Nothing is Lost: Three artists, three artforms, one city, a shared sensibility. Alison Irvine, Chris Leslie and Mitch Miller set out to document the East End before, during and after the Commonwealth Games. Glasgow’s East End is one of the most impoverished areas in Europe. The Games brought a promised legacy of change and regrowth, of rebuilding, economic and cultural investment – of a new East End, where gap sites were filled and populations returned.

The three artists met market traders, travelling showpeople, playworkers, community activists, cafe owners and local children. They gathered stories and sought out images from the places changed by the Games, those largely untouched, and those left behind. Are things better for the East End? Nothing is Lost offers a way for the reader to work out the truth of the post-Commonwealth city for themselves, through words, photographs and dialectograms.

Chris Leslie’s photographs chronicle Glasgow’s changing fabric. His beautiful, yet unflinchingly stark photographs document the breaking and remaking of the city, its broken bones, lost relics, inconvenient remnants.

Mitch Miller makes dialectograms, illustrations as idiosyncratic as the word suggests, the edges of the city drawn from on high, but as those at ground level see and live it – an intricate, entangled and glorious mess – place as something made up as we go along.

Alison Irvine provides the words. Alison is a novelist who weaves stories from intensive research. She teases out stories, testimonies, moments, follows networks of friends, relatives and acquaintances. In her spare but textured prose the characters speak in select, but eloquent voices that speak from, and of the place itself. Alison explains the trio’s work process below.

In a recent email, prospecting for work, I wrote of our collective:

Our skills lie in unearthing little-known or untold stories about Glasgow the city and its people, and our strengths lie in the fact that we interpret our research in a variety of artistic forms giving a rich, comprehensive and multilayered view of our subjects.

I think that’s a good formal summing up of us: me, the writer; Chris the photographer and filmmaker; and Mitch the illustrator and maker of dialectograms.

An informal summing-up would include the fact that we all benefit from the shared experience, both artistically and socially. We share ideas, hunches, tip-offs, photographs, interview transcripts, anxieties, moans, coffees, shandies. We share family, friends, contacts – anyone who could contribute to our project. And we share the impending deadline which when you’re working with others you could potentially let down if you don’t do your bit, is a massive motivator. Because ultimately, after all the research, it’s just each of us on our own, getting our ideas down and making our work.

In this project we all came with some ideas which we pursued together – we interviewed Gary Barton of the Barras and Schipka Pass fame together, for example – and then we followed the interview up individually, exploring our own narratives and angles.

I liked being at Baltic Street Adventure Playpark, Dalmarnock, and chatting with kids and their families, seeing Mitch with his sketch pad, Chris with his camera, and knowing that we three with our different disciplines were attempting to capture the essence of the play park for the same artistic end. ‘More bloody artists than weans,’ I remember Mitch saying at one point, but the kids didn’t seem to mind.

It’s a sociable way to work and also an expansive one. It stops the ideas from drying up, it makes me think bigger, and respond to the questions that the others ask. We by no means agree on everything and our work definitely has our own experiences stamped on it – personal and political – but I hope that there is also a collective sensibility, some kind of coherence that ultimately ties it all together.

The story they tell takes us from the glamour of the Barrowland Ballroom to the hidden communities caught in the crossfire of major regeneration. It taps into the hopes, fears and dreams of East End youth and the fading memory of demolished districts and East End entrepreneurs. We meet Games volunteers and visit the Adventure Playground built by Assemble Architecture in sight of the new Athlete’s Village in Dalmarnock. We find an East End of many faces, and many possible futures.

Take a look at the limited edition (only 500 printed) box set of 3 books and 2 fold out dialectograms from Nothing is Lost here. Mitch Miller will be exhibiting and selling the books throughout his PhD show SOCIAL MATERIAL: Encountering the Dialectogram at Project Space 2, Art School Union, The Glasgow School of Art from 5-8 September 2015 (preview 6pm, 4 September 2015).

Read more from Chris Leslie and Mitch Miller on Central Station.

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“The skyline of Glasgow is set to be radically transformed…”

This was the quote from Glasgow City Council in 2006 and since then the city has lost 25% of its high rise flats. As well as high rise flats – many schemes throughout the city have also disappeared – the last remnants of old Dalmarnock were demolished for the Commonwealth Games and all traces of the Oatlands estate have been wiped out by a motorway extension.

Since 2007 Glaswegian photographer and filmmaker, Chris Leslie, has been documenting the condemned and disappearing housing schemes of the city. Using photography and audio he documents the thoughts, memories and lost livelihoods of residents and the disappearance of schemes and communities – issues largely forgotten in the utopian goals of regeneration. Most of the areas he has documented have now disappeared or will do so soon.

His long term multimedia project on ‘Glasgow’s Renaissance’ can be viewed online here www.glasgow-renaissance.co.uk.

Chris is looking to get the project exhibited / published. If you’re interested please email him at chris@chrisleslie.co.uk.

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Take a look at Part One of Chris Leslie’s Glasgow Renaissance here

Finding Family is my first feature length documentary and is a collaboration film project with my fellow filmmaker, Oggi Tomic. The film documents firsthand one orphan’s (Oggi) extraordinary journey as he heads back to Bosnia 20 years on from the snipers and shelling in search of answers from his long lost family.

I first met Oggi in 1997 as a 13 year old in Sarajevo Orphanage. I was there as a volunteer to teach the kids in the orphanage B/W photography in a specially constructed darkroom in the basement. It was only supposed to be a 3 month summer project that grew into a 4 year project, and with meeting Oggi turned into a brotherhood.

Oggi photographs Sarajevo – a city scarred by 4 years of war and siege – 1997. Photo by Chris Leslie

Oggi was the first kid who expressed an interest in the project, he was keen to learn photography, he was keen to learn anything that would give him a break from the monotonous and sometimes brutal life of the orphanage. He spoke English and he had a look of honesty that he wouldn’t steal any cameras. From day one, he became my right hand man and with the other students we ran around documenting Sarajevo as it was slowly rebuilt after the war.

Chris teaches Oggi how to use a manual SLR in war torn Sarajevo in 1996

I have witnessed and been part of all of Oggi’s life since he was 13, from the low points of him being kicked out the orphanage at 15, to leaving Sarajevo, through to the high points of his graduation and his wedding in the UK.

We have worked together on a few short film projects since he graduated and we always discussed, dreamed of the idea of making a feature length film together in and around Sarajevo. When his long lost family got in touch after 27 years I knew it would be an amazing story to document and this was our moment. We were also aware that we had a unique archive of photography and film taken in Sarajevo from 1996 that could be used in the film.

There was no large crew, it was mainly just myself and Oggi, a cheap hire car that was falling apart and a long journey across Bosnia. It was always going to be a difficult journey for Oggi and we discussed the possible outcomes, good and bad for him. As well as the journey to meet his family, we trace Oggi’s childhood through the state orphanages he lived in all his young life and surviving the siege of Sarajevo. The nervousness and fear of what was to happen next on the 10 day journey of discovery is reflected in front of and behind the camera.

On route through Bosnia, from the state orphanage where he was abandoned to the door step of the family who abandoned him 27 years ago

There is of course the back story of our relationship and I was pushed in certain ways to include this by several fellow filmmakers and industry specialists when I was working on the making of the film on a EsoDoc (European Social Documentary) Course. Maybe if the journey didn’t turn out the way it did then there would have been scope to turn it into a Balkan road movie with two guys making a film. But I knew it was way bigger than that and Oggi’s story and what was captured on the journey is amazing.

Oggi and Chris at the world premiere of Finding Family in Sarajevo in August 2013. The film sold out over 2 nights and was given a standing ovation on the first screening.

Then of course there is the lure of the Balkans and Sarajevo in making this film. I had spent several long summers in the city as a youngish volunteer; in a city scarred by the longest siege and bombardment in modern day history. For me – my time in Sarajevo, as a photographer from 1996 to 2001, was crucial in shaping me as a photographer, filmmaker and as a person. For Oggi, Sarajevo is his city, his home and where his heart is.

Finding Family will have its official UK premiere on 19 July at the GFT. See the trailer below. Tickets are available from the GFT here.

Finding Family Trailer

Read about Chris Leslie’s documentation of Glasgow’s regeneration in The Glasgow Renaissance on Central Station here.

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Cargo, Camera…Action! is an outdoor celebration of the Clyde and its history that will take place on the banks and bridges of the River Clyde on 26 July. Created by Glasgow Film as part of the Commonwealth Games Cultural Programme, the event is based around the moving image and the history of Glasgow and will offer film, theatre, music and more. Theatrical Collective 85A, will take-over the amphitheatre space at Custom House Quay presenting hourly theatrical concerts throughout the day on a custom-built ocean liner. A mocked-up film set will offer participants the chance to have their moment of glory in front of the camera…if the director allows it. Minty Donald and Nick Millar explore the Clyde in a film work while Eilidh MacAskill goes back to Victorian times, performing Bicycle Boom, a piece about the bicycle, the Victorian woman and emancipation. Enjoy new cinematic works from filmmakers Chris Leslie and Torsten Lauschmann exploring the shipbuilding history of Govan’s playground games and songs.

Cargo, Camera…Action! will take place on 26 July. The event is free but some parts of the events are ticketed. For more information see the Glasgow Film website. Keep your eyes peeled on Central Station for more Cargo, Camera…Action! themed features including an interview with 85A.

GFF14: Cargo, Camera, Action…! The Launch Party

Images courtesy Glasgow Film.

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Find more events in our weekly bulletin here.

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PART THREE
The Gallowgate Twins: Endgame

By the end of August the last tenants of the Whitevale and Bluevale flats (The Gallowgate twin towers) will be moved out and the buildings closed for good.

Whitevale and Bluevale Flats – AKA – The Gallowgate Twins

I have been photographing the interiors and exteriors of the flats for the past few years and in the past few weeks I have been interviewing former and current residents to build a historical and visual record of life in the towers.

29/3 Bluevale

Billy – resident for 10 years on the 29th Floor

When D Day approached for the end of these flats I expected there would be some kind of formal documentation, just as there was in Red Road. But no-one, neither Glasgow City Council nor Glasgow Life / Glasgow Museums seems to be too bothered about these flats. Most people, it seems are happy to see the back of them.

Billy – resident for 10 years on the 29th Floor

Whitevale Camera Obscura – Setting sun hits the metal sheeting around the foyer of the Whitevale Flat creates a repeated camera obscura (the outside skyline reflected inside upside down)

But Glasgow’s Twin towers will hang on stubbornly for the next few years and contrary to popular belief they will not be demolished in time for the Commonwealth Games. It will take years to prepare the buildings and even then, no-one is quite sure how they will brought down. There will be no explosives or giant picking crane – they are surrounded by occupied lower flats and the proximity to the trainline is scarily close. These buildings were built to last and demolition experts are scratching their heads wondering how and when they can bring them down.

Photo montage of Former resident Tony and his younger brother on the balcony 1977 / 2013

One of the 5 remaining tenants waits for the lift outside his flat. He hopes to be rehoused by the end of the month.

Expect them to be turned into giant advertising beacons for the Games. Maybe they will be turned into a giant light installation with shining Hollywood style lights, welcoming visitors to the East End and the Commonwealth Games. But knowing Glasgow City Council and current budget restrictions, a big vinyl banner dropped from both flats will suffice.

I will have a short multimedia film complete on the Gallowgate Twin Towers in the next few weeks. Stay tuned and sign up at https://www.facebook.com/TheGlasgowRenaissance.

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Take a look at Part One of Chris Leslie’s Glasgow Renaissance here & Part Two here.

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PART TWO
The Human element – People behind (and in) the photographs and stories

THE EVICTED – Margaret Jaconelli, Dalmarnock Resident

Margaret walks along Ardenlea St in April 2008

As I venture round the empty landscapes of Dalmarnock photographing the empty tenements of Ardenlea St, I failed to see the net curtains indicating signs of life.  A woman’s voice calls me from a window, asking me what I am talking pictures of. It takes me a while to pinpoint her location as I’m faced with what I thought was a desolate, empty ruin. This was my first meeting with Margaret Jaconelli.

She has been living in Ardenlea St alone for over 5 years. All the other tenants were rehoused, as the buildings were to be demolished at some point. She held on stubbornly as she was one of the few who purchased her home back in the late 1970s.

Come the announcement of the Commonwealth Games coming to Dalmarnock and the plans to demolish Ardenlea St and much of the rest of the area are top priority. Margaret was offered a ‘market value’ of her 2 bedroom flat of £29,000 and asked to leave.  Knowing fine well she could never afford a new property with that settlement she refused and the long battle to evict her began.

It ended in March 2011 when she was served a compulsory purchase order and days later she and her family were evicted at 5am by sheriff officers and over 100 police who cut off and surrounded her home. Margaret continues her fight and has taken her case to the European Court of Human Rights.

You can view the short film documenting her story below:

THE POLITICIAN – George Redmond, East End Councilor

George Redmond stands on the corner of Ardenlea St

On Dalmarnock Gala day in 2008 I was introduced to George Redmond and joined him on a tour of the ruins of Dalmarnock. George used to live on Ardenlea St as a child, he shows me the empty plot of derelict land in between two destroyed tenement flats where once his home stood. He’s very keen to emphasise his role in facilitating Glasgow getting the Games and talks of the transformation of the area for the better.

George Redmond and Margaret have a confrontation.

As we end the tour we bump into Margaret, who happens to be one of George’s constituents. He tells Margaret that he is still trying to work something out for her, but in reality the Commonwealth Games will be for the greater good of the area and someone has to ‘take it on the chin.’

Roll on 5 years and Dalmarnocks landscape has been transformed and George Redmond has his eyes on the grand prize as leader of Glasgow City Council.

THE YOUNG TEAM – Dalmarnock, 2008

Dalmarnock Youth – 2008.

John and friends don’t seem too bothered initially when asked about what they think of the Commonwealth Games and what it means for Dalmarnock. But when I push a bit further and ask about job prospects and their future, he tunes in a bit more. He’s keen to be offered an apprenticeship to be a joiner or electrician. The local press and propaganda machine is hard at work explaining how many apprenticeships are to be made available for the East End youth.

But no one seems to offer them anything more than apprenticeships. When I chat to the local youth leader, he’s dismayed that no-one seems to be talking of or offering the local youth management trainee schemes, or telling them that they can aspire beyond that of an apprentice.  It’s as if they are only expected / allowed to reach a certain limit.  After 30 years of decline and poverty, social inclusion, any assistance or promise of jobs and new builds will always be gratefully accepted by the community.

THE UNKNOWN PAINTER (AND DECORATOR) – Sighthill, 2009

Davey’s Bedroom

Prior to demolition, all the flats in Fountainwell court at Sighthill go through a process of soft stripping, when all furniture and the window frames, plumbing and pipes are removed. All that is left prior to the actual blowdown is an empty wallpapered shell of a former home.

As I walk round the empty flats, some walls are painted bright colours, reds, greens and blues (sometimes dependant on their sectarian stance) perhaps to escape monotone grey concrete and concourse that surrounded them.  On the 14th floor of Fountainwell Court was the home of ‘Davey’ – the painter and decorator who had decorated his entire flat, walls and ceilings with everything and anything from supermarket flyers, newspapers, frozen burger boxes and margarine tubs.

My guide from the Demolition company is locally from Sighthill and knows all about Davey, he says he knows what boozer he drinks in so I could meet him, but he warns me “he’s a bit mental though, but a great painter and decorator.” Wandering through his former empty home looking at the meticulous way he has covered every inch of it, I understand both points.

I decide not to go looking for Davey and think that the pictures are better off on their own to document and give a somewhat unique insight into high rise living (and individuality).

Davey’s Hallway

You can view a short film on Sighthill below:

Written by Chris Leslie

Chris is looking to get the project exhibited / published. If you’re interested please email him at chris@chrisleslie.co.uk.

More: Website | Chris Leslie | Vimeo | Twitter

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Take a look at Part One of Chris Leslie’s Glasgow Renaissance here & Part Three here.

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PART ONE
Project origins – The Balkans

“But this is no time to dredge up vague premonitions. Savage, bestial city destroyers with no conscience are hard at work gutting, sacking, murdering the population, burning archives and libraries, demolishing museums and houses of worship.”
- Bohdan Bogdanovic, Serbian Architect, 1994

Comparing Bosnia to Glasgow is probably going to confuse and possibly upset some people, especially Glaswegians. But the inspiration for my project – The Glasgow Renaissance, with its doomed high rise flats, empty homes and desolation take me back 18 years to 1996; to the ethnically cleansed and destroyed towns of Croatia, and the jaw dropping citywide destruction of Sarajevo.

The connection between the two places is of course, far-fetched. People in Bosnia and Croatia had their homes destroyed, or had to flee them for very different reasons than the Glaswegians I have documented, and it is impossible to downplay or be-little the savagery that swept across the region. After the war, much of Bosnia’s landscape was ruined and empty and that’s when my journey began – and the comparisons began to emerge. Placing photographs of destroyed, empty landscapes of Glasgow side by side with those from Bosnia, with no captions and you may find it difficult to choose which is which.

Pakrac, Croatia – photo by Pete Pawinski

Pakrac Croatia, 1996. I spent 5 months here, working on a volunteer social reconstruction project in this destroyed and divided town.  Pakrac was 80-85% destroyed during the war and was in many ways, the middle of nowhere. In my time off I cycled around the ruins of the ethnically cleansed and destroyed homes. Sometimes quite stupidly (the area was littered with landmines) I ventured into abandoned buildings and homes.

Left behind were photographs, clothes, pictures on walls. As the homes were emptied most of the buildings were set on fire, so there wasn’t much to photograph but occasionally you would find the odd solitary shoe lying amongst the carnage and you only hoped that its owner had escaped and survived.

12 years later whilst out running I first discovered the Oatlands estate in Glasgow. Abandoned and partially boarded up, the flats had been emptied years before, but they remained littered with personal belongings such as letters, photographs, clothes and toys. It felt like people had fled in a hurry, unsure of where they were going, or their final destination.

Walking around what was left of the Oatlands I was taken back to my days in Pakrac. My wife freaked out claiming it could be dangerous, with security fences, rotten collapsed floorboards, and leaking gas meters – and sometimes it could be. But this time there were no landmines to worry about…

I moved back to Glasgow in late 2004 after 5 years in a sleepy Wiltshire town of thatched cottages, no crime, no litter and not even a sniff of dog s**t on the street, the polar opposite to the streets of Bridgeton. I remember driving past Ardenlea / Summerfield St in Dalmarnock on a cold misty winters evening at 4 in the afternoon and being transported back to the first time I drove into Sarajevo in 1996.

The Whitevale Flats have the most striking physical resemblance to the UNIS towers in Sarajevo. The UNIS towers were clear targets for the Serb artillery and a symbol of Sarajevo’s financial sector. Partially stripped back of their glass and facade the buildings resembled the brutalist concrete structure of the Whitevale flats, almost as if the latter are half constructed buildings, just awaiting their shinny coat of a glass and steel facade. (Maybe even putting cladding and glass on the Whitevale flats could be an option rather than wholesale demolition.)

The regeneration of Glasgow and the destroyed landscapes left by the process are temporary, these structures that will only exist for a limited time. Just like in Bosnia, they will be rebuilt in time.

In Bosnia the hope is that war will not return to create more havoc and destruction. In Glasgow we can only hope that in 30 years time the new homes and communities we are building now do not suffer the same fate of ‘knock em down, build em up again’.

Written by Chris Leslie

Chris is looking to get the project exhibited / published. If you’re interested please email him at chris@chrisleslie.co.uk.

More: Website | Chris Leslie | Vimeo | Twitter

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Take a look at Part Two of Chris Leslie’s Glasgow Renaissance here & Part Three here.

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Without the photos and stuff on the wall my office space would be a shrine to apple and ikea somewhat sadly. Most inspiring items on the wall / shelf are – Henri Cartier Bresson book, which I change the photo every day, latest up coming project folder (Glasgow Renaissance) which reminds me I need to get my finger out, photo of the kids, and of course last but not least my album cover frames which change every few months to reflect what I’m listening to (back to teenage angst and the Cure at present.)

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‘Where I Make’ invites readers behind the scenes of artists from many disciplines to share photographs and a little insight about where they create their masterpieces. See more from the series here.

Review 2010 – Haiti – six months on by Chris Leslie.

A selection of photographs from documentary projects undertaken in 2010, from Plean St Flats in Yoker, to Haiti, to Moldova. Slideshow of all 2010 images can be viewed here.

Pop Up Cinéma Matinée was a unique and free cinema event for members of the public which will took place in the courtyard of ‘The Barra’s Centre’ on Friday 20th August from 11.30am – 1pm.
The event aimed to create a discussion on the ‘collective urban identity’ of Glasgow and look at the current shape of regeneration taking place in the city through the showing of a series of original short films which deat with issues of identity, community and memory in Glasgow’s changing urban landscape. Pop Up Cinéma Matinée saw various artists from the city come together to show their work in a collective presentation and in an unexpected ‘pop up’ environment to new and old audiences.

Providing an opportunity for artists within the city to meet, share, understand and appreciate their work with not only one another but the general everyday public and the city.

Pop Up Cinéma Matinée was also intended as a celebration of ‘Paddy’s Market’, an historical flea market in Glasgow City Centre, which closed in the May of 2009. Short films which focused on Paddy’s Market were shown by local Glasgow artists Chris Leslie and Sijle Eirin Aure. Edinburgh based artist Lindsay Perth was also invited to screen some short films which dealt with high rise living within Glasgow.

Pop Up Cinéma Matinée took the form of a 1:1 temporary bespoke cinema installation, designed and created by Marc Cairns and Dele Adeyemo of PIDGIN PERFECT. The installation utilises the covered courtyard space at The Barras Centre, a project by ataStudio.  The project also sought to highlight the trade of the local area and more specifically The Barra’s by ensuring that the entire event from materiality to catering was sourced from local traders in an effort to encourage trade in the area and show the merits of the area.

Pop Up Cinéma Matinée was presented by ‘PIDGIN PERFECT’ as part of the  SASA 2010 event day. Pop Up Cinéma Matinée is an example of a SASA event which seeks to prove that collective thought creates a more powerful response.

With great thanks and appreciation to Central Station and Central Station Member Fund for all there help and support in making this event as successful and special as possible.

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SASA was one of the projects awarded cash from the Central Station Members Fund.