Stranraer: Hub of Creativity
IT'S OFFICIAL! Once a thriving port for the ro-ro ferry to and from Ulster, Stranraer's now a backwater and, for many, a dive with a few café s and hotels, the usual cathedrals to consumption, aka supermarkets, and a railway station that looks like a salvage yard.
You'd be excused for asking how, in such an unpromising environment, any artistic creativity can emerge? Ironically, energetic art can bloom in down-at-heel places. Think of Raploch, the deprived housing estate in Stirling, where a vital youth orchestra began, the back streets of Liverpool where The Beatles gave voice, the Govan ship-building yard that gave Billy Connolly the grit to become a comedian and run-down Margate on the Kent coast, where artist Tracey Emin once ran amok. Before bourgeois artists gentrified St. Ives, this remote, Cornish town grew an amazing artistic talent in fisherman Alfred Wallis.
The North Californian writer on art, climate change and feminism, Rebecca Solnit, claims that "ideas move from the shadows and the fringes into the center and how much the center likes to forget or ignore these origins!" So, margins call the shots in politics and art, according to Solnit.
Art on the periphery is what Creative Stranraer Hub is about. With premises tucked in a side- street at the corner of George Street opposite a bakery (one of the town's remaining family businesses), Creative Stranraer, launched in April 2023, is an attempt to restore at grass roots what the town has lost.
In 1965 the rail line to Dumfries was axed; in 1975, Wigtownshire County Council was dissolved, becoming the Wigtown District of Dumfries & Galloway Region; in 2011 Stranraer's port closed when Stena Line moved to Cairn Ryan; seven years later the maternity ward shut down. Stranraer women now travel 70 miles to Dumfries to give birth.
With so much public funding promised (after the ferry closure the Scottish Government ring-fenced £ 6 million to help regenerate Stranraer, but as there's a dispute over how to spend the money, it's not yet been allocated. This is frustrating, particularly as the East Pier, disused since the rail line to Dumfries closed but now owned by Stena Line, has become an unsightly wasteland and in need of regeneration.
The Hub team consists of Janet Jones, Project & Engagement Developer, who played a leading role in Stranraer Development Trust before helping to set up CS under the auspices of Stove Network (a South-West arts and community group), photographer/film-maker Savannah Crosby (Hub co- ordinator) and artist Jenni Buchanan (Manager).
The Hub's high profile in Stranraer is due to the eye-catching mural (shared 3,000 times online) on its gable end. The idea came from a discussion with local residents, who wanted something bright and cheeky. In everything that the Hub gets involved in, from the smallest detail to the largest issue, consultation with local residents is mandatory. "You can't impose art in a town," says Janet, "without involving the community."
Ayrshire-based Steven McIntyre, aka Tragic O'Hara, a former graffiti rebel, got the job. His spray-painted mural, a rendition of pop art on steroids, owes more to Paisley-raised playwright/artist John Byrne or Glasgow novelist/artist Alasdair Gray, than Banksi or Basquiat.
For a rural area, whose idea of creativity is to bake, knit, arrange flowers, grow marrows or tart-up mares and calves for the ring at the agricultural show, Stranraer residents now broaden their horizons.
Creative Stranraer draws all ages, who learn to apply a crayon to paper, wield a paintbrush, twang or bow the string of a guitar or violin and scribble words on a notepad, all actions that strengthen self-esteem, re-shape perceptions and inspire. CS's discussions on what counts as art and culture have encouraged people to reach beyond the traditional to see how anything can be approached creatively. As Rebecca Solnit discovered after meeting artists in deprived city locations, "Art can be almost anything, which means that every premise is open to question, every problem to exploration..."
Using the town's infrastructure and outskirts as their 'canvas', through Stranraer Development Trust, Stove Network and CS hub, local residents have literally made the desert bloom. The Unexpected Garden, situated behind Burns House near the waterfront, is where apples, blackcurrants, kale and nasturtiums grow, in raised beds as the soil at the harbour has been contaminated through years of industrial use.
After a public discussion prompted by CS, D & G Council (supported by Scottish Environmental Protection Agency), sponsored the restoration of the Black Stank burn, a 20 acre area on the outskirts of Stranraer. Part of the project is Urban Collective where skaters and bikers have constructed a mountain bike course.
CS's greatest challenge is Stranraer's waterfront. Maya Rose Edwards, their most recent resident artist, stimulated interest in the future of the town's shoreline with local people by staging workshops, calling monthly public meetings and putting up temporary artworks like the litter-pick statue of a sea witch and arranging a sailing-based performance by the local sailing club.
Edwards's finale last year marked the 'Raise the Sails' event with singing in the Unexpected Garden and food at the community café . The sequel to these waterfront antics is Shorelines, a plan to encourage the community to re-discover its identity with the shore. CS is helping to establish a coastal route and engaging local artists to create an art trail through the town.
Stranraer's Wheels, Water & Welbeing Festival takes place in June when cycling, water sports and other physical activities happen. Cycling plays a pivotal role here, significantly, as Kirkpatrick MacMillan, who invented the first pedal-powered bicycle in 1839 came from Keir, a village in Dumfries-sire.
Last year, a life-sized sculpture of the bicycle, a velocipede, was installed at the West Pier. CS was instrumental in finding the artist to create the piece.
Since the loss of the ferries, Stranraer is re-inventing itself. This move comes from the community itself. Local people haven't given up and are pushing hard for improvement. They're working to heal the wound. Now an independent charity, CS is facilitating that change.
"Whether it's the community or the various organisations intent on achieving Stranraer's regeneration, we're all sailing in the same direction," says Janet.
MARY GLADSTONE
