It’s been some years since Flannery O’Kafka had a residency at Project Ability, so it was great to have a catch-up at Tramway last week.
Flannery has been busy working on a commission for the National Galleries of Scotland, in collaboration with dance company Indepen-dance. Some of the photographs made as part of the project were on show as part of Gathered Together, Scotland’s International Inclusive Dance Festival.
It was a real treat to spend some time with Flannery and with the wonderful images of Indepen-dance dancers, some of whom are also Project Ability artists. We also had some fun with Jack McElroy, who was once a volunteer in our Project Ability workshops and now works for Indepen-dance. He encouraged us to make some moves and choose our favourite photos to be photographed with.
We also spent some time in Govanhill Baths, Ours, an exhibition charting the extraordinary history of the baths and the protests by local people who fought to prevent the building from closure. Here, we met David Baumann, who had lots of stories to tell about his time at the baths, where he learnt to swim as a lad and was awarded a trophy for his services to swimming.
We were very surprised to discover that some of us appeared in one of the photographs on the wall, which illustrated further examples of public protest. It was a photograph taken at the protest against the rent rises at Trongate 103 earlier this year.
These exhibitions have now finished, but you can currently see some of the Flannery O’Kafka photographs at the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.
