100 years since the laying of the foundation stone of the building, Govanhill Baths Community Trust is delighted to announce the formal launch of a permanent archive and centenary publication. United We Will Swim: 100 Years of Govanhill Baths, published by Luath Press, documents the rich, diverse and inspiring story of Govanhill Baths and the community that it serves.
It includes seven newly commissioned essays, with a foreword by Lesley Riddoch and an introduction by Andrew Johnson, Chair of Govanhill Baths Community Trust. These explore its significance as a historic building, creative hub, a community resource in terms of health and diversity and the grassroots campaign to save it. Throughout the book there personal memories from users of the Baths that have been captured as oral histories, alongside a wealth of images of the building, the people that have used it and objects from the archive.
The archive has been developed by Paula Larkin and a group of volunteers and houses a broad collection of materials related to the physical building, it’s users, the campaign to save it, and it’s current use as a community hub. It also documents the building through each phase of development on its journey to fully reopening as a Wellbeing Centre. The archive is a unique community resource for current and future generations to use.
To showcase objects from this archive we are also launching a permanent display area designed by NORD Architecture, which will show a range of material in the collection including newspaper clippings, photos, objects, documents. A temporary exhibition will complement this presenting press reports from the last 100 years.
We formally opened the exhibition and launched the publication on the 19th March. The exhibition also features Future Archive, new work by artist in residence, Ailie Rutherford. Ailie has been working with local groups and individuals on the creation of artworks; these include screen printed notes for the People’s Bank of Govanhill and Talking Soap.
