Our second podcast with Art critic, Artist and Writer, Lynn MacRitchie, explores her involvement in the Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile, a week-long festival at the Royal College of Art in 1974, which took place at the Royal College of Art in London in 1974.Art critic and writer Lynn MacRitchie also has a long-established practice as an artist, beginning in the 1970s. As a student in 1973 she organised the Three-Day Event and the Participation Art Event at Edinburgh College of Art. Moving to London in 1974, she joined Artists for Democracy and her videos of the Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile at the Royal College of Art record an event now considered of historic importance. She wrote for Performance Magazine, New Dance and other radical journals and then joined the Financial Times as a business journalist while also covering contemporary art for the FT arts page from 1991 to 2006. She returned to art production in the late 1990s. She has made work in video, performance and installation and her most recent works are short films. Lynn was one of the early members of Artists for Democracy – the group responsible for organising the festival, alongside many artists and activists including, Cecilia Vicuna, David Medalla, John Dugger and Art Critic, Guy Brett. The movement lent support to, and opened up conversation on liberation movements globally. The Festival was founded in response to the military coup in Chile in 1973, in which the democratically elected Salvador Allende was overthrown by General Augusto Pinochet, leading to an authoritarian military dictatorship in Chile from 1973-1990. In the podcast, Lynn tells the story of how she came to document the Festival, and what it meant to witness and participate in the event, and to have created what has become a significant archival record.You can view videos of the Arts Festival for Democracy in Chile on Lynn's website, www.lynnmacritchie.com.

We’re pleased to share two new podcasts with Art critic, Artist and Writer, Lynn MacRitchie.

In this first podcast, we explore the making of the film, Towers of Ilium (2013), shot in Thurrock, Essex. Through conversation we discuss the thinking behind the creation of the film and the collaborative processes that underpin it’s making, including the choreography and performances of local volunteers present in the film, the soundtrack and design of costumes, and the intricate process of building and burning the Tower. You can watch the full film for free on vimeo: https://vimeo.com/73929271

This release of this podcast comes at a critical time for Thurrock in which its arts infrastructure is at risk. In 2021 Thurrock District Council declared the Thameside Complex, where the theatre is located, ‘surplus to requirements’, despite its active use by the arts community in Thurrock and performers and artists past and present.

The ‘Save your Thameside Theatre’ is underway led by the passionate supporters in Thurrock and across the country who believe in the value of spaces of creativity. A recent petition has already received almost 7500 signatures: https://www.change.org/p/thurrock-council-save-the-thameside-complex. This community-led organising underlines the importance of the Thameside Complex as central in providing access to arts, culture and heritage in Thurrock.

You can find out how to support the campaign to Save Your Thameside here: @savethameside https://www.instagram.com/savethameside/, sign the Save Your Thameside petition here: https://www.change.org/p/thurrock-council-save-the-thameside-complex and keep on track of the latest on the situation on the Theatres Trust website, where Thameside Theatre is listed as a ‘Theatre at Risk’ : http://www.theatrestrust.org.uk/how-we-help/theatres-at-risk/1698-thameside-theatre

Ellie Porter from Art360 Foundation speaks to Artist, Claire Barclay, about her archive and what legacy means to her. Art360 has worked with Claire since 2019 through the Art360 Scotland Programme which supports artists with the creation of archives to help preserve their life's work. The podcast is co-produced and edited by George Genn.

Find out more about our podcast Legacy & here and follow us @art360fdn

Claire Barclay is a Glasgow-based artist whose work is primarily sculptural site-specific installation. Her sculptures comprise vast assemblages of materials including machined steel, aluminium, fabric, glass, soot, engine grease, oil, honey, leather, suede, velvet, brass, woven wheat, ink, painted wood, and much more.

Each sculpture emerges from a mood rather than a specific intention. Organic and industrial materials sit side-by-side generating an atmosphere of ambiguity, oscillating between what Claire describes as the 'seductive and the unnerving'. Her work asks that we be there physically to embrace the sensory discomfort of an encounter with material out of context. Here these materials do not serve us as functional or decorative. We can see and sense sculpture as equal, different or maybe superior.

Claire Barclay has participated in numerous group, solo exhibitions, commissions and residencies in the UK and internationally since the 1990s after graduating from Glasgow School of Art's Department of Environmental Art in 1990 and then completing an MA in 1993.

Recent exhibitions include TENUITY (Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, 2021), SKIFFING (Edinburgh College of Art, 2019), DEEP SPOILS (Mission Gallery, Swansea, 2018), YIELD POINT (Tramway, Glasgow, 2017). You can read more about Claire's work here: https://www.clairebarclay.net/

RSS Image credit: Trappings, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 2014, wood, wool, printed fabric, leather, ceramic, machined brass, honey, feathers © Claire Barclay. Photography: John McKenzie.

Ellie Porter, Head of Programme at Art360 Foundation talks to Glasgow-based Artist, Alan Dimmick, about his archive of thousands of photographic negatives and discusses what the term ‘Legacy’ means to him.

Alan has been a participant in the Art360 Scotland programme since 2019, which supports artists with the creation of archives and is supported by Creative Scotland.

Legacy &... is co-produced and edited by Ellie Porter and George Genn, with post-production and original score by George Genn.