Wednesday Wanders at The Whisky Bond

Join us at The Whisky Bond for an afternoon of free tours around The Glasgow School of Art Archives and Collections, The Alasdair Gray Archive, Glasgow Sculpture Studios and The Distillery co-working space to explore each organisations’ unique spaces and collections. Each tour will last for approx. 40 minutes, visitors will be welcome to attend all tours or can choose to join a specific tour or tours on the day. Either way, we look forward to welcoming you!

Glasgow Sculpture Studios

Glasgow Sculpture Studios is home to a vibrant community of artists working in contemporary sculptural practice. Come along for a tour of the largest art production facility in Scotland, with specialist workshops in metalwork, woodwork, plaster, resin, ceramics and digital fabrication! We support one of the largest communities of artists in Scotland with over 120 artist-members, 55 of whom are studio holders based at GSS. Through our subsidised studios, affordable workshops, and access to expertise, we support artists from all backgrounds, and at all stages of their career, to develop their practice through exploration of sculpture in its broadest sense.

The Glasgow School of Art Archives & Collections

The Glasgow School of Art’s Archives and Collections are a rich resource for the study of art, design, architecture and art education. Our holdings illustrate the history of the institution and the development of its teaching practices since it was established in 1845. For this tour we will focus on our Charles Rennie Mackintosh Collection, which is one of 50 Recognised Collections of National Significance in Scotland. Join us to see Mackintosh’s work from both his student days and from across his career, including watercolours, architectural drawings, furniture, fixtures and fittings.

The Alasdair Gray Archive

The Alasdair Gray Archive was established in March 2020 after Alasdair Gray’s death in late December 2019. The Archive exists to enhance the reputation and understanding of one of Scotland’s most significant cultural polymaths of the 20th century, and through his legacy support others. When you visit the Archive it is like walking into Alasdair’s front room with all the objects & items that surrounded him, many of which feature in his work. All this material is held here for research & learning purposes. When you visit you will be able to handle original artworks, prints, publications, transcripts and ephemera.

The Distillery

The Distillery on the 3rd floor is a dedicated coworking space for freelancers, start-ups and creatives who require flexible, professional workspace. It will be open from 4:45pm for tea, coffee and biscuits, with an optional brief tour of its facilities.

Book your free tickets for our December tour below.

Screening of Alberta Whittle's Lagareh| 20th Sept

We are excited about the UK premiere of this year’s @scotlandvenice artist and GSS member Alberta Whittle's film Lagareh at @glasgowfilmtheatre on the 20th of September. The film invites audiences to pause and reflect on the damage caused by the legacies of colonialism, present-day policing and inadequate incarceration systems. Lagareh creates a space for conversation, for collective hope, healing, and reconciliation.

The film was commissioned by @scotlandvenice and @formaartsmedia for this year's Venice Art Biennale and will be screened at venues across Scotland between September 2022 and March 2023, including @edencourttheatrecinema, Mareel @shetland_arts, @belmontfh, Broadford Town Hall @atlasarts and Ayr Town Hall @southayrshirecouncil.

To find out more, head to the Scotland + Venice website.

Image: Alberta Whittle, Lagareh – The Last Born, (film still – single channel video), 2022, Photographer Matthew Arthur Williams, © Alberta Whittle. Courtesy the artist, Scotland+Venice and Forma

Image caption: Two people sitting comfortably on a couch holding pinkies

Unveiling of 'Cowp to Nature Reserve’ | 4th June

Saturday 4th June

Ellesmere Street Entrance to Hamiltonhill Claypits

1pm - 3pm | Free - all welcome!

Hamiltonhill Claypits Local Nature Reserve Management Group and Glasgow Sculpture Studios are delighted to invite you to the unveiling of From Cowp to Nature Reserve — a new public artwork made by our local communities in collaboration with artist Mitch Miller that tells the social and oral histories of the Claypits and surrounding area.

Join us for an afternoon of family friendly fun and an opportunity to come together, celebrate and thank everyone who made this project possible.

There will be refreshments provided by The Courtyard Pantry as well as face-painting and arts & nature activities, and lots of opportunities to chat with local groups and organisations doing great work in this part of the city

This event is part of the ‘Five Points’ Programme — led by HCLNR Management Group and supported by Queen’s Cross Housing Association and Glasgow City Health & Social Care Partnership

From Cowp to Nature Reserve was commissioned by HCLNR & GSS with the support of Glasgow City Council, Heritage Lottery Fund, and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation

Workshop | An introduction to FHAR (Homosexual Front for Revolutionary Action) with Aurélien P

"Proletarians of all countries, caress yourselves!", Antinorm, journal of the groups of the FHAR, issue n.2, February - March 1973

Thursday 19th May | CCA Cinema

6pm - 7:30pm | Free

The Front Homosexuel d’Action Révolutionnaire (FHAR, English: Homosexual Front for Revolutionary Action) was a Parisian political movement founded in 1971. Resulting from a union between lesbian feminists and gay activists, they asserted the subversion of the bourgeois and hetero–patriarchal state.

The texts published by the group during the few years of their existence manifest a need to express a new relationship to politics of being, mixing individual and collective experience. With many texts warning against the assimilation of "homosexuality" into capitalism, the movement can shed light on ways to understand contemporary feelings and experiences of loneliness, belonging and resistance.

Aurélien P is currently on residency with Glasgow Sculpture Studios in partnership with CCA as part of their annual residency exchange programme with Triangle France in Marseille, France.

He is presenting two workshops on the FHAR at CCA Glasgow. This first one on will introduce participants to the FHAR movement and its archives. It will be followed the week after, May 26th, by a round table discussion on these materials, discussing their context, meanings, and how we can understand them today.

"To shatter the organisation of our survival! To destroy the symbols of our common oppression: to live without hindrance and to enjoy without dead time. To make the walls sing. To dance, to laugh, to celebrate! (…) But from now on, between the established order, its servants and us, there is war. Have no doubt: we wish the annihilation of this world. Nothing less. And for that, we are using ourselves. The reign of necessity ends. Freedom of all, by all, for all, is announced." - One of the F.H.A.R.

Report Against Normality, F.H.A.R. 1971 (Pub. Champ Libre)

Aurélien P lives and works in Marseille. His work explores vulnerability through texts, installations, performances, drawings and sound compositions. His work has been presented at Triangle - Astérides (Marseille), Sissi Club (Marseille), CAPC (Bordeaux), Montez Press Radio (New York), Cooper Union (New York), Belsunce Projects (Marseille), Centre International de Poésie (Marseille), Tonus (Paris), Haus Wien (Vienna).

The Moon Spins The Dead Prison | Publication Launch

Thursday 3rd March | CCA Clubroom

6pm - 8:00pm | Free but ticketed

In partnership with Glasgow Sculpture Studios, the School of Abolition (SOA) invites you to the publication launch of The Moon Spins the Dead Prison: An Anthology of Abolition. Please join for an in-person conversation on the subject of carceral geographies between SOA curator Thomas Abercromby and writers Lola Olufemi and Hussein Mitha and artist Jamie Crewe. Copies of the publication will also be freely available.

The Moon Spins the Dead Prison brings together a collection of new essays that explore the meaning, practices, and politics of prison abolition from local, national and global positions and perspectives. The publication is designed by Maeve Redmond and includes new texts by Harry Josephine Giles, Che Gossett, Hussein Mitha, Lola Olufemi, Koshka Duff & Connor Woodman, accompanied by a collection of new drawings by artist Jamie Crewe and an introduction by Thomas Abercromby, Rosie Roberts & Phil Crockett Thomas.

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Lola Olufemi is a black feminist writer and CREAM/Stuart Hall foundation researcher from London. Her work focuses on the uses of the feminist imagination and its relationship to cultural production, political demands and futurity. She is author of Feminism Interrupted: Disrupting Power (2020), Experiments in Imagining Otherwise (2021), and a member of 'bare minimum', an interdisciplinary anti-work arts collective.

Hussein Mitha is a researcher, artist and activist who lives in Glasgow. Their writing frequently deals with class, contemporary art, anti-imperialism and racial capitalism. They are on the organising committee of Red Sunday school, a new Socialist Sunday School for children and young people starting sessions in Glasgow in 2022. They are also currently working on a collection of essays on poetry and insurgency for Rosie’s Disobedient Press. They are a signatory of Boycott Zabludowicz in solidarity with Palestinian liberation and against the art-washing of apartheid Israel.

Jamie Crewe is a beautiful bronze figure with a polished cocotte's head. They grew up in the Peak District, England, and are now settled in Glasgow, Scotland. They have presented several solo exhibitions, including Solidarity & Love at Humber Street Gallery, Hull (2020); Love & Solidarity at Grand Union, Birmingham (2020); Pastoral Drama at Tramway, Glasgow (2018); and Female Executioner at Gasworks, London (2017).

Thomas Abercromby is an artist and curator based in Glasgow. He has a wealth of experience leading on research, planning, and implementing artistic projects in collaboration with some of Scotland's most important cultural institutions such as CCA Glasgow, Scotland+Venice, Glasgow International, Glasgow Sculpture Studios and The British Council. Recent and current projects include The Glasgow Seed Library, The Springburn Design Charrette, You're Never Done, and The School of Abolition.

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This event is part of School of Abolition; a year-long action research project developed and led by artist and curator Thomas Abercromby using contemporary art and activism to challenge Scotland's prison industrial complex and the ways in which we respond to harm and crime without resorting to further policing or imprisonment. Thomas has invited various artists, academics, writers, activists and other guest contributors to expand the sharing of abolition praxis as a way of reimagining our criminal justice system through a free public programme of readings, workshops, screenings and public art displays. The School will work in close collaboration with communities in Glasgow North, providing a support structure that recontextualises the very idea of policing and prisons towards community-based models of safety, support and prevention.

Supported by Creative Scotland, Necessity, and Glasgow Sculpture Studios

Design by Maeve Redmond

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We encourage all participants to do a lateral flow test before attending the session. Lateral flow tests can be picked up for free at your local pharmacy or you can also order them online to be delivered to your door by visiting; 

https://test-for-coronavirus.service.gov.uk/order-lateral-flow-kits/condition

For access queries and support to cover childcare, travel for those on low incomes and additional disability support available please email kirsty@glasgowsculpturestudios.org