As we get closer to the end of 2023, we want to say a big ‘thank you’ to all of you, our customers, communities, friends, advocates, and colleagues for the support and dedication you’ve given us over the last 12 months.
Thanks to your support and that of our funders, partners and dedicated team, The Stove has been able to support people, both locally and across the region, to work in the creative sector, participate in creative activity and develop new community-led initiatives and enterprises.
You lot are awesome!
We want to wish everyone a wonderful holiday, however you choose to spend it, and all the very best for 2024 – We look forward to welcoming you back to The Stove in the New Year.
The Stove Office and Stove Cafe will closed from 3pm Friday 22nd Dec, and reopen on Tuesday 9th January at 9am.
From all at The Stove, we wish you a happy festive season.
On the 19th December 2023, the Scottish Government published its action plan, detailing the delivery methodology of its Culture Strategy for Scotland, originally published in 2020.
This Action Plan, developed in collaboration with the Culture Sector, sets out the next steps the Scottish Government will take to support the development of culture in Scotland.
Roundtable consultations sessions were initiated in 2022, one of which was held in Dumfries in January 2023 and attended by the Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture, Scottish Government Culture Officials, and colleagues from across the Culture Sector, including Dumfries-based arts and community organisation, The Stove Network. These sessions looked at how cultural and creative organisations, can work with both Government and public bodies to effect positive change, locally, regionally, and nationally.
With a focus on resilience and three key pillars: Strengthening Culture, transforming through Culture, and Empowering through Culture, the action plan outlines the Scottish Government’s route to delivering their ambitious Culture Strategy.
At the round table consultation in Dumfries, The Stove was able to share with the Cabinet Secretary innovative cross-sector working in Dumfries and Galloway that uses cultural projects to empower people to change things within their own communities. An example being the way Dumfries and Galloway are working with the cultural sector to connect people on the ground meaningfully to strategic economic investment.
The Stove’s work, through What We Do Now (WWDN), a unique and ground-breaking initiative that supports a creative placemaking network within Dumfries & Galloway, working with artists, communities, and organisations, is highlighted alongside other examples, within the action plan’s second chapter, “Strengthening Culture”.
Extract from the action plan:
“Champion the economic impact of culture, in particular within the context of community wealth building and creative placemaking….
… The Scottish Government has embraced the internationally recognised Community Wealth Building approach to economic development as a key tool to transform our local and regional economies…
… harnessing local economic opportunities to address a range of challenges linked to addressing depopulation, regardless of whether affected communities are found in rural and island areas, or urban….
… There is a clear link with the principle of creative placemaking, which we know has tangible benefits for communities. For example, The Stove Network’s work across the south of Scotland, funded by the Scottish Government via the Culture Collective project ‘What We Do Now’, connects artists and community organisations to co-develop creative plans for the future of local places. We will learn from the outputs of this work and consider ways of scaling up the approaches taken.
“To see creative placemaking championed within the Scottish Government’s action plan for delivering the national culture strategy is fantastic. What We Do Now in Dumfries and Galloway is just one example of a very exciting strand of practice that is emerging across Scotland to place creativity at the heart of community-led change.”
Katharine Wheeler, Lead for WWDN
The full Culture Strategy for Scotland: Action Plan can be read here
The Stove is showcased as a leading example of how art and cultural activities can lead change, for and with the local community.
Colin Smyth MSP for South Scotland addresses the crucial role the culture sector plays in our local communities in Parliamentary debate, and spotlights Dumfries based organisation, The Stove Network along with Lift D&G and Midsteeple Quarter as examples of where Art and Cultural activities work to support communities.
Dumfries Town CentreLift D&GMidsteeple Quarter
“…The Stove have used arts and cultural activities to bring together diverse communities to drive positive placed-based solutions to the challenges people care about, for example, the future of their town centre. Using arts and culture, not as an end in itself, but as a means to deliver a wellbeing economy.”
Colin Smyth MSP
Dumfries Fountain Guid Nychburris / MOPBack 2 Back
“The Stove is honoured to be highlighted in this way in Holyrood. The ‘Culture in Communities’ report by the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture Committee of the parliament is an important examination of the deep value of participating in culture in communities throughout Scotland. The recent and very welcome announcement, by Scottish Govt, of increased funding for culture is an opportunity to look more deeply into the recommendations of the report and make an innovative shift in the way we support culture in Scotland with dedicated funding for participation in culture, in a similar way to how we fund participation in sport for its health benefits.”
Matt Baker, CEO of The Stove Network
As the Scottish Government builds a budget for culture, Colin Smyth urges; “… we need to better recognise the wider role of culture in delivering that wellbeing economy… by better ring-fencing funding streams for community participation.”
Watch Colin Smyth’s speech here:
Matt Baker addresses the topic of participation in culture and the issues surrounding the current funding model for culture in his blog “A Culture of Participation aka Growing Our Own Culture” published in April 2023.
In the blog Matt discusses the need to review the current role culture plays in supporting communities and suggests a new approach – Participation in Culture Initiative Framework, which could include a percentage for culture across government departments, accountability/collaboration across departments in implementation of participation in culture, regional/place-based approach to implementation and Innovation in funding models.
In the run-up to Wild Goose Festival 2023, the Creative Spaces team worked with pupils from Laurieknowe Primary School to deliver a series of creative workshops on the migration of Geese and their relevance to the region. We would first like to say a huge thank you to Laurieknowe’s P4 class and both teachers who were brilliant to work with!
The first day Creative Spaces went into the primary school we were pretty nervous. We had a plan but were also prepared to be flexible as we didn’t know what to expect from the class. The P4s were really excited to see us and paid close attention as we introduced ourselves and showed them a short video about bird migration. When we asked them questions afterwards, they were all eager to put their hands up and show off their recall skills. We started to see their different personalities shine through and were reassured by the energy of the class – they were so ready to learn about geese!
The next task was map-based. We put a big world map onto each of the 3 tables in the classroom and worked in groups to identify the places where the different species (Barnacle, Greenland White-Fronted, Light-Bellied Brent, and Pink Footed Geese) breed. The first challenge for the kids was spotting Scotland (it’s tiny!) and then understanding that the geese fly hundreds of miles to get here from Iceland, Greenland, Svalbard and Canada even though it’s only a few centimetres on the map. We gave them little card cutouts of geese that they could move around the map – some of the kids’ geese were much more interested in flying to Africa and South America than following their usual migration patterns.
After learning a lot in the classroom about where the geese in Dumfries come from, when and why they come and go, and the challenges they face on their long journeys, we relocated to the hall for an active break. We had come up with a loose concept for a game, where we held up the flags for different countries that the kids had to ‘fly’ between. A few of them played different risks such as predators (foxes, eagles, badgers), wind turbines, bad weather etc. The ‘geese’ had to make it safely to their destination (Scottish flag) without being caught by a ‘risk’, otherwise they would join the obstacles in the middle of the hall. They had a blast with this active learning, amongst the noise and chaos, and enjoyed the challenge of running in V formations like the geese fly.
Active Break to learn more about geese.
We then went back to the classroom for a drawing activity. Each child received a comic strip template designed by Korey and drew/coloured in the story of the wild geese migration. They were really impressed by Korey’s ability to draw a goose and were queuing up to get his help with it. This seemed to be the recurring theme of the day, with everyone asking Korey to tie their shoelaces as they left at 3 o’clock! It was an all-around successful afternoon, and we went home feeling very tired but encouraged.
Before starting Day Two, the team were slightly daunted by the task of engaging the class for an entire day about geese and incorporating more research-based lessons. These nerves immediately disappeared when recapped what the class had learned from the previous session and realised how much they had remembered from only one afternoon.
We decided to dedicate the morning to teaching the class about Goose habitats – what they need to nest and to protect themselves from various dangers. In groups, the kids designed beautiful three-dimensional habitats out of coloured paper and freestanding elements arranged inside shoeboxes. We then moved on to the computers so that the class could complete some further research and fill out their ‘Goose Facts’ booklets.
Colouring in geese cartoon strips
This helped the kids differentiate the different goose species that come to D&G and put all their findings in one place. Just before lunch, we switched things up and held a goose-making workshop where the kids had the choice of dressing our pre-made chicken wire geese in newspaper scraps or making miniature tinfoil geese. What was most impressive was watching the pools of PVA glue and mountains of newspaper scraps disappear and the classroom return to its previous state in a matter of minutes before the lunch bell.
In the afternoon, we decided to put the kids’ learning to the test with a newsreader task complete with costumes. Finally, we brought in our goose expert extraordinaire Hagen Patterson, to answer all the questions the kids had come up with over the past two sessions. They loved having their burning questions answered and it was hilarious watching the Q&A go off track with a couple of questions (shout out to the pupil who asked which goose was the tastiest to eat). However, the highlight was definitely Hagen’s true-to-life goose calls which showed the class a fun, tangible example of the differences between the various geese species they were learning about.
We felt a great sense of achievement after the second day as we achieved a better flow between the various lesson plans and felt genuine excitement from the class about geese migrating to our region.
A very magnificent goose!
On Thursday the 12th of October the Creative Spaces team headed into Laurieknowe Primary School for the final time. The class were just as excited to see us, and the feeling was mutual. During the third visit, the team felt more comfortable and at ease with the P4 class. The lessons were well received and as the kids had familiarized themselves with us, they were genuinely engaged, and the lesson continued at a good pace.
The lesson of the day was centred around Scots language and poetry with the theme of Geese. Mia grabbed the class’s attention immediately with a self-written Scots Poem about Geese visiting Dumfries. At this point, it was interesting to see which Scottish words the kids already knew or didn’t know. This was a great way to introduce some Scots Words to the pupils’ developing vocabulary.
So, using words provided (and explained) by us, and some useful goose facts, the children were then prompted to write their own poems. They did brilliantly and it was a great pleasure to help translate regular English words into Scots for the kids. That in particular was something they were all excited about, and even though it wasn’t mandatory, all the pupils stuck to writing about Geese.
The brilliant poems were available to view at the Wild Goose Festival Hub in the Lorebrune Centre during this year’s festival. Towards the end of the day, we also finished off our miniature goose sculptures with some coloured pens and got some great results, which were also displayed in the WGF Hub.
Travelling Gallery, a contemporary art gallery in a bus in collaboration with The Stove Network, will be bringing its latest exhibition, Take Care, to Dumfries & Galloway this November.
The exhibition is a group show featuring artists such as Uma Breakdown, Gwenan Davies, Ellie Kyungran Heo, Laura Wilson, and Joy Baek, along with the Sculpture Placement Group. Take Care explores our relationship with non-human things that we care for in our often isolated society.
The artworks showcased in the exhibition explore a wide range of mediums and subjects. For instance, Laura Wilson‘s new video, “You would still almost expect to find it Warm”, focuses on the intimacy of baking, presenting fresh dough as a living organism that is alive with yeast. In contrast, Ellie Kyungran Heo‘s moving image work, Plantarians: appendix, delves into our care of house plants and questions “Why is it that we place a plant in a pot, constricting its ability to grow and occupy physical space?”.
Continuing our relationship with non-human things, artist Uma Breakdown presents their video game Animal Agency, the multi-layered click and point game invites the player to work with animal-like creatures to move between a number of rooms and spaces. Gwenan Davies’ paintings then explore our ‘in-between’ times as she observes the ritual and social function of the coffee break, turning a sea of abandoned coffee cups into a surreal landscape.
Artist Uma Breakdown has created a video game called Animal Agency, which continues the exploration of our relationship with non-human things. The game is a multi-layered click-and-point adventure, where the player works with animal-like creatures to move between a number of rooms and spaces. In addition, Gwenan Davies’ paintings capture our ‘in-between’ times by observing the ritual and social function of the coffee break. She turns a sea of abandoned coffee cups into a surreal landscape, creating a unique perspective on our daily routines.
Finally, Travelling Gallery is collaborating with Sculpture Placement Group (SPG) to exhibit the sculpture, Here, My waiting by Joy Baek, from their Loan scheme. The SPG Loan scheme works with artists to extend the life cycle of artworks that are currently in long-term storage, allowing people to care for and enjoy an artwork, often outside of a gallery context.
Finally, Travelling Gallery is collaborating with Sculpture Placement Group (SPG) to showcase the sculpture titled “Here, My waiting” by Joy Baek, which has been borrowed from the SPG Loan scheme. This scheme aims to prolong the lifespan of artworks that are currently in long term storage. It enables people to appreciate and take care of the artwork, sometimes outside of a traditional gallery setting.
Graham Rooney, Operation Director at The Stove Network shared the following:
“We’re thrilled to be partnering with the travelling gallery on its tour of Dumfries & Galloway. Connecting people and places through creativity is fundamentally at the heart of what we aim to do here at The Stove, and this project is a fantastic example of where we can support access to the arts in an exciting and meaningful way.”
Travelling Gallery will be visiting the following venues, in partnership with The Stove Network:
Wednesday 1st November – Outside Stranraer Library, North Strand Street (Supported by Creative Stranraer)
Thursday 2nd November – YMCA, Lochside Dumfries (Supported by LIFT D&G) 10 am – 4 pm
Friday 3rd November – The Lockerbie Old School, 10 am – 4 pm
The gallery is free to visit, and everyone is very welcome.
As well as visiting Dumfries and Galloway, the Travelling Gallery has toured the following areas:
Stirling University, in partnership with Stirling University
West Lothian College, in partnership with West Lothian College
North Ayrshire, in partnership with North Ayrshire Council
East Ayrshire, in partnership with East Ayrshire Council
South Ayrshire, in partnership with South Ayrshire Council
Our Public Art Lead, Katie Anderson, tells us about the Keep Looking Up Roaming Installation, The Stove’s artistic response to this year’s Wild Goose Festival.
As part of this year’s Wild Goose Festival, I’ve been invited as part of my Public Art Lead role to create and host a playful birdwatching experience inspired by the returning migratory bird population. Appearing in and around Dumfries town centre, this new artwork will explore bird watching in a creative way at dedicated pop-up spaces produced for viewing and listening to birds and their behaviours.
As ‘Roaming Birdwatchers’, the artwork – of no fixed location – will ‘pop up’ in four different public spaces around Dumfries. This interactive artwork will ask those passing by to pause and reflect on our non-human winter residents.
Audiences and members of the public are invited to join the Wild Goose Festival affiliated artists and partners in an outdoor environment to observe the skies and consider our relationship with the non-human inhabitants of our everyday spaces. The artwork comprises a series of colourful deckchairs, a commissioned soundscape using audio recorded from local visitors and alternative viewing devices for seeing the birds and wildlife differently.
The project is inspired by the Wild Goose Festival’s theme ‘Keep Looking Up’ and includes a series of project flags that will appear around the town. Each flag will encourage those passing by to look skyward and spot the returning bird population as they continue to arrive. Also, each flag will act as a message of hope and optimism in challenging times. How can we see the town differently, and what new ways of seeing can help us uncover unique understandings of our place?
The Keep Looking Up roaming installation will be found in and around the town centre on the following dates:
Thursday 19th at 1 pm – 4 pm
Friday 20th at 1 pm – 4 pm
Monday 23rd at 2 pm – 5 pm
Thursday 26th at 1 pm – 4 pm
The pop-up locations will not be published in advance, but sites could include Dumfries High Street/Fountain Square, the Whitesands, Greensands and Dumfries Museums sites. If you would like to find the roaming installation, please pop into the Wild Goose Festival Hub in the Loreburne Centre for information on the day.
