Research Town

School Strikes, Community and Poetry Performances

Monday 21 – Friday 25 October 2024

I arrived at BA on the first day of the exhibition at around 10am, having dropped off Caelan with my sister. The schools in Perth and Kinross are on strike today and as it tuned out remained closed for the next two weeks. I’m thankful for my family for looking after Caelan this week.

I met with Willow Findlay, the Performing Arts Programming & Development Manager at 11am to do a research interview. We had a great conversation about publishing, her job relating to concepts of publishing and the BA organisation in her role. Willow went to art school to do photography and made publications as her final degree show which I had not realised before interviewing her. Her work drew on visual communication theory. We also had a good chat about locality and her need to stay in Birnam once she had moved here. We talked about the scale of this venue compared to the touring music venues that she had worked on before as part of a production team. BA is a different kind of scale and there’s a strong link to community with a focus on local performances as much as touring national ones.

In contrast to what felt like a well organised and productive day previously, my second day felt rather dismal. With the school strike still running, I didn’t get to BA until 12 noon after I spent some time figuring out where to get Caelan some materials that he needed from the village to do his homework. It was such a faffy morning, but I was able to spend the afternoon in the exhibition space, working at the desk on the plans for Fount magazine. Later that evening, I had tickets for the Hollie McNish performance at BA which was a sold-out night and really lots of fun. Mum came with me, after we enjoyed a few glasses of wine with the fresh fish that she got from the fish van that came round earlier in the day.

I got to the space on the third day, in a bit more of an organised state of mind. I arrived at 10.30 am and had a quick coffee before heading upstairs to the exhibition space to work. The café felt noisier than usual. It was a busy morning with lots of chatter which reverberated around the space. Caelan’s school being on strike had more of an impact on my ability to concentrate than I had anticipated. He was with his granny, but I felt bad for him having just come back from the October holidays to be having two more weeks without his friends and that contact that you become aware is so important after so many days of playing on his own. The circumstances of this week of fieldwork made the research feel more of a struggle for me to conduct than previous weeks in Birnam.

However, I ploughed on and towards the end of the week I had an interview with Helen O’Brian, who was most informative about strategies that she’s involved in for sustainability in communities regarding youth support and workshops for helping young people to see how they can progress with a career in the arts. Helen also spoke about the artisan village which she hopes she can help to provide a common place for makers to work in the same space on with tools they would be needing and would normally have to travel to Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop for example. When I went home later that day I made some zines with Caelan, we had lots of fun and Caelan really enjoyed making them. 

The seasons make a big difference to how one experiences this place. The days are dark and short already in October. The weather has felt unseasonably warm. I have appreciated that but it feels strange. This week has been so difficult. I have felt really split between my duties and my role as a mum, a teacher with students and to my research.

At the weekend, the Birnam Book Festival was on 26-28 October. BA hosted the main events. I attended a fringe poetry event called ‘Poetry of People, Legend and Lore’ on the Friday evening at the Birnam Studio Gallery. This was organised by Morag Anderson who was the Birnam Book Festival’s poet in residence. Julie McNeill and Donna Matthew were also doing readings.  The poetry evening was amazing. There were some intense poems spoken. I bought two books: one on the history of women’s football in Scotland, called We are Scottish Football, published by Luath Press, the other was a collection of poems by Donna Matthew, called Remembering Myself. The Birnam Studio Gallery was full. The atmosphere was brilliant. The publisher from Tippermuir books was there from Perth who was nice to meet and chat with briefly. The Corbenic Poetry Path was also featured in the Book Festival website as something to visit which is on the Trochry road in the grounds of the Corbenic Camphill Community. I made a note to go and visit that.

On my final day of the week, I went and sat in the Birnam Gallery Studio in the afternoon and wrote in my notebook ‘a very nice vibe in Birnam Studio Gallery today’ whilst sipping a white tea, Silver Leaf, a completely new kind of tea for me which tasted delicious and felt like a real tonic to a very busy and frenetic week in so many ways.