Yesterday, we held the first of five workshops in Drumchapel which are designed to create a support structure for local inhabitants to set up a community garden. The workshops have been funded by the RSA and we have worked in collaboration with LIFE, the Drumchapel centre for Healthy Living, to set up this series of events. Each workshop is led by someone with expert experience in community gardening, vegetable growing and general gardening skills but the focus is on local ownership of the project.

Yesterday, the workshop was led by Councillor Danny Alderslowe (a well know permaculture campaigner) and there was a visit to the site set aside for a community garden several years ago. The site has a clear drainage problem at one end but Danny thought more minimal work could establish a first plot on the level ground pictured above while there were a series of horticultural solutions to the drainage question. All of this remains at a proposal stage. The workshops will also be accompanied by a continual and growing effort to inform as many of the surrounding residents as possible of the opportunity to take on this project and become involved, as this is key to the success of any project eventually undertaken.

On Tuesday 19th January, Plantation Kids Club from Plantation Productions in Govan packed out the CCA cinema with a preview of their most recent production 'Charlie'. The film was written, shot and edited by the members of the club over three months and was an interesting take on the dangers that drugs can incurr.  DC and Angela from Plantation led discussions about the film and there was a question and answer session with the young filmmakers.  CCA look forward to Plantations next visit in March.

One month into the new year and we're busy programming away to give you some top notch exhibitions, screenings, performances and events well into 2010 and beyond.  As we can't always be relied upon to quench the diverse appetites of you, our informed, intellectual audience (flattery will get us everywhere... we hope...), the question that's always playing on our minds is 'what would you like to see?'  So, we'd love to hear from you to see what you're interested in and what you'd like to see later this year at CCA.  Answers on a postcard to...

On a freezing Friday afternoon before Christmas, our volunteers from BTCV started clearing the site at Westthorn allotments. It's slow work, particularly when everything is frozen solid. Also, because the site is at the very back of the allotments there is only one narrow path. Everything being cleared away has to be pulled along the path on a trolley to the skip at the other end. Our volunteers got stuck right in and made real headway. They also measured our plot and it turns out to be 23m x 30m (it's big...). BTCV are back again in January but in the meantime CCA would like to thank them for their work!

Just to keep everyone informed, CCA will be closing its doors for the festive season on Christmas Eve at 6pm.  We will then reopen on Tuesday 5 January 2010, from 10am (gallery from 11am as usual).

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and thank you for supporting us in 2009 - we look forward to seeing you again in the New Year!

From all at CCA

Garnetbank Primary School are near neighbours of CCA. Recently the children there have set up their own garden and they've been growing a wide variety of flowers, fruit and veg. One of their teachers, Heather LIttle, has helped to forgea link to CCA which we hope will become more established over the next twelve months. In the first week of December this year, the students mounted a small exhibition on eco themes in our creative lab. On two open days, they also presented a selection of lectures on bees and gardening, culminating in the performance of a musical they wrote specifically for the event. The piectures above are from those open days showing both performers and some of the audience.

This week we hope to start clearing a piece of land generously loaned to us by Westthorn Allotments in the east end of Glasgow. The ground is plagued with Japanese hogweed but if we clear it then we have a patch of land the size of six allotments in which we can begin workshops, plant out raised beds and think of raising bees. It's a big task and though we have some volunteers, courtesy of BTCV, we are looking for more. If you are interested in getting involved then email us through our contact page.

Congratulations to Richard Wright on his Turner Prize win last night!  To check out Richard's latest work, come down to see Votive, the current exhibition here at CCA open 5 - 24 December and 5 - 30 January.

Next week on the 11th Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison present a public lecture at CCA. Their work on art, environment and ecosystems is well known but there is a comprehensive look at their work from 1970 to the present day on their website here.

Next week's lecture is entitled 'Designing Environments for Life' and the Harrisons have sent us an introduction to the lecture which states

" We developed the name “the Force Majeure” to explain the accelerating transaction between aspects of the Global Warming phenomenon and their interaction with the many ecosystems that are under stress or in actual turbulence from over-demand by human activity. Our work envisions a counter to the reduction of production and consumption due to market contraction and turbulence that mirrors the shrinking productivity and wellbeing of the world ocean and many, many other overstressed planetary sub-systems. The current work is designed to make clear, albeit in a very simple way, that subcontinents and countries that inhabit these systems are not equipped conceptually, legally, or structurally to meet a future shaped by such a force."

A much longer introduction to the lecture is also available on this pdf.

As mentioned in the previous post our new exhibition by Bik van der Pol, It isn't what it used to be and will never be again, is accompanied by a book with a series of contributions from various writers and artists including Jan Verwoert, Fiona Jardine, Sarah Pierce, Simon Yuill and Sarah Tripp. The complete publication is now available for download here.