EAST END TRANSMISSIONS

Within the shadows of this year of ‘Culture’ and Commonwealth Games hosted for the most part in the East End of Glasgow, there has been a growing disquiet, a deep questioning of the regeneration project of this once flourishing industrial area, its culture and its inhabitants. Traces of what the East End of Glasgow has been – its characters, communities, shops, markets, cinemas and theatres – remain in the undeniable energy and memories of the East Enders.  

Rather than ameliorating the life conditions of the East Enders, these ‘renewals’ created large scale depopulation, polluted wastelands, and new ruins fortuitously designed for collapsing concrete spectacles. The latest of these series of urban plans is the Clyde Gateway, whose promotional video (see youtube) heralds the coming of a ‘New East End’. 
 
If the memory of the East End is intended to be shortened, if not removed, let’s transmit and broadcast its contents while it still has life. Starting from an interrogation of the local context of the East End, the East End Transmissions project is built as a platform which aims to stretch and stress the interpretations of this context, amplify opinions, engage ideas and provoke discussion about history, gentrification and regeneration in the area. Within its different constituent parts (exhibition, program of events, documentation, website, posters, and publication), East End Transmissions aims to produce critical content and reveal the secondary stories too often dismissed and omitted from the records. 
 
The programme ended a six-month curatorial residency at The Pipe Factory.
 

The Pipe Factory, Glasgow | 14 Nov - 7 Dec, 2014 

A curatorial programme about the East End of Glasgow and its regeneration. It included an exhibition, a programme of events, an online project (now archived) and a publication. 

Artists: Jen Devonshire, Aideen Doran, Virginia Hutchison, Thomas Leyland Collins, Kit Mead, Douglas Morland, Janie Nicoll, Lyndsey Smith, Susannah Stark

Community members: Jane, Margaret, Peter, William and the children of PEEK Project

Supported by: Creative Scotland & donors from a crowfunding campaing

Photographs: Jonathan Abensur