Andy Brooke on ‘Cheerful thinking and lateral learning’

Dumfries emerging artist Andy Brooke shares his insights from recent activities.
Check out more insights and information on his website.
May has been a more reflective month for our team after a series of pop-ups and a field trip. There is a lot to process and think about for the next stages of what we are doing. In the middle of the craziness of helping nine or ten young people make a coil pot, there is a lot of lateral and sideways thinking going on above the level of conscious thought… As well as the enjoyment of seeing raw learning happen in front of your eyes.




Pics of clay making by Patrick Rooney
…we will return as soon as we can to build on our friendships and seek to involve more folk in our future plans for the coming Art Cabin (permanent space for workshops and conversations over food and drink). This inclusion of the people we are coming to in the plans for what we will do with them is crucial for laying foundations for an alternative model for building back new social directions post Covid.
Pop-up for older residents
We did a pop-up during the day for the more mature folks who live in Burnett Avenue. A select few responded to our invites and we had some in-depth conversations with them. These conversations reminded me that each resident of Lochside has a crucial perspective which we need to hear if we are to truly bring something of lasting worth.




Fresh discourses create new possiblities
“Michel Foucault suggested that decisions made on the part of a given group not only deal with particular concerns and problems, but also form discourses that regulate the flow or circulation of power in a society or social collective at any given time.”
Quoted from Art and Politics: a Small History of Art for Social Change since 1955, Claudia Mesch, 2014
We want to help create new discourses or ways of thinking for the folk we work with, with art at the centre of a new creative focus for motivating and learning new things. This is something that we hope will become more tangible and achievable as we move towards having a more permanent local space.