Discover Scotland’s greatest modernist ruin, St Peter’s Seminary, transformed by light and music. Fifty years on since the building opened, you can explore this architectural masterpiece reanimated at night for the first time by public art company NVA. From 18 – 27 March, Hinterland will reveal the full glory of the towering concrete ruin, combining moving light installations and projection with a haunting choral soundscape.

Tickets on sale now at www.hinterland.org

Photo credit: James Johnston

Find more events in our weekly bulletin here.

Ahead of their next performance Cargo, Camera… Action!, Central Station caught up with the Glasgow based sound/art/performance collective 85A.

When did 85A start?

Our first event was in 2008. We didn’t have a name until 2010. There’s been nineteen shows we’ve done together. We have a problem saying no…!

When we make work, especially with Chernozem, the film we made, the idea comes from a few people and then expands. In that case, we expanded it to make a theatre performance before the film had finished. Then we screened the film with another theatre performance around it. It’s almost like a season or something. Our audience gets really excited. They can see it and then come back and participate with it again. It allows them to experience the story or the thematic content in various ways by physically being part of it or watching it.

How did you come up with the name 85A?

It was on the submarine in one of our early shows. We were doing a show about a submarine and then we decided we needed a name and we looked no further than the name on our submarine. It’s the submarine’s ident.

Looking back, what do you think inspired you to start a collective?

We’ve never had so much time for reflection. We keep moving forward. Things just get thrown our way that are too exciting to say no to. It’s been consistently less shows and bigger shows but still about five a year. We do a summer season and we work on a London based circus each summer as well. So that’s another project we do together and we live together in different shapes and forms. It’s a family now!

How do you describe yourselves and what you do?

That’s a big question. We’re a multi-disciplinary artists collective. We work across disciplines and there’s generally, in no particular order, music, puppetry, masks and audience interaction. We like to work site-specifically and put on our own events. We work with film as well and a lot of us have a visual arts background but a lot of us have been moving gradually away from it in multiple directions.

We combine the forces of visual arts, design and music to create performative event based works that could almost be seen as durational. Often, they roll into a party so we can have a more focused performance which would then turn into a music event towards the end.

You often work with masks, costumes, and other disguises so how does anonymity relate to your work?

There’s a freedom to it and also a reaction to a lot of the current climate of arts, business and personal hype. Everything is attached to a face. People as well as artists seem to really be in a look-at-me phase, sharing everything and getting everyone to take a look at themselves. Often behind the mask or image, there’s not much. We’re trying to make a counterpoint to it, where we‘re a lot more secretive about who we are and the way we do things, but when people come to our event, there’s a lot of us. We’re very generous and there’s a lot of us to be with!

On the same note, you often ask your audiences to wear masks. How does this add to the performance?

It blurs the lines between the crew and the audience. The audience start to feel like they can act up, like they’re crew. Because you’ve got that anonymity, wearing a mask allows you to be something other than the face that you project. If you go to quite a lot of art shows or the pub, you can’t really relax. You have to keep this pretense up. If you have a mask on, you can do whatever you want and nobody can see it’s you. There’s a certain freedom within that.

Dark Behaviour looked like so much fun, can you tell us a bit more about your experience making it?

We’ve done about five masquerades now so it’s almost like we’re developing a bit of a scene. Each time, people experiment more with their costumes and masks and movement. We’ve really noticed the effort that people go through, especially the last two masquerades. People probably dress like this for other things, but now they’re really finding out about what we’re doing and using that as a platform for their own costume. The masks were great at Dark Behaviour. In Edinburgh the costumes were really good as well.

Do you have a core group of people you work with?

There’s twelve of us who are in an e-mail thread with each other. When we come to do projects, our numbers go up. We also have associate artists who we’ve been working with for about five years now who are growing with each project. We’ve been headhunting other artists that we want to work with, performers or people who can build etc. We’ve never advertised or asked for volunteers. We just kind of find people. You get fed if you work with us, and you get a patch or a t-shirt!

On your website, you call yourselves ‘cultural agitators.’ How are you disrupting the norms related to visual and contemporary art practice?

We’ve successfully removed ourselves from it. Before 85A, quite a few of us were involved in a gallery called Lowsalt, where we would organise group exhibitions. We were asking artists to collaborate with one another, to share a space, and we would always encourage a performative element on the opening night and really play to the event. Within that, we found each other as a group. Through being a gallery working mainly with solo shows, we got a really good response from the Arts Council and funders in general. We did GI a few times. We always gave too much, we would be given some funding and put on three giant shows, one gallery based, one all around the city, and then some inflatable sculptures which was also city wide.

We decided we wanted to work together as a group anonymously. Then suddenly, we were getting turned down from funding and we felt that the new direction we had chosen for ourselves wasn’t fitting with what was on offer for artists. We just decided to take it somewhere else and haven’t really looked back. We’ve ended up getting permission from so many other organisations whether it be NVA who asked us to create something for an urban food festival, or Govanhill Baths to do a music festival, music festivals outside of Scotland, film festivals.

There are a lot of multi-disciplinary visual artists in the fine arts scene, but their work is only multi-disciplinary to a point. That’s where a collective is different because there are people within that who themselves are working multi-disciplinarily and you’ve all got a different base or background and that allows the work to shape shift and become malleable. All of these elements create something that we’re quite happy to feel is outwith the bubble of visual arts.

We’re also independent in the sense that we are in control of all the logistics. We have vehicles, we can take over a space. We have all the equipment to put on a show, sound, video, lighting. We’re a production company so in that sense, it’s beyond multi-disciplinary.

85A’s Voltage and Vitalism at The Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow 2012

A lot of inspiration seems to come from German Expressionism and Victoriana, is there a reason you have a particular affinity to these and/or other periods?

Expressionism has been a big player in the aesthetics of a lot of our work which is down to one of our members who does all our graphics. It’s been a big influence. There’s a kinship beyond the stylistic element with the Weimar Republic and the Constructivists and times of political upheaval. There was a lot of interesting art being created back then.

The Victoriana theme of the Kelvingrove event was scientific times. That show was about electricity and the inventions were really exciting. They asked us to be part of an event that already had that overarching theme. We were making work to poke a stick at the ideologies that are so celebrated, like imperialism and make some work that was brought these quite interesting or slightly backwards thoughts to the forefront.

It’s not all about the past though. We’ve got other influences and they’re quite diverse. Industry, maybe in music or in film. It goes a bit beyond that. It’s not just artistic influence either. We’ve been working in festivals quite a lot, music festivals and arts festivals in the outdoors. You do see quite a lot of something on another scale that mixes all of that and that’s another influence. People who are travelling and parties have brought in autonomous elements like subcultures that have taken hold in the festival scene in the UK.

Do you have specific emotions or reactions that you’re trying to invoke from the outset?

There are elements within each show where sometimes there might have been an undercurrent from the start or they might protrude later on as quite an obvious statement that you could read something into but it’s never been forced.

We think of ourselves as the audience and what we would like to do. Whether we’ve been whizzed around on a ghost train or ‘yeah! let’s get crushed by some kind of god of the party’. I think we come at it from a participant’s point of view and through devising it, you feel it.

The drama and the emotion happens. There’s ten of us talking like this. You feel the emotion in the room. You feel the response. If we’re talking about something like The Orzel, it equates to a certain chapter in history, World War II. This is not really the kind of message that we feel passionate about more than any other. We like the story and the treatment and we want to stay true to the intention of the piece. We pick up the emotions as we go along.

We do say something like, “we’re going to do a rain or shine show and it’s going to be for everybody. All Ages.” There is a difference but within that you can still have a somber emotional context. We think about our audience, whether we’re given an audience or we’re going out to find one. There are emotional political elements within everything we do because that’s the kind of people we are. We’re not going to not say things but we maybe will say them in a different way to a family audience. We’re not going to put them through some horrific experience if there are children there. We’ve always kept hold of that.

Even when we’re at a festival and it’s fun during the day, we’re still crushing people, we’re still sacrificing people because that’s the humorous grotesque stance we have. It’s about not taking everything so seriously but it is about having something to say. There’s an absurdity in what we do. I think that’s there as well and sometimes it can be really dark but tinged with humour so it’s never overwhelmingly dark. We’re not just jesters, we’re serious in our absurdity.

85A’s The Crusher at Secret Garden Party Festival in Cambridge

With so many different elements going into performances, how do you control them when the performance is underway?

There are roles that are formed within that. We stage manage each other and people will head up departments for props or costumes or food, driving. Experience of working together also builds that and working with so many people.

We’ve experienced madness and anarchy. When you’re at a party, a festival or a demo or self-organised you become familiar with the crowd’s reaction. You want to encourage people to let go but you want to keep things safe. These are the rules and regulations of such spaces and technical things that you should or shouldn’t do. At the same time, you know that you need to be able to get your audience to feel that it’s totally mad but really it isn’t. You need to have experience of both worlds, the entertainment industry and the world of total chaos and seeing how far you can connect the two and have them coexist in one space. If it’s mega official and everything has got to be done by the book, we’re really good at doing risk assessments now and knowing regulations. Some other place they might not care so much and we can do the same show with four times less effort because there is less paperwork.

We work a lot with performers where we’re improvising.I think a lot of that comes through trust and practise together. If you can improvise together and discuss and have a laugh and say stupid things and then party together and then create work, there is a trust. Yes, you have an overall direction or scene but within that there will be a few improvised elements that you kind of give to people and they do great work. That’s why we all work together.

Stay tuned for more from 85A next week when they talk about Cargo, Camera…ACTION!

More: Website

Photos courtesy of 85A. Interviewed by Madeleine Schmoll.

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See more arts collectives we’ve featured on the site. Think we should feature your collective? Get in touch.

A running dialogue by NVA

Ever wondered what people talk about when they run? Listen in to Angus Farquhar, NVA Creative Director, and Hayden Lorimer, Panel Member for Speed of Light, as they jog in the park.

Beginning with philosophical thoughts about running to clear your mind, this charming short ends with a humorous discussion about what to eat after a run.

See more work from NVA on Vimeo |  Twitter | Facebook.
Find out more about NVA here.

Exit Strategy by Estum

A classic piece of abstract monochromatic letterform from one of scotland’s most dynamic graffiti artists. I love the way it comes to life and crawls around the wall leaving its raw texture and colour visible.
Scuff by Fraser Gray

I love this painting of the artist Scuff. It’s a wonderful portrait of a really charismatic artist: it captures Scuff’s robust personality. It’s vividly rendered with delicate use of colour and shows how skilled an artist Fraser is.

Telly fish by Inflatablemonster

A simple but effective piece of sculpture that has an awkward feel to it. I’d love to have one floating around my studio!

Lego by iede reckman

This work has a really interesting architectural form and with the instantly recognisable colours, makes me want to get out my lego and build.

The Storr by _NVA_

This was a fantastic piece of environmental art that i was lucky to see. We were guided up the mountain at midnight, and along the way visual and aural stories unfolded. I loved the sympathetic balance of light installation, music and performance art in a really environmentally delicate location. I have always liked the work of NVA – Test Department were an influence on me from a young age – so to see this piece was a real privilege.

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See more of our Top 5 selections here.

Woke up to perfect weather, that rare moment in Glasgow where it is just what you wanted, odd patches of cloud and sun and a gentle breeze. Spring has well and truly sprung. Down to Kelvingrove Park and all the white bikes are arrayed in a perfect circle round the fountain. It’s a stunning opening image, without anyone there. As we approach the set off point there are more and more cyclists turning up, with all sorts of ingenious systems to film the ride out. One woman has ten cameras strapped to the front of her bike, people have head cams and mobile phones. There will be a huge amount of footage…I’m fascinated to see how it will all cut together.

The ride out starts up Sauchiehall St and the pace is perfect, leisurely and slow and 200 odd bikes fill most of the road, so you can do that thing you never normally do in the city, have a conversation. It is incredibly relaxed. The only sound is the ringing of different bells on each bike, a tinkling backdrop. We arrive at George Square too quickly. I really wanted the pleasure of riding on mass through the city to last forever, it was tantalisingly short.

In the square, there is an old abandoned Peugot bike hanging ready to be painted white, I go for it with a vengeance and the original Provo anarchist white bikes manifesto is read out in dutch by Alexandros (brilliant gutteral voice) and the english translation by Peter McCaughey in his best Omagh accent. There is a great atmosphere and at one point as we present the white bike plan, people lift their bikes above their heads. It felt like a genuine homage to the original and I look forward to some of the original Dutch anarchists seeing footage and pictures and how they will feel to see their visionary ideas take flight again nearly half a century on.

It’s been a strong start to Glasgow International Festival and particularily the prominence given to non-gallery based contemporary practice that works with event, performative action, site-response, evocation and re-enactment. Its also been two years since we made a live work and this was a great way to start again.

For Angus Farquhar, NVA’s Creative Director, these were the highlights:

There were many good points during the day, I like the fact that even with some stunning allotment and homemade dishes on offer throughout the day, the biggest spontaneous queue was for the dinner ladies doing extra chips between the double rubble schools competitions!

The other memory is the mixed expressions of horror and happiness on the small kids on the barber’s chair being mercilessly spun around and played with by the maverick 85A crew before their grassy headpieces were hacked off with giant scissors…

To help you re-live the day, we’ve uploaded some photos, courtesy of Neil Davidson, our photographer for the day. Take a look here. Do you have any of your own? If so, please do add them to the group, we’d love to see them.

Also, if you tasted anything you’re keen to re-create, then you could peruse our online Recipe Collection, full of recipes jotted down on the day and uploaded by us. Now you can re-create a little slice of Glasgow Harvest in the warmth of your own home.

If you managed to pick up a pack of Secret Seeds, keep checking back here to find out what you’re growing. Let us know how you’re getting on by uploading photos of your plants as they get bigger.

If you were at Glasgow Harvest, we’d really appreciate a couple of minutes of your time. Follow this link and fill out our evaluation survey. There are just four questions and they’re very quick to answer, it will help us in planning any future harvests.

Thanks so much to all who were involved. From the dinner ladies who helped out with the Double Rubble Chip Challenge, thirty volunteers, the eighteen schools who grew their own tatties, to the many allotmenteers who made sure there was always some soup on the go.

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To find out what Tasty twEATS & Harvest 2010, click here.

Credit: NVA

Central Station talk to Angus Farquhar, the man behind NVA, the politically driven public arts organisation who are hosting this weekend’s Glasgow Harvest event which celebrates urban growing.

How did NVA become involved in Glasgow Harvest?

The idea behind the Glasgow Harvest was simply that although Glasgow has a large community growing their own food it often takes place in the secret world of allotments, or in back gardens or balconies and I thought it would be good to bring all that activity out into the open to expand people’s sense of being part of something larger than themselves.

How does the project fit in with NVA’s broader philosophy?

It was a very conscious decision to work with the politics of food production and we got involved with Rolf Roscher (who runs an innovative landscape architecture practice ERZ), in delivering SAGE – Sow and Grow Everywhere, a region wide strategy to encourage the productive re-use and transformation of private and public land to grow food. The Harvest itself, has no audience, you participate by bringing food you have grown within a recipe or a pot of jam, so in this sense everyone has a productive role to play, with the only consumption being the food itself! We have made more and more works which are completed by the creative or physical actions of the public and horticulture is another way to extend and make visible a really vital and necessary part of urban living.

Credit: NVA

NVA takes a collective approach to its projects – tell us a bit more about the other groups you’re working with for Glasgow Harvest.

It’s a great eclectic mix, 20 schools growing tatties in rubble bags to make the best chips they can, (there was a horrific stat a few years ago that in one London primary school less than half a class knew that chips came from potatoes…)

85A have created their wonderfully surreal punk herb caps as an esoteric solution to lack of growing space in the city environment.

Acreative containers competition relies on the imagination of anyone who brings an unusual growing receptacle….all in all I think a village fete on acid, probably sums up our approach!

Central Station also recently did a project for Glasgow Harvest (called ‘twEATs’) – how did this partnership come about?

We were really excited by the way social media tools were used to extend the understanding and ownership of the White Bike Plan that we created for Glasgow International. We set another challenge to CenSta to come up with a lively way of allowing people to share an aspect of food growing or consumption and ‘twEATS’ was born, the booklet of donated recipes and graphic representations that we will give away on the day looks pretty sharp.

What do you think is the most interesting aspect of the use of social media in a creative project such as Glasgow Harvest?

It allows a group of people for whom those tools are a part of their everyday communication systems to explore a personal act (growing or cooking) in a collective context.

What aspect of the Glasgow Harvest project are you most excited about?

The hair clippings from the Herbaceous Barbershop being swept into allotment soup and tasting delicious…

Glasgow Harvest took place on 28 August 2010. Find out how it all went here.

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To find out what Tasty twEATS & Harvest 2010, click here.

Just in case you need convincing, here are 5 reasons why you should come along. We’ll be bringing you a further 5 early next week:

1. To celebrate urban growing by sharing your home-grown produce with hundreds of fellow growers.

Bring a vegetarian dish featuring an ingredient you’ve grown yourself. And while you’re at it, why don’t you bring a picture of the garden, windowsill or allotment where the action’s been taking place so you can add it to our Growers Map.

Take a look at our Flickr group and peruse some of the growing that’s been going on in Scotland this summer.

Image courtesy of Janie Nicoll.

2. To pick up your NVA, River Cottage, Central Station & Landshare twEATs Recipe Booklet.

Some of you may have joined us for twEATs, the first ever live-twitter-cook-off led by Tim Maddams of the River Cottage on the evening of the 16th August. Regardless, once the 28th comes around you’ll be able to get your hands on this commemorative booklet produced by Central Station and featuring illustrated recipes from members of their creative community plus top growing tips from Landshare.

3. To enter and help judge the Creative Containers competition.

Step 01, find a container, the weirder the better. Step 02, add soil. Step 03, add plant. Step 04, bring it to Harvest. Step 05, pat yourself on the back if you win one of three £50 prizes.

Looking for inspiration? Peruse our favourite containers, found on Flickr.

Image courtesy of Cafe Direct.

4. To contribute to and marvel at the kaleidoscopic Jam Wall.

We’re building a beautiful wall of jars. Each is full of coloured water. We’d like you to bring a jar of your homemade jam with you and to replace one of the dummy jars. All your tasty preserves will be donated to good causes after the event.

Any and all colours welcome. We’re looking for a rainbow here, apricot through to blackberry, taking in strawberry and greengage en route.

If you’re reading this ahead of Sunday, then you may be able to sneak into a Jamming session we’re holding with restaurant extraordinaire, Cookie. Learn how to make it, listen to a bit of music, take home some of the sweet stuff.

5. To get a Chive Herbcut at the Herbaceous Barbershop.

Art Collective 85A invite you to pop in for a quick trim. Perhaps you’ll use your cuttings to season your soup. Or to liven up your salad. Got absolutely no idea what we’re talking about? Take a look at this picture and perhaps it’ll all become that little bit clearer… Or perhaps it won’t!

Get planting, harvesting and cooking. And tell all your friends to join in too. We’re all looking forward to meeting you.

The NVA team.
www.facebook.com/NVAprojects
www.twitter.com/_NVA_
www.nva.org.uk

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To find out what Tasty twEATS & Harvest 2010, click here.

So last Friday I met all the peeps at CenSta. After some long discussions and much file swapping (the legal sort) they sent me off with my brief. I’m designing the layout for the twEATs publication that’s being handed out free (YES! free!) as part of Glasgow’s HArvest Festival.

Central Station has offered me some help from graphic design geniuses ISO- but I’m trying to tame InDesign and do it myself as part of my plan to conquer the entire Adobe Creative Suite. The biggest problem I’ve had with this so far is having to accept that to transform the size of an image you have to hold down “/shift”. It just seems so unnatural not to ”/ T” it!

Today I’ve sent off my work so far to Cen Sta to get some feedback and advice from ISO. Looking forward to hearing what they have to say.

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To find out what Tasty twEATS & Harvest 2010, click here.