HIDDEN GLASGOW Secret societies, alternative tours, pop-up shops: in Glasgow there’s a world of excitingly obscure things to do. You just need to know where to look. Kirstin Innes provides an introduction to the hidden delights of the city
PARKS, GARDENS AND TOURS
So, you think you’d like to get to know the city a little better? Glasgow City Council’s website offers a number of downloadable heritage trail guide packs. We particularly recommend following the Bridgeton Tour, which takes in the area to the East End around Glasgow Green, the People’s Palace and the former Templeton’s Carpet Factory, and as such is steeped in the city’s industrial history, with some utterly gorgeous architecture to find out more about. Also on the council website there’s info on everything from the history behind each of the Clyde bridges to a properly guided the Necropolis. tiny.cc/gccheritage tour
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If you prefer to live on the edgier side, get into graffiti. We mean legally, of course. The city-wide Rudimentary Perfection project, organised by street art-friendly gallery Recoat, is an excellent way not only to discover parts of the city you might not know, but also to brush up on the burgeoning Graffuturism movement. Rudimentary Perfection is the first exhibition of Graffuturism in the UK, bringing ten international artists to the city to paint large-scale outdoor murals. A Google map of the locations (ranging from Woodside, through Nelson Mandela Place and all the way to Govanhill) is available at tiny.cc/grafmap, and the whole project has been documented at rudimentaryperfection.blogspot.com. Once you’ve got yourself a taste for outdoor art, wander out to Bellahouston Park, which cleverly manages to combine two of Glasgow’s most contradictory passions. It’s close enough to Ibrox to soak up a fair few blue-shirted fans on match days, but it also hides House for an Art Lover, preserved as a shrine to Charles Rennie Mackintosh, in its
Make It Glasgow, Left: Britannia Panopticon
grounds. House for an Art Lover’s gardens are what really set Bellahouston apart, though: the Art Park, which opened in 2000, is a little- known, ever-evolving collection of outdoor sculpture. Essentially, it’s an adventure playground designed by visual artists (in collaboration with local school children). If you want to go even wilder, off beaten tracks where tourists don’t dare, the tangle of forums at urbanglasgow.co.uk is always worth dipping into for unusual and exciting locations.
SECRET SOCIETIES AND UNDER- THE-RADAR ORGANISATIONS
Perhaps you’ve decided it’s time to make a difference, and you’d like to connect with some like-minded free-thinkers. Glasgow Open School is a completely non-hierarchical group dedicated to the sharing of knowledge and freedom of information. They run seminars, workshops, performances and parties, usually from a shared house in West Princes Street, but the best way to catch up with them is to have a look free-edit website, glasgowopenschool.com. their
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Glasgow Occupied, based at the Free Hetherington in Glasgow University, and now the longest-running student occupation in UK history, are currently running debates, summer schools and occasional live literature events featuring the likes of writers Louise Welsh and Zoe Strachan in support of the Free Hetherington’s aims. See their Facebook group for info. facebook.com/FreeHetherington the most
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Speaking of authors, if you are one, and you’re trying to make connections in what can be a rather lonely industry, you should pop
into regular writer’s networking club, Weegie Wednesday, held at the Universal (57–59 Sauchiehall Lane) on the third Wednesday of every month. It’s been going since 2006, is run by a dedicated steering group of wordsmiths, and offers everything from talks on e-publishing to advice groups. The next event is on Wednesday 17 August. weegiewednesday.org
Believe it or not, that apparent oxymoron social gardening is on the rise all over the city. Interested parties should connect with SAGE (Sow and Grow Everywhere), whose cleverly-designed mobile allotments (created in conjunction with environmental arts organisation NVA) can be seen all over town and can grow everything from courgettes to small trees in constricted spaces – make your first contact at sowandgroweverywhere.org.uk. And yes, we said ‘social’: SAGE are particularly involved in the annual Glasgow Harvest, a great city-wide festival of home- grown nosh, food sharing, and workshops, happening throughout September and October. If you’ve got green-fingers, but no space to grow anything, Glasgow Guerrilla Gardening organise regular meet-ups to bring blooming, bursting life back to disused or dilapidated sites all over the city. This fertile (sorry), friendly environment created Kabloom Seedboms (kabloom.co.uk), now beloved of Gwyneth ‘Goop’ Paltrow amongst others. glasgowguerillagardening.org.uk Prefer to do your crafting indoors? Make It Glasgow, which opened in September last year, is part-café, part-handi-bod’s haven. You can rent sewing machines by the hour, take part in workshops in everything from felting to making items of clothing, or just get your needles out and enjoy communal crafting. 3 Osborne Street, makeitglasgow.co.uk
21 Jul–4 Aug 2011 THE LIST 93