Alex Misick (CCA Glasgow) on collaboration with the wider arts community through CCA’s “open source programme”. With a response by performance artist Gordon Douglas, artist-in-residence at CCA Glasgow.
Kunsthal Gent wants to offer space for collaboration with many different partners. For inspiration we look at CCA Glasgow, the centre for contemporary art in Glasgow that developed a model of open source programming to facilitate collaboration with the broader arts field. Alex Misick, open source programme coordinator for CCA Glasgow, explains their method.
‘To make this policy work, two elements are vital. The first is co-ordination. As activities grew in the spaces, we created a role for someone to liaise and co-ordinate the multiple events across the building. The second vital element involves selection. Clearly such a policy could easily be taken advantage of or it could quickly become a kaleidoscope of random events. To prevent this, each event and every partner programme is considered internally and every new event must be proposed to CCA. (…) The benefits for everyone from this include a much greater feeling of ownership of the space by a wider spectrum of the arts community.’ More info
Alex Misick works as Programme Coordinator at CCA Glasgow, overseeing the open-source partner programme that takes in excess of 1,000 events per year, alongside CCA’s Creative Lab residency programme.
Gordon Douglas is a performance artist based in Glasgow. He is currently working with CCA Glasgow on a performative audit of their open-source policy, and a series of events titled ‘An Opposites Programme’ (2018−19) that intend to ‘make live’ this feedback.