Every time I visit Glasgow there is something new to discover, from the absurdist cafe to the best South Indian curry, along with revisiting old friends, familiar places and the apparently de rigueur costume party. seo. I’ve been invited on this trip by the very happening and highly regarded Lowsalt gallery to take part in Glasgow International Visual Arts Festival (Gi). I have a month to explore the town while sourcing materials, going to gigs and hanging out. Staying on the Southside is another lovely aspect to this trip, with morning walks in the parks through the peaceful and often magnificent surroundings of Pollockshields as a counterpoint to the long hours and intense production process.
Stone of Mannan
Wilderness Escape
If you’re in need of a brief city escape, take yourself off to visit the House for an Art Lover in Bellahouston Park where you can enjoy the scenic mansion-lined streets along the way, and the art both inside and out at the sculpture park. Walking along Clyde River is another landscape altogether, with the current ‘urban regeneration’ process underway the shiny new buildings are interspersed with desolate wastelands, where the monolithic shipping crane towering over cyclists and pedestrians going into the BBC and SECC Science centre gives the feeling that things can only improve in time.
Taking over the fabulous wilderness of knot-weed by the Glasgow Sculpture Studio’s along the railway, Lowsalt has a completely innovative approach to the notion of an outdoor sculpture park. Lowsalt works in a creative collaborative process with the artists involved, to gather and translate the spirit of this independent local artistic community into a collective framework and initiative.
Not Your Average Park
The rusty ancient-looking metal sign invites you into another time, where all that remains of some alternative prehistoric relics have been disturbed in their whimsical group show Vestiges Park. ‘A collective intervention into a forgotten landscape,’ the park was inspired by the 1844 anonymous publication of ‘Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation’’. Written by Scottish journalist Robert Chambers, the book exposed a cosmic theory of transmutation which pre-dated Darwin’s ‘Origin of the Species’ by 15 years, and foreshadows of many debates that still occur to this day including the validity of evolutionary theories, the demarcation of science from pseudoscience, and the effect of popularization upon scientific ideas. Exhibits include a gigantic fox head and solemnly dancing mechanised bear; the wonderfully bizarre museum of gloves; ‘chambers coliseum’ specially constructed fence enclosing the space; a nostalgic derivé soundscape of wild or imaginary creatures; and the charming Oolite Sisterhood who are in charge of guarding and guiding visitors through the park.