On Sunday 15 November 2009 Central Station ventured away from the web and invited the Central Station community to join us in an afternoon of socialising and connecting.

‘This is…’ sessions gave members the chance to talk about their work to an open audience. With just 8 minutes and whatever visual aids they needed, the members presented a summarised history of their practice to an audience.

Get a taste of these sessions with This is Angharad McLaren below:

See the full collection of Artist Talks here.

(originally published on Central Station V1)

You can see more photographs of the day here, or go here to see the artists talks from Sunday’s event. Keep reading to find out what the weekend was all about and who joined us.

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WHAT? Day One…events round and about Glasgow, bus ride, special tours, private talks and a soundtrack launch / screening Full listings below.
Day two…tell us who you are, meet other members, have a drink or two on us, go to the pub. Bring a friend. Full listings below.
WHEN? Saturday the 14th and Sunday the 15th of November 2009
WHERE? Glasgow

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We’re taking the online community into the the real world, giving members an opportunity to meet us and each other over the course of two days.

Join us on our bus on Saturday 14th for a tour of some of Glasgow’s lesser and better known creative spaces. Bring yourself and bring a friend. See inside studios, galleries and facilities, meet the people who run them, listen to the people who work and exhibit at them. Then come along to a soundtrack launch and screening at the Panoptican in the evening, all for a feature film that hasn’t been made yet…

On Sunday afternoon we’re having a few glasses of wine at Sloans and listening to a selection of our members talk about what it is they do. After that we all get to join in. Chat around some of the topics that interest you, get your teeth into the issues, delights and problems facing creative people. All topped off with an evening of music, dominos and great beer at the State.

Saturday 14th
>11.30am…have a cuppa & meet the team at Mono
>12pm…Workshop tour: Sarah Raffel shows us around her jewellery workshop and store at Brazen
> 1pm…Artist talk: Colin Gray introduces In Sickness and In Health at Street Level
> 2.30pm…Designer talks:  John Galvin & Joachim King introduce us to their furniture currently exhibiting at Che Camille
> 2.30pm…Artist talk: Michael Thomas Jones introduces Modernista at The Lighthouse
>2.30pm…Exhibition: come with us to see Torsten Lauschmann’s exhibition at Mary Mary
>3.30pm…Artist talk: Afternoon tea & a chat with Erin McGrath about the new exhibition at the GFT’s Cafe Cosmo
>3.30pm…Artist talk: Artist in residence Edwin Pickstone gives a tour of the Glasgow School of Art’s letterpress facility
>3.30pm…Exhibition: PASSING PLACES: Landscapes of Glasgow and Western Scotland by Dan Williams
> 5pm…Gallery tour: Fun Makes Good give us a preview of their upcoming exhibition at Welcome Home
> 5pm…Artist Talk: Jennifer Nicolson talks to us about her exhibition at The Tiny Gallery at Maisonette
> 5.45pm…Meet the Artist: Ciara Phillips introduces her exhibition at Washington Garcia
>5.45…Exhibition: last chance to see Warehouse of Horrors exhibition at +44 141 Gallery
>5.45pm…Studio Tour: Exclusive tour of UK’s only Dolby Premier Mix Theatre at Savalas
> 7pm…Screening & album launch: Dummy Jim, The One Ensemble & Sarah Kenchington at the Panoptican
> AND…you can add your own event to the map. No matter where you are. We’re curating a mini cultural olympiad. Find out more here or see what’s already on the map here.

Sunday 15th
>12pm…Common of Houses Exhibition at George Square
>12.30pm…Scottish Digital Shorts Launch 2010 at GFT
>2pm…This Is… and Who Are You? at Sloans
> 5pm…GSA Mutual present Sunday School at The State

Images by Patrick MacDonald & Suzy Glass

[Brochure a collaboration by Lyall Bruce & Johanna Basford]

On Sat 6th Feb 2010, Censta and members went on Dundee Popup, a tour round the city’s creative people and places.  Artists, designers, illustrators, film-makers all gathered for a day of behind the scenes studio tours at Dundee Contemporary Arts, Duncan of Jordanstone and WASPS, private artist talks with Martin Boyce and Daziel and Scullion, plus an exclusive preview of the soon to be opened McManus Gallery after a 4 year refurbishment.

Members were blogging, tweeting and documenting in stills each part of the day, so you can take the tour for yourself.

As well as a day for members, and the city’s creatives to meet and discuss their work and practice, Dundee Popup created some LTD edition artworks. Censta members  SooperDD and Johanna Basford worked together to produce the booklet detailing the day, and Superfly worked with artists from the site to create a poster gallery round the city. Read more about it here.

To top it all off, we had an evening of talks from members, followed by wine and some rather fine Central Station cakes, created by Nikki McWilliams.

To see some of the photographs from the day look here. Read the rest of the blog to find out more about the day, and click here to find reviews and thoughts by the members who joined us.

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What? A tour of the creative world of Dundee, Central Station style. Private talks, tours and presentations. As well as lots of members meeting & discussing.

Where? Dundee

When? 11am – 8pm Saturday February 6th

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[SuperFly poster by Jen Collins - part of a series]

11am:
Meet us at the Reception entrance of Duncan of Jordonson College of Art & Design. We’ll have a quick chat…and then the tour begins. Join us for some or all of it and come visit us at The Rep for a coffee stop.

11:30am options:
i) See the new exhibition at Cooper Gallery, Public Image, accompanied by a Curator talk & listen to sculptor student Julie Duffy talk about her practice

ii) Meet some graduates from DJCAD who’ll talk about how they’ve got themselves noticed since leaving

iii) Have a private tour of Dalziel + Scullion’s studio space

1pm options:
i) Go to Generator Projects for a private talk and tour

ii) Go to WASPS for a private studio tour

iii) Go to a screening of a film selected by Martin Boyce, with a live soundtrack by saxophonist Raymond MacDonald (please note there is a charge for this event & booking is necessary)

2pm options:
i) Get a rare private walkround of Realtime Worlds

ii) Have an exclusive peek inside the newly renovated McManus Galleries

3pm options:
i) Pop along to The Visual Research Centre

ii) Go to the DCA Print Studio for a private tour

3.45pm:
Hear an exclusive Martin Boyce talk about his No Reflections exhibition at the DCA

5pm options:
i) See the SuperFly Pop-up exhibition at the Hannah MacLure Centre

ii) Hear Yann Seznec talk about his Gelkies exhibition at the Hannah MacLure Centre

iii) Take a look at Handmade Heaven’s handmade wares at the Hannah MacLure Centre

6 – 8pm:
Join us for This is… Sit back and listen to a selection of our members giving quick-fire presentations about their work & practice. Then a chance to chat, mingle, drink and nibble

[Cupcakes by Nikki McWilliams]

I can’t wait till the McManus Galleries opens, it looks amazing! and the DCA print studio is fantanastic, I’m hopefully going to do a Etching class soon.

Well done Central Station, I’m looking forward to the next Pop Up Tour!

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To find out what Dundee Popup was all about or to read more reviews & blogs  from the day, click here.

Highlights of the day for me were hooking up with old friends and acquaintances, and of course meeting new people, putting names to faces and faces to names. I really enjoyed the studio visit hosted by Matthew Dalziel, it was great to hear about their current projects and I think it always helps to illuminate an artist’s practice when you hear it straight from the horse’s mouth. Makes it all the more real, and clearer as to the reasoning behind the work etc. Next up, a visit to Generator Projects and a slide talk with the current committee, who have recently been upgrading the building. Its good to see how they have been building and expanding on the reputation already achieved, punching above their weight as ever!

Managed to miss the preview tour of the McManus but caught the end of the Realtime Worlds Studio Tour, – interesting to see the set up but ultimately ‘not my bag’. Then on to the Visual Research Centre at DCA for a tour of the Centre for Artists’ Books and the Rewind Micro Cinema, the cutest cinema I ever did see, with seats that looked damn comfy after all the legwork of the previous few hours. On to “No Reflections” in the gallery, with Martin Boyce in conversation with Tricia Fleming. I didn’t make it to Venice so it was a good opportunity to see the work albeit in a very different context.

Finally to the Hannah McClure Centre for exhibition talks by Yann Seznec and Jon Gill of Superfly, talking about their work/projects and then “This Is..” with guest speakers from Yuck & Yum, Gen Ryan & Jo Swingler; Lyall Bruce & Johanna Basford; Arika; Colliderscope and Georgina Follett from the V& A Project. All in all giving an interesting and varied overview of things happening or about to happen in Dundee.

Its encouraging to see Dundee burgeoning with projects, opportunities and possibilities for the future, and that the arts and the creative industries are at the forefront of this change.

After all that a glass of vino and a chance to chat, was a well earned finale to a busy and thought provoking day.

Thanks to all the CenSta team for inviting me along, I really enjoyed seeing Dundee from this perspective.

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To find out what Dundee Popup was all about or to read more reviews & blogs  from the day, click here.

This partnership has recently been able to announce the site – right next to the Discovery ship, on the Tay Estuary. Georgina said that the new museum would be built on an island in the Tay with sightlines throughout the city and even a beach area around it (which might bring the seals to this cultural attraction!)

The building is expected to cost in the region of £47million with one third of the money coming from each of the following sources: Scottish Government, partnership funding from Trusts and Lottery sources, and the final third from money raised by the University of Dundee through private sponsorship (one of Georgina’s responsibilities).

The interior of the building will total 7000 sq m, which, for reference, is about half the size of the Baltic in Gateshead. I found it good to hear that the V&A at Dundee would focus on contemporary art and design work, no earlier than the 1940s, ‘Not an outpost of V&A with decades old collections’. Georgina went on to say that the works on show would be ‘Post 1940s but very much focused on today, with 1200 sq m of the galleries given over to touring exhibitions from the V&A in London (similar to the famous V&A blockbuster with Kylie’s outfits).

The pattern for this would be for the first three years, one V&A blockbuster plus two smaller exhibitions, reduces after that point when exhibitions can be developed and toured from other international organisations that curate design.

Georgina said that she was using the term Design in its most inclusive sense and that the V&A at Dundee would also provide intellectual support for practitioners through its development as a professional centre for those practitioners which would have ownership by the practitioner body of Scotland. It would be looking at collaboration, introducing new thinking, exposing research agendas and drawing on a multidisciplinary pool including scientists and philosophers to deliver new products into the marketplace.

One of the key exhibition spaces will be the Designs On Scotland Gallery which will be about and for contemporary practitioners. This will focus on process as well as products of practice, where often the artwork is the end of one process and the start of the next. The selection mechanisms will always be based on the quality of work. There will also be a special collection from 1940s onwards looking at design.

Recent progress in the project has seen the steering group of the project move to being a charitable trust which will lead the project through to completion. The Chair Person for this trust is likely to be announced next month.

They have also recently called for notes of interest from architects and have been inundated with initial contacts from over 250 practices or individuals from ‘just about every country in the World’.

In March the project will see its most important meeting to date with the Culture Minister and Finance Minister which should be the ‘final pushing of the green button and enable us to fully go ahead with the Architectural Competition’.

Georgina said that she was looking forward to seeing the submissions, but glad that she wasn’t going to be short-listing. It is expected that the large number of applications would be shortlisted to 6-8 who would present their ideas on 3 A1 boards and 1-100 scale models that would be exhibited here and in London.

The project will develop an engagement strategy beginning in autumn 2011 and they expect to open a V&A exhibition in another venue in Dundee, as part of that, before the new building opens in September 2014.

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To find out what Dundee Popup was all about or to read more reviews & blogs  from the day, click here.

Barry Esson and Bryony McIntyre gave a presentation about Kill Your Timid Notion, a festival which their Edinburgh based company Arika has run in Dundee (at Dundee Contemporary Arts) since 2003. KYTN can be seen as one of the most successful festivals of its kind within Europe.

As well as KYTN they also do other event and festival projects including Shadowed Spaces and Install. Install, which has a focus on music and performance has taken place at the Arches in Glasgow in the past but is moving to the Tramway this year.

KYTN’s focus has been on experimental sound, image and music and they will continue with this but in a different format this year. The festival, taking place between 21 – 28 February is being built from artist proposals rather than artist objects. In relation to this Barry said that the idea was that ‘films, paintings, sculpture or any object does not incarnate art – the process which produces these is the art’.

With KYTN this year it’s the first time the public focus has been over a week, with Investigations happening right through from Sunday 21 to mid evening on the next Friday. These Investigations will tie in with the artists’ proposals to produce the festival weekend events (and possibly longer term changes / projects and hopefully engagement). The phrase used was: the proposals will be ‘re examined with you the public – people like yourselves and people unlike yourselves’, through the Investigations.

Barry said that he found that the history of theories and practices (especially in his background of sound) was important but should be regularly rewritten. I think that this maybe is related to dealing with / getting free of assumptions – of audience, practitioners and maybe even funders and press about the more elusive or experimental practices that Arika tend to work with, and also I know that it relates to their reconsidering of their own practices as organisers (something I respect and will try to emulate for myself this year).

Arika says that ‘if you spend time with us we will consider it spending money with us’ and so have devised a tally card system that means that if you attend the Investigations you can get gratis passes to the weekend  pay events. (2 investigations = one day pass, 4 investigations = full weekend pass).

If you are interested in taking part – you need to act though as the Investigations are filling up, look at the programme online.

Other free highlights will be a free screening of a film from the legendary British filmmaker John Smith – see you there…

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To find out what Dundee Popup was all about or to read more reviews & blogs  from the day, click here.

Heidi and I are sat at the front of the auditorium, doing some live blogging. Excuse the typos…

Mel Woods is hosting. As well as being head of various postgrad programmes at DJCAD, Mel’s also an artist. She’s talking about some of her projects, including Serendipitous Arena, a project that starts in June 2010.

First up, it’s Yuck ‘n Yum, who are here to talk about their fanzine. Ben and Gail are part of a collective of four who see themselves as a distribution conduit for emerging artists. They’re based in Dundee. But they’re interested in artists based across the nation. They distribute the fanzine every 3 or 4 months (which people who are here are now looking at.)

They started producting the zine in 2005. It began as a DIY project, but quickly grew. They’re funded through a couple of sources, including the Hannah Maclure centre. All of their issues are online on their website – www.yucknyum.com. And you can download and print them – printing on demand they call it.

Yuck ‘n Yum hold events outwith a gallery a setting. They want to engage with the public outside ‘the white cube.’ They want to encourage up and coming artists to engage and perform. All for a fee.

Projects in the past have included handing out free art, free music. Also a bluetooth project called Turn Your Bluetooth On in Inverness. As part of their Windows in the City exhibition they distributed video and audio art via bluetooth to the patrons of a local carpark. Starting point = stupid supermarket campaigns. Why not work that to make it creative?

And moving forward…next launch is early April. Including a submissions deadline. (So then, to get into the new issue of the zine, you send stuff in by the 15th March. Just send a jpeg to submissions@yucknyum.com. They’re keen on AV too – for the website.) They’re also making a mix-tape for KYTN (Arika’s baby – they’re talking later – watch this space.) Plus Annual General Karaoke’s coming up. The idea: get artists to make videos, send them in, do a karaoke night. Like an Annual General Meeting, except not. Possibly including cash prizes. Oh yes.

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To find out what Dundee Popup was all about or to read more reviews & blogs  from the day, click here.

It’s already looking like a great day and a great turnout of people, but don’t fret if you can’t be here. Along with some of Censta’s members we’ll be blogging and tweeting the day. Watch out for blogs in the Dundee Popup group, follow @censta for tweets, tagged #dundeepopup and there will be photos uploaded by Ross_McLean all through the day and footage coming from Andy later in the week.

Posters by Superfly have been spotted all round the city, and the LTD edition booklets by SooperDD and Johanna Basford are already a coveted item.

The blogs as they come in…… and the tweets for the day.

And here’s the first blog … read all about Public Image at the Cooper Gallery @DCJAD.

Lots of people meeting, eating and blogging in between tours at the Censta hub at the Dundee Rep.

Emlyn Firth gives the lowdown on the DJCAD graduates showcase, including a live link up on Skype.

Our very own Suzy Glass gives her view of the Dalziel & Scullion studio tour.

Ever been inside the coveted doors of Realtime Worlds? Jon Carlos went along, what did he see?

Censta and members got a very special sneak preview of the soon to be re-opened and very much renovated McManus Gallery. Gillian Easson gives you an idea of what’s in store.

Heidi Proven disappeared into the Visual Research Centre at Dundee Contemporary Arts, and thinks you should too.

JonGill took in the DCA Print studio, screen printing, etching, block, lino and litho. Jessica Ashman gave us her account of the DCA Print Studio tour too.

Martin Boyce took members round his No Reflections instillation at the DCA, and explained the challenges of exhibiting the work in two different spaces. Here and at Venice Biennalle. Curator Donna HolfordLovell takes us through the talk.

Superfly has an obsession, find out what it is.

Artists and makers from Handmade Heaven, showed off their wares and Censta members a plenty bought things. See what Hellojenuine liked.

Then it was time for This is… at the Hannah Maclure Centre which went like this:
Yuck & Yum told us about the ways they distrubute art without using gallery spaces
Johanna Basford & Sooper DD entertained us with stories of collaboration
Arika went through their KYTN 2009 plans and how you can get involved
Genevieve Ryan & Jo Swingler talked us through recent illustration & creative writing collaboration
We heard and saw music & animation from Colliderscope‘s Fiona Soe Paing
Georgina Follett let us know about the V&A Dundee developments.

These were covered by Htothep, suzy.glass & DJCADExhibitions.

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To find out what Dundee Popup was all about or to read more reviews & blogs  from the day, click here.