Gathering Ground, a social enterprise which runs food-focused events to bring the community together, is looking for people to get involved in its community crockery project.

They are looking to design and create a 90-piece hand-thrown crockery set based on people’s ideas, memories and stories of the canal district, and want local people to take part.

Take part at home

Gathering Ground are looking for people to complete an at-home project pack, which includes:

• 2 Canal Heritage Postcard Activity: Use this postcard to share what springs to mind when you think of the canal area. A sentence, a drawing or even a few lines of poetry. We will collect these collective ideas & transfer them onto the crockery set using decals. 

• A Paint at Home Crockery Activity: Partnering with ‘The Craft Pottery’ to include their Paint at Home Pottery kits, each participant will receive a kit with all the tools to help design a piece of crockery

With versions for adults and children, Gathering Ground hope they will be able to capture the diversity and heritage of the community who live, work and visit the canal area in the final designs.

The final crockery set will consist of plates, bowls, saucers, mugs and sharing platter and will be made by Kevin Callaghan, an award-winning sculptor based in Glasgow Sculpture Studios.

Local community

Through storytelling and sharing, the social enterprise aims to explore how people identify with the Canal District, transferring these discoveries into everlasting pieces of hand-thrown crockery to be shared with the local community.

The crockery set will be displayed at Gathering Ground in Old Basin House at Applecross Wharf and available to borrow by local community members. 

As the pieces are continuously used, it will bring memories of the past into the present and inspire what the meaning of community and heritage is for the future.

Funding

The project is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and overseen by the Glasgow Canal Co-operative on behalf of Glasgow City Council.

The Gathering Ground were one of a selection of local groups and initiatives awarded a share of a £36,000 funding pot to helps the community explore and unlock the canal’s rich history and create exciting new activities across the area.