✨ Our BIG 1 year recap ✨
As Gallery Bagging’s 1 year comes to a close, we wanted to recap the amazing feats it has seen as well as share more of what we hope to come from our wee space.
We recently sent out a newsletter to our subscribers outlining the crazy achievements we made in the short conception of Gallery Bagging. We couldn’t be any more grateful to the exceptional writing community who made this first year so special.
Let’s start with our biggest and most successful project: [synonym] sessions.
Starting all the way back in February 2024 at Tramway we facilitated the first ever session focusing on Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran’s ‘Idols of Mud and Water.’ An epic-in-scale exhibition that was host to a myriad of sculptures and architectural constructs, it certainly seemed to be a great playground for our first session. As we waited in the foyer wondering if this was going to be either an emotional scarring or the best thing we could have ever done, we repeatedly rehearsed our introduction as Gallery Bagging with our fingers crossed that we would even have people to introduce ourselves. As our interview-prep with tightly crossed fingers continued our “[synners]” actually began to arrive.
Having had an extremely positive experience facilitating the sessions and taking [synonym] across several Glasgow art spaces. We have been absolutely amazed by the responses to the sessions and have loved seeing participants getting involved as they engaged their writerly minds with our prompts! We even garnered a regular writing community which we aim to continue to nurture next year.
The sessions for us were a way in which we could make writing accessible and to challenge the way in which art writing is perceived. Our aim was and still is to help those to feel comfortable in exploring their writing within an art space. [synonym] sessions encourages those from all different disciplines to channel their respective backgrounds and knowledge into their writing. Harnessing the joy of the written word without any judgement as we’d finish the session with reading our responses, raw and unedited.
Recently we had visited a collaborative exhibition ‘BIG SOFTIES’ found within Nicolls gallery, Glasgow, where one of our [synonym] regulars invited us and his viewers to respond to a writing prompt!
While taking a break in the Autumn from producing and writing, we have been reflecting on the writing completed so far in Gallery Bagging. From early in the year exploring ‘NHOTB & RAD’ exhibition by Beagles & Ramsay at the GoMa, continuing on with Mella Shaw’s exhibition ‘Sounding-Line’ at Summerhall and a final review of group exhibition ‘WHITE TEETH, GOOD NATURE’ at Outlier Gallery. We have been fortunate to experience what Scotland has to offer and only a fraction at that. Next year we hope to branch out and explore underrepresented areas of Scotland.
[synonym] wasn’t the only project we spun this year as we also launched a series called ‘Studio Chat.’ This interview-style chat enabled us to connect with artists in their own studio not only allowing us to hear more about their practice but to also engage with their work and material gaining a more intimate experience with the artist. Having conducted two successful Studio Chats, with Nishi Chodimella and Niamh McFarlane, we hope to continue this series and meet more creative and talented folk! (If you’re interested in being a part of this series, drop us an email or message us on Instagram!)
We’ve spoken about our endeavours with the creative crowds but we’d also like to highlight the places we’ve travelled to in pursuit of bagging galleries.
Locations around Scotland visited so far:
St Andrews
Dundee
Helmsdale
Glasgow
Edinburgh
Falkirk
Stirling
Galleries hosted [synonym] sessions so far:
Tramway
Centre for Contemporary Arts
David Dale Gallery
The Listen Gallery
The Glasgow Women’s Library
The Glasgow New Society
With 6 events under the belt, we can’t wait to write and explore more together in 2025.
Keep an eye out for our next session, to be announced.
We hope to continue showcasing the creative talents, even when the art scene has felt particularly challenging over the course of 2024 we aim to focus on community, connection and accessible writing.
Stay tuned for 2025 – our first instalment of [synonym] sessions and many more things to come.
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From us at Gallery Bagging (A-J and Eliza) Happy New Year !!
While we celebrate the year that we had we also reflect on and remember those who have faced the affliction of war and genocide. For more information and ways in which you can support Palestine please head to our ‘About’ page where we have links.
Free Palestine.
Gal bag. 