Making Space @ Glasgow Women’s Library

This article was first published on a-n Interface on 9 March 2011.

‘What have women ever done for Scotland? Nothing!’ says the Glasgow Women’s Library website. ‘Or at least that’s the conclusion we might draw if we look around our towns and cities.’

That only three statues in Glasgow are of women and only one of these is a Glaswegian was a fact at the fore in the Library’s artist-led project Making Space: Towards a New Public Artwork.

As well as redressing the invisibility of women’s achievements in Scotland’s civic landscapes, artists in residence Shauna McMullan and Nicky Bird investigated collaborative ways of working, and developed their projects with the library’s learners and staff.

McMullan’s Blue Spine Collection collated books donated by women across the country, whilst Bird worked with a group at the library to develop her audio installation Unsorted Donations.

An invited discussion took place on 3^rd February to review the project and discuss ways forward for the future. As ever with art symposia, discussion time was curbed due to presentations running late. Once it arrived, however, it proved fruitful. The artists and participants alike had valued the prioritising of process over outcome, and the atmosphere of trust that enabled things to happen out of play and speculation.

Adele Patrick contrasted the benefits of dialogue with her conviction that there remains a need for a properly visible public artwork in the city, yet one that avoids aping the patriarchal monument tradition. In response, it was remarked that the range of voices in the project has democratised the monument, whilst disseminating knowledge at the same time. Not too shabby, then.

Far from Artist Talks smug with rather too much congratulating, here the primary enthusiasts were the participants. Where next exactly remains to be seen, but in an environment where dialogue is seen as central, the usefulness of this discussion seems guaranteed. ⎔

More info about Making Space here: http://makingspace.womenslibrary.org.uk/

Image courtesy Glasgow Women’s Library.

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