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Author: Katie Anderson

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Cafe – Community – Creativity: Exhibition Call Out

The Stove Cafe x Conversing Building

We’ve spent more time at home than we ever thought we would. What sorts of things did you get up to during the past 14 months? Maybe you started painting again, or learned how to knit, or made collages to send to your friends or started taking photographs on your phone. We’d love to celebrate the little acts of creativity we have all made at home, and share them in our café.

The Stove Café and the Conversing Building project would like you to submit or loan your artworks to us for a Community Café Exhibition in June 2021. Works can be 2D or 3D, measuring no more than 60cm in any direction please. All artworks will be displayed in our public café so please make sure that the work you submit is suitable for all ages.

How to Submit

Artworks can be dropped off to The Stove Café during regular opening hours Wed-Sat, 10-3pm, but please make sure you have included your contact details so that we can return your work to you. If we receive a large number of submissions we may not be able to display all works. Please do not submit more than two artworks per person.

If you have any queries about whether your creative work will be suitable, please drop us an email to [email protected], or pop into the Stove café and ask one of our team.

All artworks must be submitted by Monday 31st May 2021.

The exhibition will run from the 2nd to the 30th June 2021.

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Opportunities

What We Do Now Call Out

There are 12 commissions in total of which 10 creative freelancer/artists or arts groups will be commissioned for a year to work in and with 5 places, (2 for each Place Hub) and initiate creative projects with key sections of each respective community. These place opportunities are split between ’emerging’ and ‘established’ artists/creative practitioners. A further 2 creative freelancers are sought to work alongside The Stove Network in the creative documentation (Documentarian Commission) and digital delivery (Digital Producer) of the project.

Find out more about these opportunities and how to apply here:

Call Out

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News

Feedback from the Stove’s Annual Gathering

Missed out on our AGM last month? We’ve got you covered with recordings of the two presentations shared during The Stove’s Annual Gathering. First up, a review of the past 12 months from Matt Baker (Orchestrator) and Katharine Wheeler (Partnerships and Development), featuring (approximate!) closed captions:

The second presentation looks forward to the year ahead, from Martin O’Neill (Artistic Director).

Also as part of our AGM we hosted a series of short members conversations reflecting on some of the key findings from our membership survey carried out last year. We wanted to take the opportunity to share some of the ideas that came out of these five really interesting sessions.

  • a creative exploration of night time culture
  • a debating club
  • a debating club for Disabled Access
  • Digital recording of live events at The Stove to allow more inclusion for audiences who can’t attend in person
  • More making spaces – we need to move from attics to aircraft hangers to realise our potential
  • Signposting good practice nationally and internationally in social/community arts
  • Digital recording of live events at The Stove to allow more inclusion for audiences who can’t attend in person
  • Use technology to reach across distance
  • Make a statue of Ailsa in Fountain Square
  • Stove learning: Don’t just tell people stuff, support them with the means to do it themselves
  • Access to IT skills development and recording of activities
  • See our towns and villages in D+G as mini-cultural hubs Its good for Stove to be more regional, but don’t forget about Dumfries, there is still a lot of work to be done doon hame
  • Analysis of the population in comparison to our current engagement reach – elderly inclusion 
  • Intergenerational working  particularly within the medium of movement
  • ‘Access to Choice’ – diversity in how to access events and activity
  • bringing in Community Learning and Development expertise available locally into the Stove team
  • grow ‘night-time culture’ in the town centre
  • bring some of the ‘positives’ discovered during the past year into future activity 

There were loads of brilliant conversations between the 75 attendees, and we were sorry to not have longer to open up the space to hear from friends, members and Stove supporters after such a long period away from the Stove building, but hope that we can continue these soon!

You might notice that our website has had a bit of an upgrade to reflect our programme this year, so to explore more of our current and upcoming projects visit: home page, and Soapbox.

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News Opportunities

Opportunity for Freelance Artists/Creative Practitioners in Dumfries and Galloway

The Stove has been asked by the Wheatley Group to help them find creatives in D+G to put themselves forward for grants of up to £5,000 to develop and deliver new projects with children and young people in the region. Wheatley is a national organisation for social housing in Scotland and they are working in partnership with Creative Scotland on this project.

In the first instance the project is looking for expressions of interest from creatives with an idea for a project that can help improve the skills, confidence and wellbeing of young people. Projects are to be delivered within a year (though do not need to last a whole year) and you do not need to specify a community you would work with as Wheatley will help connect artists to communities locally.

If you are interested, there is more information available here including dates for online information sessions.

Please email [email protected] to receive an application pack. Deadline 5th March

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News

The Stove Presents: Conversations at Home

The Stove continues to advocate for the power of creative community-led work in supporting and sustainably developing our places. We are doing this by continuing conversations at home, through activity with Homegrown and Atlas Pandemica, and also as part of local, national and international networks that provide opportunities for shared learning and inform and advocate for this Creative Placemaking work.

The Stove’s Embers report defined this placemaking practice as:


“a collaborative practice that uses creative activity to connect and come together with other individuals, groups and organisations and respond to local needs with innovative solutions that focus on social wellbeing and inclusion in our communities.” 

Embers

We continue to focus on opportunities for collaboration, shared-resource, cross-sector working and locally led innovation. This month our team will be joining key partners at two major public events (see below for details) to talk about how the Creative Placemaking practice of The Stove has led to significant change in the regeneration and development of Dumfries’ High Street, helping to grow social enterprises and community initiatives for our local communities. A most notable example of this Creative Placemaking work is Midsteeple Quarter (MSQ), now a Community Benefit Society in its own right, MSQ is a community-led regeneration project for the centre of Dumfries and an exemplar of a co-creation, collaborative community and sector led approach to economic development for its place. 

Matt Baker, founding member and Stove Orchestrator, will be joining Community Land Scotland and Carnegie Trust UK for ‘Community Ownership – Shaping the Future of Our Towns’. Katharine Wheeler, Stove Partnerships and Project Development lead, will be joining the Newcastle University Engagement Team for Wor Culture: Re-thinking the High Street and the role for Arts and Culture.


Please join us:
Community Ownership – Shaping the Future of Our Towns – Tuesday 26th January 2-3.30pm
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/community-ownership-shaping-the-future-of-our-towns-registration-132730463389

Wor Culture: Re-thinking the High Street – What Role for Arts and Culture? – Wednesday 27th January 12.30-2.00pm https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/wor-culture-re-thinking-the-high-street-what-role-for-arts-and-culture-registration-135664737883

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News

Elsewhere: First Images

Thank you to everyone who took some time to visit Elsewhere last weekend, it filled us with hope to see the town again from fresh perspectives and in new lights.

The first of our images from the weekend are now available, thanks to photographer Kirstin McEwan.

If you weren’t able to attend in person, much of the wonderful work we included as part of Elsewhere is available to view online, see a selection of links below.

Elsewhere was supported by Dumfries and Galloway Council’s Regional Arts Fund.

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