This autumn, try something new and meet new people.

October is Mental Health Awareness Month. As part of her role with Govanhill Baths as Culture Collective Sound Artist, Ros has been researching how sound impacts our health. She’s been asking – can listening to particular sounds, and listening collectively, offer us better mental health?

There’s been a summer series of workshops and events open to people in and around Govanhill. It involved creating sound pieces as a group, active listening in nature and sonic experiments in occupying the streets of Govanhill.

Are you interested in taking part in Ros’s autumn workshops?

All workshops are free to join, involve a free group lunch each session and will help you develop new skills in podcast and sound making. Your feedback on the sessions will also support research on how listening can support our mental health.

Workshops will take place:
● Thursday 10th November / 13:00 – 16:00
● Thursday 17th November / 13:00 – 16:00
● Thursday 24th November / 13:00 – 16:00
● Thursday 1st December / 13:00 – 16:00
● Thursday 8th December / 13:00 – 16:00

If you would like to sign-up, click here & fill in your details to book a slot on these free, sound making workshops.

Childcare support, support for travel and interpreter support all available to support people attending, please email – roscc@govanhillbaths.com for more details.

If you’re trying to work out if these autumn sessions are for you, take a look at some reflections and thoughts from people who participated in the summer series of workshops and events below.

Photography by Erika Stevenson

This workshop group made their own sound pieces. Take a listen to this excerpt of a piece made by participant Alys in the summer workshops, it features her and her family singing a Welsh lullaby:

The Sounds of Machynlleth by Alys

Alys is a musician and you can find more of her work here: Facebook and Soundcloud – the workshops are open to people of all levels of familiarity with working with sound!

Photography by Bircan Birol

Workshop participants got taken for a day trip to the beach, where they did nature listening experiments and made their own mini podcast recordings using their phones.

 

Dreamlands: The Audio Cinema event. Photography by Erika Stevenson

Elsewhere, in collaboration with fellow Culture Collective artist Mina Heydari-Waite, Ros and Mina produced; Dreamlands: The Audio Cinema featuring immersive sound pieces and audio stories exploring the potential of dream states.

Attendees were asked; what did this experience of collective listening feel like?

“I felt so weightless, my eyes were heavy, like I was dreaming”

Photography by Erika Stevenson

Photos from ‘Dance Makes the Floor’, developed by the dancer and fellow Culture Collective artist at Govanhill Baths; Mark Bleakley, in collaboration with digital artist Cameron Howard. Ros developed a composition for ‘Dance Makes the Floor’ where members of the public lay on the dancefloor. Their heart rate was monitored, and the speed of their heartbeats controlled the speed of the music, broadcast out onto Victoria Road in Govanhill.

Where Victoria Road traffic noises would normally impact inside our bodies (rising cortisol and increased heart rates) now people’s inner worlds occupy the sounds on the street.

If you’d like to be involved in sound experiments like this, get involved with Ros’s sound workshops. Sign-up for the Autumn Sound Workshops!

Learn new skills, feed into research around community mental health, and have the chance to come away from a 5-week workshop session with your own unique sound art or podcast piece. Follow this link to sign-up to the workshops.

And if you’d like more information, or would like to stay up to date with future events planned, feel free to email the facilitator Ros: roscc@govanhillbaths.com

Culture Collective is a national network of artists and organisations engaging with their communities. Govanhill Baths Community Trust is a member of that network and has employed a team of artists to engage with the people of Govanhill. The over-arching theme of OCCUPY! reflects the recent history of the Baths and the artists will interpret it within their own practice and with the community.

Culture Collective was created by Creative Scotland and the Scottish Government to provide support for the creative sector post-COVID and a new foundation for participation with the communities

READ GOVANHILL COMMUNITY ZINE HERE.

We’re delighted to reveal the Govanhill Food Stories Community Zine! This little zine documents the stories, drawings, favourite dishes and beloved recipes shared by local residents at the Govanhill Food Stories Community Market on the 13th of August 2022 at the Batson Street Laboratory.

Thank you to all zine contributors, market participants, project partners and funders who made this possible! Special thanks to Glasgow Zine Library and Polly Rappaport for putting the zine together.

Govanhill Community Market is a partnership between Glasgow Artists’ Moving Image Studios, G42 Pop-Ups and Govanhill Baths Community Trust. It aims to strengthen connections between different communities, support the local economy and breathe new life into underused spaces in the neighbourhood.

Govanhill is the most culturally diverse neighbourhood in Scotland, with over 80 languages spoken here. As with any rich mixture of backgrounds there are also misunderstandings, and this event is a platform for meeting our neighbours and learning more about their heritage and customs, as well as the history of immigrant and refugee communities in Govanhill.

The third edition of the Govanhill Community Market took place on the 13th of August 2022 at the Batson Street Laboratory. This outdoor market celebrated narrative through food as part of Govanhill International Festival and the Year of Stories 2022.

It was a great opportunity to try an exciting variety of cuisines, cooked by community organisations and businesses from Govanhill and beyond, and to learn the history and traditions behind the dishes. We were served delicious coffee and pop-corn at the Eritrean coffee ceremony led by UNITY Sisters, and explored links between migration, colonialism and food systems in a fun session with Tunvii Khurana and Diana Jiménez (Nourish Scotland) as part of the ‘Our Rights, Our Communities’ project.

We have an exciting opportunity for a passionate and committed individual to join the team of staff and volunteers at the People’s Pantry! We’re looking for a new Development Worker to help deliver the aims of the People’s Pantry,

The Pantry offers an alternative way for people facing food insecurity or food inequalities to access the food and essentials they need, giving a greater deal of choice and dignity. As Covid restrictions are relaxed we hope to offer more ways for Pantry members to engage with food, starting with a small urban growing space and associated events around the theme of growing and making at home.

Applications must be in by 9.00am Monday 31st October 2022. For full details and job description visit our vacancies page.