On the 26th of March the village run a celebration even for our ‘Connecting Pollok Past, Present & Future’ (funded by Inspiring Scotland). The event included live performances from the amazing Citizen Storytellers (an intergenerational cohort of local story performers/gatherers). We also enjoyed presentations from our brilliant Associate Artists Hannah Brackston and Greer Pester relating to their work on the Greater Pollok Arts & Creativity Strategy and meaningfully embedding creative evaluation methods throughout the project. Attendees could also peruse an exhibition of artwork created by local people and, of course, enjoy some delicious refreshments provided by local caterer Joanne A Munch.

 The evening involved the launch of the Connecting Pollok publication, that gather 25 stories of different community members over the years.
Click here for the digital version of the book
We were also launching the youth activism in Pollok zine ‘Born to be Wild’ Event (Damshot Woods) – This was a storytelling & arts project within The Connecting Pollok Project, working with the nurture team at St Paul’s High School in Pollok. This project connected the pupils with the 30th year anniversary of the Pollok Free State (on their doorstep!) We have been using a lens of ‘Past, Present and Future’ and focusing specifically on the role of young people during the PFS movement, such as school strikes and youth involvement in the camp to discussing what activism today might look like. The  pupils reflected on the relationship they have to Damshot woods, an annex of Pollok Park that is used by the school as an outdoor classroom for nurture. The group interviewed 4 people who were leaders of the PFS or who were teenagers at the time and they wrote their own reflective responses in the form of poetry and spoken word. The results were a podcast created by the group and a zine. Both the podcast and zine were launched at the ‘Born to be Wild’ Event (Damshot Woods) on Friday 7th March, which was attended by the wider school community. The young people proudly performed their stories as well as facilitating creative stations throughout the woods, making time for hot chocolate and smores at the end to celebrate!