BTFG Documentation
Beyond the Forbidden Gate | Mitchell Library
Anchoring Joey’s approach to both the Beyond the Forbidden Gate exhibition and the project as a whole has been Glasgow City Council’s North Glasgow Strategic Development Framework from April 2023. Joey has used the plan’s four strategic themes for the area — Working North, Liveable North, Connected North, and Green North — to structure his action-research with individuals, community groups, and archives. Co-produced with frequent collaborator artist Keira McLean, this work has culminated in a series of montaged theatre flats. Playing with the shared materiality of the hoardings of new developments and the emergency boarding up of damaged doors and windows, these montages suggest the possible outlines of a counter-plan, drawn from elements of North Glasgow’s past, present, and future absent from official narratives.
Evoking the ‘gate’ of the exhibition's title, the room is divided by two curtains made from commercial building wrap printed with images taken by the artist following a children’s workshop at Wester Common (Queen’s Cross Housing Association). Superimposed on these images are texts composed of lines from a formal protest made in 1576 against the enclosure of the original Wester Common, held rent-free by the city’s inhabitants, and promotional material pertaining to Glasgow City Council’s ‘stalled spaces’ initiative.
Images courtesy Sean Patrick Campbell
Alongside the presentation at The Mitchell Library, Beyond the Forbidden Gate also included a series of events and smaller scale interventions at community libraries in North Glasgow, including a presentation of ceramics and zines by Radical Art School + SiMY at Woodside Library; a presentation of local history materials at Possilpark Library; and publication launches in collaboration with Willy Maley, Dr Anni Donaldson, and the Spirit of Revolt Archive;
Beyond the Forbidden Gate | Possilpark Library
For Possilpark Library, Joey produced a series of information boards-come-collages comprised of the personal effects, materials, and research donated by members of the community to Possilpark Library. The intervention underscored the vitality of public libraires, forever under threat, as the place where the personal and public, the informal and formal, and the anecdotal and historical archives meet.
Images courtesy Sean Patrick Campbell
Beyond the Forbidden Gate | Woodside Library
Build it up, tear it down! was a presentation of a collaborative zine and series of ceramics produced by young people from the SiMY (Sighthill and Martyrs Youth) community development project in Townhead. Joey and Keira McLean of Radical Art School / Red Flag Arts worked with the young people at SiMY for the past year to explore the sights, sounds and textures of their local community, and utopian visions for its future. Build it up, tear it down! celebrates Townhead as it is slowly hemmed in by ‘Glasgow’s Learning Quarter’.
Images courtesy Sean Patrick Campbell
Event | The Springburn railway murder of 1840: British Justice, Irish Labour and Scotland’s Railway
On 14 May 1841, a crowd of 50,000 gathered at Bishopbriggs Cross to witness the execution of two Irish navvies accused of the murder of an English ganger. Their case was marked by a catalogue of false arrests, forced confessions and prejudicial reporting, and showed that justice is always in the balance when Britannia tips the scales. The Glasgow Herald reported at the time that it wished “the names of Doolan and Redding may soon be forgotten.”
British Justice, Irish Labour, and Scotland’s Railway was act of remembering, based on the research and writings of Professor Willy Maley. Featuring live music and original songs from Lorna Morgan and a screening of GALLOWGLASS (1991), a play by John Maley and Willy Maley, directed by Nick Beaton and performed by Milton Arts and Parts (MAPS), the event also served as the launch of Willy Maley’s The Story of Possilpark.
You can read the The Story of Possilpark here
Images courtesy Eoin Carey
Event | Ned Donaldson: The Spy Who Went Back to the Bricklaying
Joey was joined by Dr. Anni Donaldson, and the Spirit of Revolt Archive for a discussion on North Glasgow’s radical history. The event centred on the life and work of Ned Donaldson (1927 – 1999) who grew up in Possilpark in the 1930s and played a crucial role in the city’s labour movement as a militant trade union organiser, Communist Party activist, and working-class intellectual. This event served as the launch of Ned’s The Spy Who Went Back to the Bricklaying, a fascinating account of Ned Donaldson’s trip to Yugoslavia in 1948 and the possibilities (and intrigues) of international solidarity, republished for this project.
You can read The Spy Who Went back to Bricklaying here