Unravel have run over seventy five workshops in communities across mainland Britain from September 2010 to August 2011 in their attempt to create a hand painted film that correlates in length to the 874 mile distance between Lands End and John O’Groats, where each frame of film corresponds to one metre of the distance.

Shown here is Glasgow’s contribution, created by drawing, painting and scratching directly onto 16mm film.

The work with its accompanying soundtrack of interviews and recordings made in collaboration with the Document 8 is an extract of the full sixteen-hour film that has been made by and for the people of Britain.

unravelfilm.blogspot.com

In a response to reading On the Natural History of Destruction by W G Sebald. Catherine Rogan will attempt, through a short piece of writing and small sculpture, to explore the effects of war on people’s ordinary lives. How do people get up each day and continue with their everyday lives whilst surrounded by rubble, the recently dead and the trauma of destruction?

Award-winning artist Omar Zingaro Bhatia presents two new pieces of work which are a response to his investigation into the suffering of the Romany people at the hands of the Nazis.

Shamus McPhee was born at Bobbin Mill, a Gypsy Traveler site in Perthshire, where he lives today. He has an MA Hons in Spanish and Gaelic from Aberdeen University and subsequently took a postgraduate diploma in translation studies. He taught English in Galicia and has undertaken research at the Roma Rights Centre in Budapest and Pavee Point in Dublin. Currently self-employed and a member of SGTLRC (Scottish Gypsy Traveler Law Reform Coalition). McPhee’s art practice draws upon his experience of growing up in the midst of the social injustice represented by the Bobbin Mill experiment. He combines art and activism to disseminate his ideas. The resulting art works operate as integral to his pursuit of cultural visibility and recognition. He was part of the Call The Witness Project at the Roma Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale 2011. Shamus exhibits a series of sketches and paintings of the Scottish Gypsy Traveler community.

Hope, memories, loss & community by Chris Leslie documents stories of regeneration and the changing face of Glasgow, including the closure of Paddy’s Market and evictions in Dalmarnock. Using photography, video and audio this is a project aimed at capturing people’s hopes, fading memories, lost livelihoods and the disappearance of homes and communities; issues that can be largely ignored in the utopian goals of regeneration. Now that the project is complete, most of the areas documented no longer exist. Chris is continuing with this documentation under the title ‘The Glasgow Renaissance’ and will include other areas in Glasgow like Red Road, Yoker and the Gorbals.

David A. is an artist working mainly in photography and writing; based in Glasgow, who has documented derelict mental handicap* hospitals and psychiatric institutions across Scotland from 1999 – 2003. For Document 9 he exhibits these images (for the first time) as an electronic archive.

If there is one thing I remember regarding my experience that is the colours within the institutions – which assault the senses. And if asked, in one word, to describe the institutions – I would use the word ‘Poverty.’

When the project ended the former institutions where being converted into luxury housing or simply demolished. I had always worried that with their demise – that the institutions’ would no longer be held accountable – the evidence of their existence and practice gone – how would those unable to explain their experiences ever be heard?

Looking back – nearly a decade on I hope these photographs offer an insight to a new audience – one who has never experienced life inside a long-term institution. And for those who spent their lives within the walls – these photographs are an indictment of a people against a society.

ann vance will present a small installation using drawing and slide-projection. This work was made in response to reading susan sontag’s Regarding The Pain of Others, which was suggested to me by Catherine Rogan.