£2.6m Grants Bring First Scottish Creation Centre a Step Closer

Published: 22 Mar 2016

Three quarters of the funds have been secured for Scotland’s first Creation Centre – a project that could radically change the cultural landscape.

The last month has brought pledges of £2.6m including a £1.006m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, £1m from Creative Scotland and £622,000 from the Scottish Government’s Regeneration Capital Grant Fund. Glasgow City Council had already promised £1m.

The £4.9m Briggait Creation Centre will be an entirely new cultural offering, providing a dedicated base for dance and a home for the rapidly expanding physical performance sector – including circus, street theatre, flying trapeze and other aerial skills.

The project, led by Wasps Artists’ Studios, will also complete the regeneration of the Briggait, a beautiful and historic Grade A-listed Victorian and Edwardian market complex in the city’s medieval Merchant City.

Once operational it will be a hub for 600 professional artists, physical performers and dancers. It will be home to five arts organisations – Dance House Glasgow, Conflux, Indepen-dance, Aerial Edge and YDance. Each has diverse skills and expertise and an international network of contacts, and all are currently based within the Briggait.

Audrey Carlin, Wasps Senior Executive Director for Business Development, said: “To have these three grants confirmed in the last month is tremendous – it takes us a giant stride towards giving Scotland a fabulous new centre for physical performance and dance.

“Scotland has so much potential and the Briggait Creation Centre will let us develop talented young performance artists, nurturing their skills at every level from beginners through to international stars. It could help transform the cultural landscape in Scotland and the rest of the UK.

“Our supporters have been fantastic, there’s a real sense of excitement about the opportunities this project will bring. We now have to identify the remaining 25% of the funds needed to make the centre a reality – hopefully, it’s one last push and we’re there.”

Creation Centres are relatively common in Europe but not the UK. They are spaces for multi-disciplinary art making, often focusing on outdoor performance but mixing visual art, performance, circus and other art forms. The BCC will offer unprecedented opportunities for participation and training in dance, street arts, physical theatre, circus and visual arts.

Once complete there will be:

• Five dance/physical performance studios from 1,200 sqft to 5,000 sqft
• Scotland’s first dedicated workspace for physical performance
• Scotland’s first space specially equipped for flying trapeze
• A new public dance facility for Glasgow
• Exemplar inclusive studio and changing facilities for disabled users
• A social enterprise café
• Facilities for 12,000 participants to improve their health and wellbeing
• 100,000 visitors per year to the Briggait
• An inclusive dance studio with hoist and tracking systems and a registered ‘Changing Places’ toilet for disabled people.

The BCC will be very much part of the community and will allow artists to develop work with and for the public as well as creating new arts and performance-based jobs.

The Briggait was built in several stages between 1873 and 1904, and embraces a 17^th-century stone tower. It has Scotland’s oldest surviving collection of market halls.

There will be many activities for schools and the local community to become involved with at the BCC including researching the history of performance in the area, compiling an archive photographic exhibition, developing heritage walks and tours and learning traditional construction skills through traineeships.

Lucy Casot, Head of the Heritage Lottery Fund in Scotland, said: “We have already seen what can be done at the Briggait with National Lottery funding so are delighted to continue our support with the transformation of these old market halls.

“The building, with its 350-year old steeple, is a beacon of the Merchant City’s heritage. Our funding will help it thrive in a way that is sustainable and relevant to today and to the community it serves. It will better the lives of thousands, from those learning new skills as they restore its stonework to those dancing to keep fit or living their dream on the flying trapeze.”

Philip Deverell, Director, Strategy at Creative Scotland said: “The Briggait Creation Centre will be a significant addition to our national arts infrastructure and cultural landscape providing a dedicated facility for performance arts and dance, and will be the largest of its kind in Scotland.

“The development will reinvigorate the wider Briggait complex and make it a genuinely public facing building, breathe life into the Clyde Waterfront in the heart of Glasgow, and inspire people of all ages to engage in physical activity and creative performance.”

In 2015, Stage 1 funding from HLF allowed Wasps to recruit a Heritage and Community Co-ordinator. This post will help visitors to engage with the rich history of the Briggait site – spanning back to 1665. Children from the Gorbals and Calton have already been involved in celebrating the 350^th birthday party for the Briggait Steeple.

Part of the Briggait has already been regenerated, giving it a new life as a centre for artists and creative companies and providing Glasgow with a superb exhibition area. It is also the HQ for Wasps, Scotland’s largest creative community, which provides affordable spaces for artists, makers and other creatives at its centres from Shetland to the Borders.

The BCC will incorporate 12,000sqft of areas dating from 1889 and 1904 plus a gap site currently used for parking and deliveries. A new entrance will face the Clyde.

Images are of what the Briggait Creation Centre will look like. 

ENDS

Notes to Editors

About Wasps

• Wasps stands for Workshop and Artists’ Studio Provision Scotland Ltd. It was established in 1977.
• The ethos behind Wasps is that while art can enrich communities and society by inspiring, educating, entertaining and transforming people’s lives, many artists and arts organisations with the talent and ability to achieve this often struggle to work and fulfil their potential because their low incomes make workplace rents prohibitive. Wasps was therefore set up to provide good quality, affordable studio space to enable artists and creative bodies to carry out their work.
• Wasps studios are all across Scotland - and as far apart as Shetland and Kirkcudbright.  The sites are: Aberdeen (Langstane Place Studios and Shore Lane Studios), Dundee (Meadow Mill Studios), Edinburgh (Citizens Studios in Leith, Patriothall in Stockbridge and West Park Place in Dalry), Glasgow (Dovehill in Gallowgate, Hanson Street in Dennistoun, South Block and The Briggait, (both in The Merchant City), Irvine (The Courtyard), Kirkcudbright (Canonwalls and Claverhouse), Nairn (The Blue Door), Newburgh (The Steeple), Selkirk (St Mary’s Mill) and Shetland (The Booth in Scalloway).
• In recent years the Scotland-wide organisation has been transformed from a small charity into one of the most successful bodies of its type in Britain. In 2014 it was named Scottish Social Enterprise of the Year. It is highly unusual because it is self-financing in its day-to-day operations, normally only seeking loans or grants for capital projects.
• For more see www.waspsstudios.org.uk/

About the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) 

• Thanks to National Lottery players, HLF invests money to help people across the UK explore, enjoy and protect the heritage they care about - from the archaeology under our feet to the historic parks and buildings we love, from precious memories and collections to rare wildlife. www.hlf.org.uk @heritagelottery
• A first-round pass means the project meets HLF criteria for funding and HLF believes the project has potential to deliver high-quality benefits and value for Lottery money. The application was in competition with other supportable projects, so a first-round pass is an endorsement of outline proposals. Having been awarded a first-round pass, the project now has up to two years to submit fully developed proposals to compete for a firm award.

About Creative Scotland 

• Creative Scotland is the public body that supports the arts, screen and creative industries across all parts of Scotland on behalf of everyone who lives, works or visits here.  It enables people and organisations to work in and experience the arts, screen and creative industries in Scotland by helping others to develop great ideas and bring them to life.  It distributes funding provided by the Scottish Government and the National Lottery.
• For further information about Creative Scotland please visit www.creativescotland.com.
• Follow Creative Scotland @creativescots and www.facebook.com/CreativeScotland