UNITE exhibition @ Collins Gallery

And speaking of Emma Shannon, there's only two days left for Glasgow punters to get down to the Collins Gallery (Strathclyde Uni campus, near Merchant City) to see her skills! The exhibition is called "Unite" and displays the ceramic, textile and sculpture work of 35 different Scottish-based artists. Emma does a neat line in woven pieces influenced by Brutalist architecture (above).

Emma's show is of particular interest to us because it is also joined by a very special installation soundtrack by our own Aleks Jurczyk, aka Line Idle. It's called "Brutal Britain: A Soundtrack" and it goes a little something like this:

Brutal Britain: A soundtrack by line idle

Info on the exhibition is available from the Collins Gallery website and also from Craft Scotland, home of the "Unite" collective.

Hetherington Building Broken Down

This seems pretty fucking crazy - the Hetherington building's occupation has come to a fairly abrupt end following police intervention this afternoon. The Hetherington has been occupied for the past two months as part of an ongoing protest against the cuts to student funding and the hike in tuition fees. I've been right next to the university all day and there's been helicopters circling, hi-vis everywhere and a seriously heavy handed turfing-out of the remaining students in the building. The university's line is that the protest is interfering with their plans for refurbing the building and making it an academic resource. Considering that in my time at uni, Muir Russell kicked a number of departments out of the main building and into shitty pre-fab premises so that he could cram as many paying functions into the main building at as high a price as possible, I'm not exactly excited to see the uni reclaiming it's property.

On the other hand, a few contacts tell me that previous student protests, including the recent demonstration in the quadrangle, have gone a bit far in the aggression stakes, breaking into offices and going all-out to embarrass the administration. The worst excesses being attempts to occupy the principal's office that have achieved little except making the protesters look like a gang of hooligans. However, what I've seen today seems utterly excessive, and is best described as a load of ludicrous showboating on behalf of an institution thats rapidly losing their shit.

I have no camera with me, so these photos from the BBC's rolling news coverage will have to suffice.

Fucking idiotic.

Hetherington Building occupied

Last year, the Hetherington Building closed down due to a number of factors, most notably "the legacy of bad management" that saw some extremely dubious / totally illegal financial decisions taken by the then management. Due to a certain amount of carried-over debt and a number of issues about how the club should proceed, it remained closed until recently, when Glasgow Uni Occupied took over the building and re-opened it to the public.

"We want the building to be a space for people across the city to utilise in the struggle against cuts and austerity. And we wantr it to be a safe, non-commercial space for students of Glasgow uni - for socialising, for education and for engaging with the movement against cuts and fees, both on our campus and across the city."

Whether it's used to forment political rebellion and combat austerity, or just turned back into the best party spot in Glasgow, this is great news.

Nice one.
Facebook group here.
Twitter.com/glasgowoccupied