16 Collective CIC

The Directors submit their report together with the financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2022.OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES16 Nicholson Street Gallery is a Glasgow-based, non-profit art space. The programme of exhibitions and publications produced during this year continued the gallery’s curatorial project revolving around gender, sexuality, identity politics, and being. This year also saw the gallery’s ongoing digitisation project, both in its development as a virtual gallery space and in the consolidation of an accessible archive.We reopened to the public after remaining closed to public access for the previous tax year due to lockdown, while navigating the relaxation of lockdown measures and how to open safely to the public and support our artists as well as possible. As such we divided the time between creating and producing in-house exhibitions and events as well as our online programme, developing the gallery to become a more robust business in order to better support our stakeholders (the community created by our supported artists, project facilitators, and visitors) going forward.In-House ProgrammeAs the curatorial team 16 Nicholson Street, Shields, Mlynczak, and Cardozo researched, curated, produced, and hosted: five exhibitions, two community engagement projects comprising several workshops, and one international online event.Exhibitions:‘Meat World’ (23/04/2021 - 09/05/2021) exhibited the artists AdamBenmakhlouf, Rosa Klerkx, James St. Findlay, and Jonny Walker. The exhibition was curated by Shields, who edited and designed the publication accompanying the exhibition, Complete Destruction of the Real Body printed by Merchant City Print. The exhibition involved a collaboration with The Library of Olfactive Materials, operated by Clara Weale. Exhibition photography was provided by Bart Urbanski. While the online VR documentation of the exhibition was provided by Mlynczak and Rush Johnstone.‘Flock Circumstance’ (21/05/2021 - 06/06/2021) exhibited the artists Aga Paulina Mlynczak, Madde Edlund, and Tinja Ruusuvuori. The exhibition was curated by Mlynczak and the publication, with stand-alone contributions by the above mentioned artists as well as Niamh Moloney, was edited by Cardozo while the graphic design was undertaken by Zineb Benassarou and the bookbinding by Gillian Stewart at Juju Books. Printing was delivered by EXACTA. Exhibition photography was provided by Bart Urbanski. Online VR documentation of the exhibition was provided by Mlynczak and Rush Johnstone.‘Knitting the Intangible Voices’ (16/06/2021 - 04/07/21) exhibited the artist Natsumi Sakamoto, along with two collaborators, Sarah McWhinney and Stephanie Black Daniels. The exhibition was curated by Shields with Mlynczak. The publication accompanying the exhibition featured work by Sakamoto, McWhinney, Black Daniels, and Shields, and was designed by Ella McLean. Exhibition photography was provided by Bart Urbanski. Shields partnered with other local art galleries, 42 Carlton Place, Kendall Koppe, Stallan Brand’s artspace, and artists working in Oxford House to create a local hub and designed a ‘Laurieston Art Map’ to promote other galleries in the areaand engender a sense of community.‘Thriving in Disturbed Ground’ (29/10/2021 - 21/11/2021) exhibited the artists CaitlynHolly Main, Niamh Moloney, Hanne Lillee, M.E. Smit-Dicks, and Oktavia Schreiner. The exhibition was curated by Shields and Mlynczak, who also edited and graphically designed the accompanying publication, which featured their writing as well as written work by all the artists involved in the exhibition. The opening featured a performance piece by Main. Patricia Fleming came in as a shadow curator. Exhibition photography was provided by Bart Urbanski. Online VR documentation of the exhibition was provided by Mlynczak and Rush Johnstone.Needs and Freedoms (04/03/2022 - 03/04/2022) exhibited the artists Moira Salt and Fiona McGurk. The exhibition was curated by Mlynczak. The publication ‘Reparative Trespassing’ was edited and introduced by Shields and featured contributions by the artists and Mlynczak, with graphic design by Zineb Benassarou and the bookbinding by Gillian Stewart at Juju Books. The book launch event and film screening for ‘Reparative Trespassing’ was curated and hosted by Cardozo, with the artists, Shields, and Mlynczak as the event panel. Video work based on Salt’s performance was produced by Mlynczak.Across these exhibitions technical installation support was provided by the directors as well as the team comprising: Kerr Thomson, Louie Pegna, Katie Eyre, Sean Ellcombe and Dylan Boyd-Esposito. Invigilation of exhibitions and events was undertaken by the curator/directors, Olivia McHugh, Sam Harley, Rose Berry, Kelly Rappleye, Coco Cardozo and Thomas Dixon. All web design and development was provided by Rush Johnstone.Community engagement projects:Freedom in Abstraction, Power in Creativity (04/12/2021 - 24/07/2022) was and isfacilitated by Cardozo and Beth Shapeero,and involved working with the charitable organisation Empower Women For Change (EWFC). Shapeero is a sculptor/painter and arts facilitator whose projects promote engagement in visual arts and deeper connections between visitors, artworks and artists. EWFC is a community-based organisation empowering women, and our collaborators from this organisation were Fizza Kaneez and Lababa Naqvi. Their work is empowering Glasgow’s multicultural women in: heritage, climate change, food security, skills. It is open to all women including new Scots, asylum seekers and refugees. EWFC is inspiring and empowering minority ethnic women through advancing their leadership and active citizenship in all aspects of life in Scotland. Additionally, the workshops employed Samira Ouaret, Catriona Beckett and Murray Renton who provided childcare for the participants’ children and engaged the children in workshops. While Lorna Walker implemented mindfulness techniques and training for mothers in order to foster better care throughout the workshops.Salon 16 (14/02/2022 - 07/11/2022) In December 2021, Thomas Dixon was commissioned by us to deliver a youth engagement programme ‘Salon 16’ with the support of the curatorial team and Rappleye. The project was a fortnightly reading/writing group which focussed on queer theory, literature, film and art with the intention of emboldening young people and supporting them and their growth as participants in the city’s vibrant art scene. This program of discussion and creative output is aimed at young creatives interested in Queer Identity and expression. The programme encouraged participants to engage with and respond to the materials provided through discussion, writing and drawing. A public performance evening and film screening event was held to promote the creative output of Salon 16’s participants.International online event:New Rituals, Neue Rituale (15/10/2021): was an in-kind public event and live streamwe hosted for the book launch for ‘New Rituals, Neue Rituale’, an artbook involving multiple contemporary artists, edited by Oktavia Schreiner. The event was hosted by Shields with in-person readings by Niamh Moloney, Natsumi Sakamoto, Beverley Chapman, and remote readings by Abiona Esther Ojo, Katharina Brandl, Violeta Ivanova, Naomi Van Dijck, and Katharina Gruzei, and a Q&A with Schreiner led by Mlynczak.Online ProgrammeThe online programme included several elements and during this financial year.The first element involved providing online exhibition access through engaging 360-degree virtual walkthroughs of ‘Meat World’, ‘Flock Circumstance’ and ‘Thriving in Disturbed Ground’, developed with Rush Johnstone and Mlynczak. These included video and audio works, access to the exhibition texts, and full documentation of the exhibitions. Online access to the publication for ‘Meat World’ was also provided through the gallery website as was the access to the publication accompanying ‘Knitting the Intangible Voices’.The second element involved showcasing the work of the artists who had been chosen for our 2021 programme in order to both promote these exhibitions and to provide online content for our community of visitors to engage with, both via our website and via instagram.The third element involved broadcasting the previously mentioned international online event in-kind to showcase Glasgow and international artists. The livestream of the book launch event for ‘New Rituals, Neue Rituale’ involved all the artists previously mentioned, as well as webcast production by Kerr Thomson and Mlynczak. Stage and sound equipment including sound engineering courtesy of E H Sound (Michael Harrison).Dixon was our Communications Officer earlier in the year but as his professional interests changed, we provided him the new role of Engagement Officer. We began to work with Communications Officer Kelly Rappleye in November 2021, and she manages our social media and online/email presence to provide public access to our programme and disseminate information about it to as wide an audience as possible in as accessible a way as possible. Rappleye led our online Christmas Sale in December of 2021 via the aforementioned channels.The online programme which began in January of 2021 has a legacy within our organisation as we have continued to create a dynamic virtual section of each exhibition as we opened to the public in the physical space.In November 2021, Cardozo and Mlynczak with the web developer Rush Johnstone designed and implemented a ‘Community’ subpage of the gallery's website. This was a step towards better, ongoing representation of the learning and engagement programme delivered with our partner Empower Women for Change and Beth Shapeero. It also marked a turning point for the organisation creating a platform for new upcoming long-term, research and community engagement projects like Builiding Feminist Resilience (FR) and Salon 16. Research and development for FR, led by Mlynczak with the artist Natsumi Sakamoto, Shields and Cardozo, began in September 2021. Interviews with potential project partners took place throughout the Autumn and Winter and among others included Naomi van Djick (independent curator, NL), Ailie Rutherford (Feminist Exchange Network, GLA), Donna Holford-Lovell (Neon Digital Arts, Dundee), Katrina Brown (Common Guild, GLA), Ritsuko Takahashi (Hiina Action, J), Naoko Horiuchi (AIT, J), Maria Howard (Nothing Personal Magazine) , Laura Plant (independent curator, GLA), Rhubaba Gallery, Female Artists Meeting (collective, J), Julia Caroline Kothe (Goethe Institut).