Take Me Somewhere Returns In 2023 [AD]
The international biennial festival, Take Me Somewhere, returns to Glasgow for the first time since 2019. Performances will take place across the city with many site-specific installations, including at Tramway, from 13 to 28 October 2023.
Words by Samar Jamal | Photos by Joana Stawnicka, Sanmari Marais & Emily Nicholl
Take Me Somewhere brings together a range of artists from across the globe, in partnership with organisations, including the British Council. This year, it is using art and contemporary performance to explore themes of connection, disability, ecological issues, date rape, femicide, post-colonialism, queerness, racial identity and much more.
The Artistic Director of the festival, LJ Findlay-Walsh, tells us how Take Me Somewhere developed through defiance, after the closure of The Arches - the infamous city centre venue which hosted a mix of music and club nights, theatre performances and art from locals: “When that venue closed, we were in consultation with the sector to find out what would be a useful way of moving forward with such a gap in provision. A festival for establishing or established practitioners was decided.”
The aim was to also provide a space to nurture their talents in Glasgow, without having to seek out cities like Berlin or London, common stomping grounds for artists.
Take Me Somewhere does that by working in two parts: as a festival that takes place every two years, connecting global audiences and practitioners, which has always sought to keep the legacy of The Arches alive through thoughtful, anarchic and vibrant performances, and as “a sector-supporting arts development organisation at other times of the year,” LJ explains.
Whilst the Festival is multilayered, at its core it’s about change-making, LJ adds: “In the broadest sense, whether that's political, in terms of how we live our lives, challenging how we make performance or who or how we convene this community.”
This reflects a wider ethos that LJ feels is entrenched in Scotland: “A big part of what drives us is ensuring that we follow the legacy of what already exists in Scotland of this kind of radical change-making work.”
Accessibility will also be centre stage at Take Me Somewhere, with many shows featuring integrated audio descriptions and touch tours for blind and partially sighted audiences. For LJ, this is about ensuring accessibility within creative spaces and making it a standard, not an occasional add-on feature - she hopes that this is experienced by a “breadth of people”.
Laura Fisher presents FORGED
One such performance is FORGED (in the tender heat of your embrace) by artist Laura Fisher, taking place on 21 October. The installation will be visually described and draw parallels between ‘the material properties of the metal and the artist’s chronic pain’.
Whilst many of the artists are international, the concepts in their art are issues on our doorstep and have been created in connection with people in the community, LJ expands: “A lot of the artists we're working with, work within the community as part of their practice or consider community building by nurturing existing communities within their practise. So, although you're seeing something on the stage, very often it's really rooted somewhere else.
“We're bringing in work that speaks to other work that's being created in Scotland. Either it sits in alignment with it and adds to a conversation or sometimes it directly challenges the conversations we're having and the way we're having them.”
Like all impactful work, there is hopes to continue the conversations around the themes of the festival once it ends:
Kieron Jina presents THE RISE
These international artists that are coming, they're not just coming and presenting their work for one night only on the T1 stage and running back out again. They're really interested in making connections while they're here. So, they're doing workshops, they're working with local dancers, in order to open up conversations regarding decolonisation on a global level.
LJ is eager for audiences to experience the work and she is also looking forward to the conversations it brings forth: “The beauty of the actual festival is those spaces in between, I think that's where some of the joy comes for me, not just in the work, but dissecting the nuances of work in the bar afterwards”.
The festival comes at a precarious time for the creative industries. Just this week the government announced a U-turn in their initial £6.6 million proposed funding for the creative industry. Exhibiting and viewing groundbreaking work is defiant and critical and for LJ this is about “ensuring that we remember and celebrate our history so that it's valued and using that as a way of advocating to ensure that we keep our spaces. Therefore, keeping intact the communities that exist within these spaces.”
LJ encourages everyone to look at the programme and believes its diversity means there will be something that feels pertinent for everyone. For more information on the festival and to book tickets, visit the website takemesomewhere.co.uk.