Saturday 20th November | Springburn Park Community Auditorium | 3pm - 4:30pm suitable for all ages
Join us for a special screening of Holding the Line: a refrain in two parts by Alberta Whittle with a performance by The Joyous Choir as part of School of Abolition
Holding the Line: a refrain in two parts examines the conflicting act of holding. The film includes footage taken from body cameras and mobile phones during racialised and hostile police stop and searches. It combines footage of Black Lives Matter protesters in active resistance to state-sanctioned harm and carceral systems of abuse that preserve white supremacist and neo-colonial ideologies.
The screening will be followed by a performance by The Joyous Choir in the spirit of Holding the Line's attentiveness to collective voices; singing, chanting, protesting, lamenting. The choir will perform songs from the Underground Railroad—songs which were coded with hidden messages for the runaway slaves seeking freedom—alongside new songs on solidarity, freedom, and resisting the Hostile Environment written collaboratively by members of the choir.
It can be a bit chilly in the auditorium so please wrap up warm!
We encourage all participants to do a lateral flow test before attending the session. Lateral flow tests can be picked up for free at your local pharmacy or you can also order them online to be delivered to your door by visiting;
https://test-for-coronavirus.service.gov.uk/order-lateral-flow-kits/condition
For access queries and support to cover childcare, travel for those on low incomes and additional disability support available please email kirsty@glasgowsculpturestudios.org
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Alberta Whittle is an artist, researcher, and curator. She was awarded a Turner Bursary, the Frieze Artist Award, and a Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award in 2020. Alberta is a PhD candidate at Edinburgh College of Art and is a Research Associate at The University of Johannesburg. She was a RAW Academie Fellow at RAW Material in Dakar in 2018 and is the Margaret Tait Award winner for 2018/9.
Her creative practice is motivated by the desire to manifest self-compassion and collective care as key methods in battling anti-blackness. She choreographs interactive installations, using film, sculpture, and performance as site-specific artworks in public and private spaces.
Holding the Line: a refrain in two parts was originally commissioned by Art Night for the 2021 edition of the festival.
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Maryhill Integration Network (MIN) brings refugee, migrant, and local communities together through art, social, cultural, and educational groups and projects, offering people a chance to learn new skills, meet new people, share experiences and take part in worthwhile activities to improve their lives and the life of their communities. The Joyous Choir is MIN’s community choir, they use singing as an inclusive and enjoyable activity that celebrates the richness that New Scots bring to Scotland’s artistic landscape and cultural life. Since 2013, the group has used singing to support social inclusion, diversity, and empowerment in a welcoming and creative space.
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This event is part of School of Abolition; a year-long action research project developed and led by artist and curator Thomas Abercromby using contemporary art and activism to challenge Scotland's prison industrial complex and the ways in which we respond to harm and crime without resorting to further policing or imprisonment. Thomas has invited various artists, academics, writers, activists and other guest contributors to expand the sharing of abolition praxis as a way of reimagining our criminal justice system through a free public programme of readings, workshops, screenings and public art displays. The School will work in close collaboration with communities in Glasgow North, providing a support structure that recontextualises the very idea of policing and prisons towards community-based models of safety, support and prevention.
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The Springburn Auditorium is a unique upcycled community arts space. A former council grit shed saved from demolition—now full of pianos that were otherwise doomed for landfill. Their tiered seating was built in collaboration between Glasgow Piano City and Edinburgh’s Pianodrome. This screening and performance is an opportunity to attend one of their very first events.
Supported by Creative Scotland, Necessity and Glasgow Sculpture Studios