Summit Up

On 25th April, Turning the Tide’s six partners – Fablevision, Scotland – Intercult,  Sweden – Instyut Kultury Miejskiej, Poland – Wiener Bildungs Akademie, Austria – Artit, Greece and Dear Hunter, Netherlands) – come together for the Climate and Culture Summit at Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA).

For further details of the event, programme and guest speakers, the click here!

Turning the Tide Tackles Climate Change

Members of the River Cities Network worked together during the exciting and hugely successful Memory of Water project.  Some of the members of that collaboration have continued working together – looking at shared challenges on waterfronts and the possibilities and limitations of artists’ interventions to support future building narratives.  In spite of Brexit, the partners have been determined to keep Glasgow and Fablevision in the frame and we are delighted to announce that the follow-on project, called Turning the Tide (TTT) has been successful in achieving a large cooperation project grant for 2024-26.  An international Climate & Culture Summit in Glasgow in April 2024 will ‘kick off’ the whole pan European project –  a platform for artists and local citizens to impact ‘expert’ dialogue with politicians, developers and planners in Scotland and Europe.  The delegation will visit Glasgow during the week of the 22 April 2024 – an opportunity to keep Scotland at the cutting edge of cultural innovation and we are determined to overcome the challenges posed by Brexit that mitigate against ongoing participation.  Led by Intercult (Sweden) with members of the River Cities Network, TTT is a creative response to the threat of climate crisis on waterfront cities: inspiring trans-disciplinary dialogue through artistic co-creation, creative cartopological mapping and international cross-sectoral dialogue.  With five partners (Intercult,  Sweden – Instyut Kultury Miejskiej, Poland – Wiener Bildungs Akademie, Austria – Artit, Greece and Dear Hunter, Netherlands), TTT’s premise assumes climate change can be impacted through cultural planning led by artists and informed participation.  Although inspired by Fablevision’s longitudinal practice over 10 years – 6 years supported by Creative Scotland and the City of Glasgow: Riverside Solidarity, 2017-19 and Memory of Water, 2019-2022 –  Brexit means exclusion from Creative Europe.  Scottish expertise in socially-engaged practice, however, qualifies Fablevision in a consultancy role.

Woven in Renfrewshire preview at the RAH

Fablevision’s ‘Woven in Renfrewshire’ is currently exhibiting at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, featuring a selection of work from our previous project, ‘Woven in Govan’ (20/21) as a prelude of what’s to come in the project.

The exhibition’s placement within the hospital coincides with the Scottish national public inquiry into COVID-19. The insights and experiences shared during both projects will feed into the conversation around women carers’ experiences before, during, and post-pandemic highlighting how things have changed and, importantly, how they haven’t.

Upon completion of the project, the insights of our participants will be presented to the Scottish Government in an exhibition in the Parliament in June 2024. 

Artists at the RAH Paisley

Back in October we had the privilege to host an event in the Royal Alexandra Hospital staff hub, where NHS staff and volunteers were invited to join Fablevision’s Woven in Renfrewshire team for afternoon tea, cake and an opportunity to meet the artists involved in the project!

Meet the Artists at Paisley’s Royal Alexandra Hospital (RAH)

As part of the introduction to the Woven in Renfrewshire project, we are issuing an invitation to RAH staff and hospital volunteers who would like to know more about the scope and aims of the project and to meet the artists in person.

What better way to familiarise yourself with the themes of “care and carers” than to take tea and cake in the convivial and tranquil surroundings of the RAH staff hub – where the exhibition is being staged – with views extending out over the pond.

If you work at the RAH or volunteer there, we look forward to seeing you between 14:00-16:00, Wednesday, 11th October, 2023.

Woven in Renfrewshire

Following the success of Woven in Govan, Fablevision is delighted to announce the model of artists listening to stories/lived experiences of carers is now taking shape in Renfrewshire.

Woven in Renfrewshire is designed to create temporary artworks in Renfrewshire’s public realm (e.g. creative interventions, pop-up or walking events, mobile performances, posters/flyers, etc.) which will be curated as a touring exhibition (as venues including Royal Alexandra Hospital, Art Department in the Paisley Shopping Centre and the Garden Lobby of the Scottish Parliament) as well as documented and presented digitally as part of an international online exhibition platform,  The thematic focus and aim for this project is to commission artists to develop new works which draw upon broad themes of care, caring, and women’s caring roles within the current debate about a national care service.

While this project is locally-rooted and will be locally developed and delivered, it sits within the framework of an initial international collaboration led by Platform TU (Ukraine) in partnership with Intercult (Sweden).  Development work was funded by Creative Scotland, in partnership with House of Europe (via Platform TU) and Creative Europe (via Intercult) and a pilot project was delivered in Govan during 2020-23 (Woven in Govan) in solidarity with communities across Europe, as part of an ‘inter-local’ response to the experiences of women who work as carers and their experiences before, during and since the COVID-19 pandemic.  Our work in Renfrewshire will be bespoke – involving Renfrewshire-based artists and carers – but it will use the same successful model.  Commissioned artists will create new temporary artworks in Renfrewshire, in solidarity with communities across Europe, as part of an ‘inter-local’ response to the experiences of women who work as carers and their stories of how it is for them post the COVID-19 pandemic.

Socially-engaged artists who have experience working with and within local communities to collaborate on the creation of innovative, temporary artworks will work confidently and dynamically (and within a limited time-frame) alongside local partners and individuals to create temporary creative interventions in the public realm – for example pop-up events, in-person or coordinated mobile walking events, participatory works, mobile performances, window exhibitions or light-based projections, even collectively distributed posters/flyers/zines).

A panel of local people, including representatives from health, well-being and community groups, interviewed applicants and appointed three artists – Kayleigh McGuinness, Karen Herbison and Audrey O’Brien to work on the project collaboratively.  Artists will work with local partners who can provide on-the-ground support and alongside Dr t s Beall as lead artist.  Beall is a socially-engaged artist who has been working in Scotland for over a decade, and who has been working within the existing international Woven Network projects since 2020.

It is expected that all artists will respond to the overarching theme of this project by creatively responding to or representing the stories or voices of women who are working as carers in healthcare, and/or engaging with the unequal care burden of women that was foregrounded during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As part of this project, volunteer participants working in healthcare will be recruited (anonymously) by Fablevision, working with local partner organisations. This local team will support artists as they develop their creative works, and connect them with key workers and full-time carers who have volunteered to share their experiences and stories.  Volunteers with care experiences to share who are interested in working directly with artists can also be facilitated, and robust ethics procedures will be in place throughout the project.

Artworks will be produced and delivered in Renfrewshire, and documentation of these works will be shared digitally through existing local, national and international networks (including River Cities, Intercult, the current Woven Network social media platforms).

The timeline for the project is as follows:

Creative research and project development: June – August 2023.

Delivery of artistic interventions September – November 2023

Touring Exhibition – January – March 2024

Funders:  Arnold Clark Community Fund, Creative Scotland, Glasgow Airport’s Flightpath, National Lottery Community Fund, National Lottery Heritage Fund, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Renfrewshire Council.