Story
of this stuff is DIY,’ says O’Hare. ‘Most of it is not funded by the council or any ofi cial body, it’s just people in the area with energy and enthusiasm wanting to improve the space we live in. And that’s the drive.’ Cinemap is directly inspired by Tramway’s 2013 Albert Drive project, which challenged the people of Pollokshields to respond creatively to the question, ‘who is my neighbour?’ That, as Smillie points out, is still the key question at the heart of Glasgow’s Southside. ‘Within Pollokshields there are two main communities: the white Scottish and the Asian Scottish; to me it’s one of the key things about living in the Southside. How brilliant it is to have such diversity and how do we explore that better in terms of our connections with each other?’ One of Glad Café’s long-term aspirations is to increase connections between those diverse communities, a goal that seems far off but must be edging closer.
Right now, the feeling of an engaged creative community on the Southside is palpable. ‘There are a lot of very generous- spirited people around,’ says Smillie, and O’Hare agrees: ‘We are all very aware and supportive of what each other are doing, and very appreciative of everything that’s happening. And there is so much potential for more.’ In the face of such positive, open community, it’s not difi cult to agree with the oft-repeated mantra of the Southside Fringe: Keep it South.
Southside Fringe, various venues, Glasgow, Fri 9–Sun 25 May; Southside Film Festival, various venues, Glasgow, Fri 23–Sun 25 May.
I
S R A P N E B U E R © O T O H P
I
S S O R A D A N © O T O H P
‘Community focus with a heavy dose of common sense’
Lindsay Keenan, Building Manager of Kinning Park Complex, on its approach to fostering creative community ‘One of the most important things for us is being able to provide space for people. People are multi-talented and creative, they have the ideas and know what they want to do, but what they often lack is the physical space, and the money to do it. One of the core things that we did early on was
continually say “money shouldn’t be the barrier to use”. I’m amazed with the number of people – musicians, artists, theatre people, dancers, people working on community projects – that have indeed had the talent, ideas and energy to take things forward when they have just been allowed that little bit of space without money being the barrier.
The fact that the community occupied the building [in 1996] and now the community is running the building means that we haven’t been tied to other people’s rules or ways of doing things, so that’s allowed us a little bit of freedom.
Right now a lot of wonderful things are happening, and the people have something in common in their feeling of connection to the centre; but what we want them to do is start meeting each other. So we’re putting on more joint events, more networking events, so that people are actually realising the talent pool that they are a part of, and are interacting more. And that’s also about us opening up, and making sure we’re a part of Southside Film Festival, for example, and other Southside events.
One of the things we talk about is “co-operation not competition”. Community focus with a heavy dose of common sense. There’s no shortage of need for venues like this; we can see that in another year or two we will effectively be full. I think there’s scope for a lot more.’ (Interview by Paul Gallagher)
17 Apr–15 May 2014 THE LIST 17