilst also doubling up as exhibition space, and artists studios and office spaces - it caught the Stove's wildest imagination - we're quickly realising that we could outgrow 100 High Street...

The construction industry hot on the heels of the Bordelaise artists (and a little love for Black Cat White Cat)

And finally for this week - we've become a bit obsessed with the space out the back of the Stove, as we explore the mechanism for creating a new rear entrance for 100 High Street, discussions have been ongoing as to how to alter the sense and atmosphere of a place, especially one with shared use and ownership. Grand plans are being finalised as the impact of 100 High Street and it's relationship to it's surroundings grows and changes from the forgotten Happitt store into the Stove proper… as ever, we'll keep you posted. 

Les Vivres de l'Art - one of the wildest creative spaces we came across in Bordeaux

The Regeneration of Dock Park

The Stove set up temporary residence one afternoon last week in the newly regenerated and renovated Dock Park as part of the ongoing festivities celebrating the park's clean face. In anticipation of this year's Nithraid, we took to the river - send massed flotillas of paper boats downstream and out to the Solway. 

Photographs: Galina Walls - more available here 

The boats were christened after famous links to the Park's history including: 
The Great Pedalo (Kirpatrick MacMillan - inventor of the bicycle and honoured by the footbridge) 
The Dragon Slayer (.. St Michael's Bridge at the top of the park)
The Tweed Rose (Rosefield Tweed Mills on the opposite bank) 

The Rosefield Mills featured as part of one of Lisa Gallaher's pieces made for TDRM: Dumfries during InBetween Dumfries. Working with local artist Evelyn Gray, Lisa produced a tweed coat incorporating Evelyn's sketches of the mills... more of that and other Inbetween projects here 

 The two week long youth festival coinciding with the school holidays was envisioned to shape how the park as a public space could be used by the good folk of Dumfries, and the re-instate the park within the psyche or awareness of the town, as opposed to a periphery space. 

With the park's Victorian history, could a new fashion for a contemporary promenading culture be re-invented? 

promenade (ˌprɒməˈnɑːd) 
 — n 1. chiefly ( Brit ) a public walk, esp at a seaside resort 
2. a leisurely walk, esp one in a public place for pleasure or display 
3. ( US ), ( Canadian ) a ball or formal dance at a high school or college 
4. a marchlike step in dancing 
5. a marching sequence in a square or country dance 

 [C16: from French, from promener to lead out for a walk, from Late Latin prōmināre to drive (cattle) along, from pro- 1 + mināre to drive, probably from minārī to threaten] 

On walking around the park, The Drying Ground particularly caught my interest - as Glasgow City Council looks to controversially impose new rules on the use of their public parks, with Drying Grounds clearly outlawed: 

" 11.1 No one shall in any park, except with the prior written consent of the Director: 

 (f) hang linen or other material, beat, shake, sweep, brush or cleanse any carpet, rug, mat or other article. "

The trampolines are due to make a comeback as part of the regeneration works 

The full list of proposed banned activities includes organised sports, gatherings of more than 18 people, walking more than 4 dogs and outdoor education - a full and interesting article on the A Thousand Flowers blog or to read the rules for yourself head here

The importance on non-commercial public spaces, and their benefit to town and city life not just in terms of regenerating the surrounding areas but also in creating spaces (and therefore towns) where people want to be is discussed by Animal Behaviourist turned City Planner for NYC, Amanda Burden in her recent TED talk (available here) 

The bandstand has also had something of a facelift.. a new alternative music venue for Dumfries?

As groups like the Incredible Edible's continue to promote and grow a greener vision for the town, how can the parks play an active role in this? How do these public spaces become once again instilled as part of the townscapes' sense of self? As 100 High Street remains closed for the time being, do keep an eye out for the Stove in exile throughout the town over the next few months, and if this great weather continues, we can maybe reconvene our meetings in the park.. 

Stove and Regeneration

Lately we’ve been thinking a lot about The Stove as an opportunity to put our money where our mouths are in thinking about the society we live in. We’ve been inspired by the New Economics Foundation to think about the way we work, and crucially, invest in services and people locally.

The 'leaky bucket' - how easy it is for new investment in a place to be allowed to escape and lose its long term effect - from 'Plugging the Leaks' - New Economics Foundation

 

'Money, like other aspects of life, has become controlled by distant organisations who, as the recent economic turmoil has demonstrated, do not necessarily have our best interests at heart. As the New Economics Foundation put it, our economies have become like ‘leaky buckets’, money that should be staying and circulating locally being sucked out to distant corporations and shareholders.  This all adds to our vulnerability in times of increasing uncertainty, rather than reducing it.

Local enterprises are more likely to employ local people, provide services to improve the local quality of life, spend money locally and so circulate wealth in the community, promote community cohesion and, by reducing transportation of goods from across communities, are likely to have a smaller environmental footprint.'

'Plugging the Leaks' - New Economics Foundation

Lets use the resources of The Stove to give the maximum effect in our local economy and society -  if you’ve got ideas about ways The Stove could be effective in assisting regeneration locally then please do get in touch  info@thestove.org

Creative Dumfries - hell yeah

The is proud to be part of the team behind the bid for Dumfries to be Scotlands Creative Place for 2014 and are pleased to announce that a media toolkit is now available to download from www.creativedumfries.com - see below for more details

Creative Scotland’s Creative Place scheme is in its third year. Dumfries is nominated in the largest population category, and is up against Falkirk and Orkney. The judging is on the 29th of January 2014, and we have until then to show just how creative Dumfries can be.

Creative Dumfries is here to stay – whatever decision the judges take in January. People getting involved in creative activity throughout our town is key to the future of Dumfries as a place that support and nourishes its residents. We believe in a Can-Do Dumfries that puts no limits on ambitions and dreams.

Creative Dumfries – Logo
The logo is free to use and available in a variety of formats (available from www.creativedumfries.com) Please use the Creative Dumfries logo as part of your own activities – e.g. on email headers, printed publicity for your events, social media pages etc. The more people get used to seeing the logo the more it will work for everyone as a sign that Dumfries is a place to watch out for and the more people will come to all of our events, classes, cafes etc.

The Creative Dumfries logo is a marker of that ambition and has been created by one of the town’s leading young designers, Russell Milligan of Brighteye Design & Branding,
www.brighteyedesign.co.uk. The arts in Dumfries are something to be proud of and the Creative Dumfries logo is a way of showing that to the rest of the world.

Our 'Foundation Gathering

The 'Foundation Gathering' always sounded more like a cheesy Sci-Fi convention than an art event…..The Stove’s ‘Foundation Gathering’ has now  landed on earth complete with dry ice (or was that just folk breathing in the ‘bracing’ conditions) and wobbly flying saucers.

Its Art Jim but not as...etc

More than 60 folk turned out on Wednesday – drawn by an invitation to come and be part of the future of the arts in the region by shaping the idea of a membership that will be at the heart of the organisations operation and decision -making.

Phil Jones (Business Development Manager) gave a welcome and defined the Stove as a project with potential to be at the vanguard of a new genre of arts provision in Scotland – a social enterprise that aims to means for residents of Dumfries to play an active part in the future of their town.

Phil describes the Stove as ‘Two things: 1) A Building - fully accessible arts resource for general public and creative practitioners….and 2) An Organisation – delivering participative public arts projects and undertaking commissions in the region and nationally”

The Stove - 'Punkin' the Jubilee'

One of the Stove’s founder members Colin Tennant then gave a brief illustrated presentation of work completed by the group to date and their plans for the future. To date, The Stove has delivered a highly successful programme of public arts events including ‘First Foot’ (part of Big Burns Supper 2012), ‘Punkin’ the Jubilee’ (Guid Nychburris 2012) and the Dumfries Music Conference – which brought industry professionals to the town to explain the contemporary digital music scene to the regions young music entrepreneurs.

In 2013/14 The Stove will refurbish and open premises at 100 High St as a public arts centre, complete a sculpture commission in Creetown and work as one of three local partners delivering the inaugural Environmental Art Festival Scotland.

Andrew Lyon explains a sculpture made by, amongst others, Zoe Blamire (McGill Duncan Gallery) and Cathy Agnew (Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust)

For the main part of the evening Andrew Lyon of the International Futures Forum led a workshop that started people working in small groups to make sculptures from a pile of recycled materials. Andrew’s organisation works to find creative ways of thinking about the future and he asked groups to build a  sculpture that illustrated ideas and hope they had for what The Stove could do for themselves and the wider community.

Local organic farmer Ross Paten demonstrates how regular drain clearing will be a valuable part of The Stove’s remit…

An amazing outpouring of creativity ensued and groups then explained to others what their sculpture represented. Andrew Lyon then skilfully gathered all these ideas together into a creative discussion about how The Stove could operate as a democratic organisation with a membership, a board and an ‘curatorial committee’. A general discussion followed and 43 people signed up as the initial membership of The Stove.

Membership is open to everyone and is free – if you would like to be a part of the innovative experiment in building a collaborative creative organisation for Dumfries and Galloway then please send an email to TheStove1@gmail.com and you’ll be sent a membership form.

The first Stove AGM is set for mid May 2013 where the membership will be invited to elect a board to run the organisation on their behalf.

Foundation Meeting at the Stove

The Stove's foundation meeting was deemed a success, thanks to Andrew Lyon from International Futures Forum and a large group keen to demonstrate their found-art sculpture. More pictures on flickr here

Your Invite to Our Foundation Gathering

The Stove needs your Help

The Stove is getting itself properly organised for the future and needs your help to do this – we’re asking folk who are interested in the arts in D+G to join us for an informal evening to let us know how we are doing so far and what we could be doing better in the future. After we have all agreed a way forward everyone will be offered membership of The Stove (free)

So what has this got to do with you?.......

We believe The Stove can make a genuine contribution to the future of our region – for both the creative sector and the wider population

Still wondering what it has to do with you?.......

The Stove is two things:

1. A Building……..you need to come to this gathering if:

-      You’d like to see a place in the centre of Dumfries where you can meet other creative folk, get info about what is going on locally and further afield.

-      You’d like to be able to hire affordable space to hold workshops/events

-      You’d like to show/present/gig in a space dedicated to multi-disciplinary contemporary arts

-      You’d like to rent a small serviced space in the centre of Dumfries

-      You’re interested in being part of the artist team to work on a series of commissions integrated into the building

-      You want to know about progress with the building (we aim to have completed the necessary building work by the end of 2013 btw)

2. An Organisation……you should come along if you are interested in:

-      Collaborating with other artists as part of teams to take on large commissions

-      Bringing forward new ideas for projects/initiatives that need an ‘organisation’ to carry them forward (NB – one of The Stove rules is ‘if you have an idea you need to be prepared to do it yourself’)

-       If you are an organisation yourself and are looking to collaborate and share resources/expertise

-       Learning new skills by taking part in Stove projects

-       Building a creative career in Dumfries and Galloway

-       Encouraging early career folk to get started locally

-       Growing the ‘arts scene’ in D+G

-       If you are not part of the ‘creative sector’ but you are interested in working with our sector in your work (we can be pretty handy like)

We are holding an informal and relaxed gathering that will be run by Andrew Lyon of the International Futures Forum – the aim is find a creative solution that works for all of us to set up The Stove as the best thing it can be. By attending you will be offered the chance to build yourself into the Stove network from the beginning of this exciting new phase of the venture.

You do not need any expertise of any kind to take part – just enthusiasm and an open mind and heart.

When: 6pm Wednesday 13^th March 2013
 

Where: The Stove, 100 High Street Dumfries DG1 2BJ  

What: Informal workshop led by Andrew Lyon till 7.30, refreshments and chat after

More: TheStove1@gmail.com ………please also RSVP to this address so we have an idea of numbers

The Stove on Creative Scotland

We've been hugely grateful for all the financial and personal support we have reveived from our country's arts body Creative Scotland - Karen Dick and Sambrooke Scott from CS are attending the Inbetween:Seminar over the next 2 days and yesterday a Showcase feature about the project was published on the Creative Scotland website. Cheers!

Check out the whole thing - here

Inbetween:Dumfries on TV

Here is the item broadcast on Border TV's LookAround programme on Monday 5th November:

Click here for Video

Dumfries' Vigilante Custodian

It is important to report the details of a project even when they can be, on the surface anyway, less than positive.
As we walked folk around the town yesterday we were shocked to see that one of Mike Inglis' 'Custodian' installations had been completely removed.
Mike's Custodians are 5 people that he has encountered in his researches, people that the artist has characterised as being folk that 'take care' of the old mediaeval parts of Dumfries - the five were an archivist, an artist, a minister and two members of the Mostly Ghostly group. Mike is interested in the place of 'outsiders' in our society and also identified this group as people who could be regarded as 'different' by the 'general' public and consequently might have their motives treated with suspicion..

Three 'Custodians': Paranormal Investigator, Architectural Theologian and Archivist installed on the wall of the Marie Curie shop on High Street 04.11.12

An 'ordinary looking man' was spotted early on Monday morning with a bucket of water and a wallpaper scraper removing the artworks. No one seems to have any idea who this moral vigilante was - but we can only assume that he took it upon himself to return Dumfries to 'normal' - we trust that he is happy that the status quo is re-established and all sign of invention, hope and respect has been erased.

Marie Curie wall 05.11.12

Mike Inglis is incredibly careful to strike a balance between preparation/consent and the surprise that is necessary for his work to have effect. He had negotioated permission with the shop owner for artworks to be displayed on their wall from now until January. The staff in the shop are as mystified and disappointed as we are.

The remains of 4 months work, discussion and skill....work that burned brightly, but briefly in High St, Dumfries

Stove on TV

The sun shone on the first morning of Inbetween:Dumfries - we have been overwhelmed by the numbers of folk keen to try Dumfries' newest craze....if you ain't Nith Scoping then you ain't living.

Such was the commotion that the ever vigilant ear of local TV heard about things and sent a crew down - check out LookAround on Border TV tonight 6-6.30pm

Hannah explains why it is a good idea to stand in the river

This is what a film maker in D+G really looks like......oor pal John Wallace is working on a film about Inbetween:Dumfries...he came down to film the Nith Scoping action today

InBetween:Dumfries. DGLife

Nestling deep within the pages of D&G Life, one encounters some fine visuals and a bit of explanation into what's happening with Inbetween.

Lost???

They are on their way.....Right now the folk on their way to the Lost Supper are somewhere in Glasgow.....but word has it they are on their way back to where it all began - Dumfries

An Invitation

If Robert Burns was to host his own Supper, which of his contemporaries would he invite? And what if they got lost on their way?

William Blake....lost in Glasgow....and did those feet in ancient times.