A big welcome to the Broomhouse Centre, our new tenants and neighbours in the WHALE Centre.

The Broomhouse Centre office will be based at WHALE while work is completed on a new Community Hub in Broomhouse- an essential and integral community resource, set to open in Summer 2019.

With projects and services for all the community, including Youth Befriending, Young Carers, Vintage Vibes and the Beacon Club among others, the Broomhouse Centre delivers activities for all ages and makes an excellent addition to the varied and vibrant community activity running at WHALE on a daily basis.

Bridie Ashrowan, Chief Executive of the Broomhouse Centre says:

‘Thank you from the community and ourselves, to all of our funders who have got alongside this us to createa new hub at its heart for the future. The hub can cope with more than twice the existing footfall and thecommunity will have a facility that is fit for purpose with a wide range of activities. The organisation has always punched above its weight, with innovative services and enterprises, some of which are city wide, but this gives us the boost we need to really make a difference as a community-owned and managed asset.

We will continue with all our existing services beside the site at St David’s Church for one year until the new hub opens, the café, the catering social enterprise and all our services for young and old.

We have an on-going fundraising target of £500,000! This is to be able to complete the building: the garden, suitable for all, the very young and old, including people with dementia, and the furnishings, such as kit for a cinema night. If members of the community want to donate, our ‘Buy a brick’ for £10 campaign, will help us reach our target (**). We want it to be a truly vibrant centre.”

At WHALE, we are delighted to be able to support the Broomhouse Centre, promote their fantastic activity and find opportunities to work together over the coming year.

If you would like more information about the project, a press release can be downloaded via the Broomhouse Centre website.

If you need to get in touch with the Broomhouse Centre, they can be contacted by:

Telephone: 0131 455 7731
Email: admin@broomhousecentre.org.uk

 

WHALE Arts’ textile group Stitch ‘n’ Time is taking part in PROCESSIONS on 10 June, a once-in- a-lifetime opportunity to participate in a mass artwork to form a living portrait of women in the 21st century.

In 1918, the Representation of the People Act gave the first British women the right to vote and stand for public office, a landmark for women’s equality and British democracy. 100 years on, 14-18 NOW and Artichoke, the UK’s largest producer of art in the public realm, invite thousands of people who identify as female or non-binary from across the UK to walk together in public processions.

Stitch ‘n’ Time is one of hundreds of community groups to take part in a nationwide programme of banner making. Echoing the artistic practices of the women’s suffrage campaign, their beautiful handmade banner is a visual snapshot of women’s achievements since 1918. They will join thousands of people wearing green, white or violet, the colours of the suffrage movement; the PROCESSIONS will appear as a flowing river of colour through the streets of Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff and London.

This will be the second time the group has been involved in a march for women. On 10 October 2009 the Stitch ‘n’ Time group participated in the Gude Cause march to commemorate the work of Scotswomen involved in the suffrage movement. The event marked 100 years since the women’s suffrage procession in Edinburgh in 1909.

Meghan Bidwell, Arts Engagement Manager (Adults), WHALE Arts says:

“WHALE Arts is proud to participate in PROCESSIONS, marking the centenary of women’s suffrage. Our textile group’s banner draws on the rich heritage of female protest and activism, illustrating how far we’ve come and how far we have yet to go.”

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WHALE Arts is delighted to announce the Travelling Gallery will visit the WHALE Arts Centre in Wester Hailes on Wednesday 23 May 2018 from 11am – 5pm with exhibition Are Teenage Dreams So Hard to Beat?

Celebrating its 40th year, the Travelling Gallery is a mobile art space inside a custom-built, bus, which brings high quality contemporary art exhibitions and events to schools and communities throughout Scotland.

The exhibition will explore our formative years – the contrasts of adolescence past and present, as comparatively tame and nostalgic teenage magazines are exhibited next to the never-ending clickbait of internet culture. Our teenage dreams will be suspended as the exhibition looks at our prolonged adolescence and why ‘teenage’ no longer just refers to the period between the ages of 12 and 20.

The exhibition will include work by contemporary artists Arpita Shah, Alice Theobald and Holly White alongside archive material from Museum of Childhood, Edinburgh.

A doorway to today’s teenage dreams is seen through photographer Arpita Shah’s intimate portraits of Glaswegian teenagers; where a pure and authentic depiction of identity and habitat is captured.

It’s natural and nostalgic to look back over our teenage years, good or bad. The good can be the close friendships and honest self-discovery; the bad can be the awkward romances and dubious self-discovery.

These experiences are heightened in Holly White’s work, as reflection and soul searching are on show for anyone who wants to read about it in the “heartbreak library”, where self-help books are snugly hung in comforting blankets. In her Rittersport News series, Holly uses the vlog format to review the different flavours and varieties of the German chocolate bar, highlighting the online platform in which nothing is too trivial to share and promote.

Alongside the artworks some archival magazines, selected by Holly from the Museum of Childhood’s collection in Edinburgh, are displayed. The magazines are exhibited as a direct visual contrast to today’s vlogging culture and shows the total shift in how teenagers give and take their information and choose their influences.

The final work in the exhibition is the 3D film The Next Step by Alice Theobald. The musical, in three acts, shows two men walking with a dog and a baby through a park and having an existential, lyrical conversation. While initially casual and light-hearted, the conversation represents a generation where the transition into adulthood is stretched and what were typically adult aspirations are no longer available.

Meghan Bidwell, Arts Engagement Manager (Adults), WHALE Arts says:

“It’s a pleasure to welcome Travelling Gallery back to Wester Hailes with exhibition Are Teenage Dreams So Hard to Beat? This is a fantastic opportunity to engage with an accessible, high quality contemporary art exhibition; the highs and lows of teenage years are something everyone can relate to. There’s something very comforting about the Travelling Gallery and a ‘bus filled with art’ is every bit as good as it sounds.”

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