Aye Inspired Premiere Photos (Part 3)

Aye Inspired Premiere Photos (Part 2)

Aye Inspired Premiere Photos (Part 1)

 28 June 2014
Aye Inspired Premiere
The Priory
Aberdeen

Aye Inspired Premiere, Aberdeen 28/29th June 2014

Aye Inspired, the referendum inspired art show will be premiering at The Priory in Belmont Street in Aberdeen this Saturday and Sunday (28/29th June). Doors are open from 10am-4pm both days. 

Entry is free, kids are welcome and there will be refreshments.

You will also be able to buy Aye Inspired t-shirts, badges and selected prints of the work and meet some of the artists. There will be live music and film screenings on both days.

The show goes off on tour around Scotland from July 1st.

Badgering for Badges

 

One thing about this ol' Yes campaign is the sheer amount of folk just setting up Yes groups, doing Yes things and ...making Yes merchandise to get the word out. John S Martin who is one of our Aye Inspired exhibitors is working on a piece that wants to reflect this. But he needs your help. He is looking for you to send him any yes badges you have made or any for the masses of Yes groups in existence.

Send them before 15th June to:

John S Martin
c/o Aye Inspired
14 Disblair Road
Newmachar
Aberdeenshire

Make sure you put your name in with the badge you send and we'll credit you on the info that goes with the final piece.

Cheers
Aye Inspired.

Aye Inspired Premiere, Aberdeen

We would like to formally announce our premiere dates for Aye Inspired, the art exhibition for yes.

Our premiere takes place on 

28th and 29th June

at 

The Priory on Belmont Street, Aberdeen

Doors open 10am-4pm

There will be live music on both days and many of the Aye Inspired artists will be in attendance.

Watch this space for announcements on the Aye Inspired Scotland wide tour dates.

Artist: Dhivya Kate Chetty

Why Us?

A few months ago my sister and I were sitting at our Mum's table after Sunday dinner trying to work out what we could do to help spread the message of Yes. We would canvass for sure, we could deliver leaflets for sure but what about trying to engage people in the debate on another level. Maybe on an entertaining and artistic level? We both love making art and crafts. How could we combine the two? The idea of an art exhibition where all the art was inspired by the idea of Scottish Independence could be great. But could it be done?

The next Saturday I set up a web page and took to twitter to test the waters. We just wanted to put a small indyref art show in Aberdeen, our home town. What would folk think? Over the course of one day I had 25 artists from all over Scotland asking how they could contribute. By Sunday it was over 40. This print of mine came to mind:

 Those familiar with my original print will see

I've yessed it up...

Clearly the appetite was there and clearly this was not just a local thing anymore. We had emails from as far away as Barcelona and Nova Scotia. We had the artists. Now where could we show the art? Well I can't reveal that yet, but we're showing that art and you'll find out where in early June, but let's just say we're pretty sure that most Scots won't be a stone's throw from Aye Inspired, in some shape or form.

We then realised we needed funding. Here's what we needed to fund:

Petrol costs

Postage

Publicity material

Van hire

Van Insurance

Banners and signs

Venue hire

A premiere

Merchandise

An exhibition brochure

Presentation equipment like easels and stands

.....And more stuff we probably haven't even thought of yet.

People have been so generous already. We've 40% of our target and we reckon we can get most of the above. But we're struggling to cover that van lease to take our art to venues safely. And we've only 7 days left of our indiegogo funding left. And to be honest we feel slightly embarrassed asking because if you're for independence and have a few extra quid there are so many amazing organisations you could give it to:

Women for Independence (I'm the Aberdeen Exec for that, so yes please!)

Common Weal

Labour for Independence

Bella Caledonia

Yestival

National Collective

RIC

The YES campaign

The Scottish Green party

The SNP

Generation Yes

So why spare a portion of that for us? Hmm, because I think we're trying to speak to folk who might not approach a Yes table, or want to engage on a purely political level. We want to speak to folk about art and ideas and why we're moved to create art that is inspired by what we want politically. Could a curious person stop by a free art exhibition and have a conversation that might make them think about voting yes, or at the very least start finding out more?

All revolutions have their art. There's a reason for that. It's effective and it hits parts of the brain that political conversation doesn't. We are already working together with the Yes campaigns, Labour for Indy and Women for Indy in Aberdeen and Shire who will be participating in our exhibitions, maybe the folk that come into see the free art might just end up taking a leaflet or Yes pin or two. Who knows?

  

Please help us reach the folk that might not take a leaflet but might just come in and appreciate a meaningful piece of art.

Thank you.

Gillian and Lindsay

Aye Inspired.

Still meeting at Mum's kitchen table.....

You can contribute here;

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/aye-inspired

Thank you to everyone who is making this show happen. Together we can achieve an independent Scotland.


Seagull by Lindsay Allardyce
Jaws and Iain Banks by Gillian Martin