Tramway 2 Closure

You are a major Scot­tish conur­ba­tion. You have many gal­leries, large and small. One of them in par­tic­u­lar has a rep­u­ta­tion for not only exhibit­ing and com­mis­sion­ing work by Scot­tish artists, both estab­lished and emerg­ing, but for being able to secure work from inter­na­tional artists who oth­er­wise wouldn’t show in this country’s gal­leries. In part, your inter­na­tional rep­u­ta­tion comes from one par­tic­u­lar gallery space. It’s one of the largest in the coun­try (in fact it’s the biggest out­side London), and offers artists a unique chance to utilise a truly huge space.

Do you

(a) Con­tinue to pro­gramme and com­mis­sion works from artists the world over, in so doing main­tain­ing a con­sis­tent record of chal­leng­ing the ortho­doxy, nur­tur­ing artists and break­ing new ground?

or

(b) Close it down with no con­sul­ta­tion, par­tic­u­larly not from the artists whom this will directly affect, and hand it over to Scot­tish Ballet to use as a rehearsal space, when in fact a huge cold Vic­tio­r­ian former tram work­shop is almost wholly unsuit­able for a dance com­pany, which needs a warm room with a sprung wooden floor?

Glas­gow City Coun­cil, it seems, is opting for (b), hand­ing over Tramway 2 to Scot­tish Ballet, which is, to put it mildly, a fuck­ing dis­grace. Of course, this is all depen­dent on fund­ing from the Scot­tish Arts Coun­cil for Scot­tish Ballet, but done deal or not, why it was even con­sid­ered in the first place beg­gars belief. Of all the sites in this city, full as it is of huge, dis- or under-​used build­ings, why pick Tramway, the city’s prime visual art space? Of which Glas­gow City Coun­cil, in 2001, said “The unique scale and archi­tec­ture of Tramway allows for exhi­bi­tions of work which could not be shown in, or cre­ated specif­i­cally for, any other venue in Scot­land and the UK”? Why choose a space that will require sub­stan­tial alter­ation before it could be used as a rehearsal space for Scot­tish Ballet? (Food for thought: how much would a sprung wooden floor roughly the size of a couple of foot­ball pitches cost?)

So why not use this form to write to the Glas­gow City Coun­cil and tell them how much of a mis­take they’re about to make. Oh, and while you’re at it you could fax your MP.

Update: For more infor­ma­tion, read this brief­ing doc­u­ment on the proposal.

See also: Tramway Update

Posted at 2pm on 19/09/03 by Leon McDermott to the art and culture category.
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