The Gallery at Pollok House celebrates Maud Sulter

15 October–4 December 2022 and 6 January–15 January 2023

A new exhibition of the work of the internationally renowned Glaswegian-Ghanaian artist Maud Sulter is now open at The Gallery at Pollok House.

Commenting on this landmark exhibition, the Estate of Maud Sulter said, “It’s such a pleasure to see Maud Sulter’s work centre stage in her hometown of Glasgow.  We’re delighted that this beautiful and historical institution is showcasing her art, so new audiences will be able to connect with the engaging themes of her photography, including Memories of Childhood.”

The exhibition offers visitors an opportunity to experience Sulter’s recollections of growing up as a child of Ghanaian heritage in 1960s Scotland through Memories of Childhood, a photographic series and suite of poems.  It also features a range of works spanning her career, including selections from her series Zabat and Hysteria, featuring photography, collage, and literature.

Maud Sulter (1960-2008) was born and raised in the Gorbals and was an award-winning artist and writer, cultural historian, and curator of Ghanaian and Scottish heritage.  Her work is held in museum collections around the world, including the V&A and Tate.

Throughout her career and across different media, Sulter interrogated the representation of black women in the histories of art, the media, and photography, exploring the many connections between Africa and Europe, the often-hidden lives of black people, and the complex experiences of the African diaspora in European history and culture.

Inspiration for the exhibition comes from the National Trust for Scotland’s Facing our Past project, which investigates connections between the places and properties in its care and the wide diversity and identity of individuals involved throughout their histories, including through links to slavery.  Both the heritage of Pollok House and its family history have multi-generational links to West Indian plantations and so provide an appropriate context within which to explore and understand themes expressed in Sulter’s work.

Titled Maud Sulter: Memory and Identity, the exhibition will pause for the holidays after Sunday 4^th December but will reopen in the new year from 6^th January to 15^th January. 

During the exhibition hiatus, Pollok House will still be open and offering a drop-in collaging activity for visitors of all ages from 6^th December to 8^th December, engaging participants in Sulter’s techniques and methods.  The activity is included in the price of admission and is free for NTS members.

For more information on visiting The Gallery at Pollok House, please go to www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/pollok-house or https://www.facebook.com/PollokHouseNTS

Follow The Maud Sulter Estate on Instagram: @maudsulterestate

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As our research accumulated, alongside a series of articles on our website and a guest article in Greater Govanhill Magazine, we also gave talks at three events, for the Scottish Civic Trust 2020 conference, Govanhill International Festival 2021, and Black History Month Scotland 2021.

Now we are delighted to announce that our lead researchers in the project – Dr Saskia McCracken and Mark McGregor – have had a jointly-authored five-page article published in the January / February 2022 issue of History Scotland Magazine.

It has been our intent to begin to assemble a more honest picture of our current and past landscape, and we’ve achieved a lot in two and a half years but more could be done.

If you have ideas or suggestions for our project, want to write for it or get involved in other ways, please contact us on our social media channels or by emailing info@sghet.com and check out the resources below.

Purchase a copy of the History Scotland Jan/Feb 2022 issue here:

https://www.historyscotland.com/store/back-issues/history-scotland/history-scotland-vol22issue1-janfeb22-issue-123/

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More #SouthsideSlaveryLegacies info:

Read our Southside Slavery Legacies posts here:

The Tobacco Lords: James Ritchie of Craigton & Daniel Campbell of Shawfield

The Stevens and Bellahouston Park

The Maxwells of Pollok
[see sections on: Sir James Maxwell 6th Baronet (1762-1785) & William Stirling of Keir]

Maxwell Park, Pollokshields Burgh Hall & Henry Edward Clifford

Sugar, Enslavement, and Glasgow’s Southside [Greater Govanhill Magazine]

Watch our presentation at the Scottish Civic Trust 2020 ‘Race & Heritage in Scotland’ conference:
https://www.scottishcivictrust.org.uk/race-and-heritage-in-scotland-conference/

Subscribe to our Southside Slavery Legacies mailing list

Follow the #SouthsideSlaveryLegacies hashtag on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Follow SGHET on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Image sources:

Craigton House, 1870 [blog post header photo] – photo courtesy of Glasgow City Archives, Virtual Mitchell website (brightness adjustments by SGHET)

History Scotland Jan / Feb 2022 cover – cropped and full versions courtesy of History Scotland magazine

History Scotland ‘Meet the contributors’ and ‘Contents’ snippets – photos by Deirdre Molloy

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Despite a long and proud history, the Pollok story that most people are familiar with is one of post war housing, of growing up in a community on the margins, a community that was overlooked and easy to ignore. At G53Together, we’re planning on changing that narrative through a fuller telling of Pollok’s story. In telling that story we want to celebrate our community and shape its future, by understanding its past, both the good and the bad.

Today’s Pollok owes much of its existence to Sir John Stirling Maxwell, the 10th Baronet of Pollok, who sold a 746,368 acre site of fields and farms from his family lands to the City of Glasgow Corporation for the sum of £111,712 and 15 shillings in 1937. Working with some visionary Corporation Officials, they set to work on creating Pollok as a prototype community. Pollok is Glasgow’s first large scale housing scheme. It was fastidiously considered and confidently planned; Stirling Maxwell saw to that. In the year following the sale of the land, he writes in his book Shrines and Homes of Scotland:

“It is at last realised that the creation of a new suburb entails more than the mere erection of rows of houses – the indefinite extension of a large city, without attempt to preserve the beauty of the countryside or provide space for recreation, can end in nothing but discontent and calamity.”

The plan was to create a community, not just houses. Key to the plan was the inclusion of open community green space with local shops, schools and other amenities.

A report from the Corporation’s Housing Department in October 1937 details the desired hopes for the area to include “pleasure walks and garden plots which will give health and delight to many” “romping space for children” to play and explore among the “sylvan beauties” and “extensive woodlands.” The report further details the “central idea” of Pollok as the “foremost garden suburb in the City” with 50% of the total area of land “set apart as open space”.

It was a revolution of civic thought.

In the decades that followed, the Pollok project would suffer cutbacks and blows. The vision was bulldozed in favour of higher density, lesser quality, flat roofed, cramped, damp, cheaper housing. But people continued to arrive and Pollok became a home to tens of thousands of people; several generations of families have passed over the threshold of these homes.

Throughout those times, Pollok suffered from a lack of hope and an absence of belief. And that’s understandable when so much of what made the community was robbed from it. Schools and community centres, local shops and whole neighbourhoods have been wiped from the map. The last farm and parts of an ancient woodland were levelled for a motorway.

But the seed of a new idea has been planted. Covid-19 and isolation has in a strange way brought the community back together. It has given Pollok a new boldness and a growing sense of self resilience. We’ll be enabling a new sense of community spirit and empowerment through G53Together, a community collective of organisations, charities, housing associations and local residents.

While our focus for now is on covid-19 recovery, from next year, G53Together and our community partners will turn our attention to working to protect Pollok’s rich inheritance, to remembering the people and places that have shaped our community, to celebrating our heritage, and enhancing our green and public space.

If you want to be part of the dialogue and help build Pollok’s future, visit www.g53together.scot or like and follow our social media @G53Together (Facebook / Twitter).

By councillor David McDonald.

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As part of  Glasgow Doors Open Day – which has gone virtual this year – we’ve launched our new podcast series: ‘Southside Explorations‘.

Subscribe on a range of platforms including Apple and Spotify and walk alongside our local experts as they explore Glasgow’s Southside and the origins and hidden stories of what surrounds us.

Each episode takes you on a guided walk around one area, peeling back the layers of time and shining a light on the places, people and events past that make South Glasgow the fascinating place it is today.

Pollok Park Heritage Trail Podcast

Ownership of Pollok Park and surrounding areas can be dated back to 1124, but the history of the lands can be traced back to prehistoric times with a burial mound in Pollok Golf course and an Iron age fort in the North Wood. From the grandeur of Pollok House to the long-forgotten, hidden tree-lined drive, together we’ll walk some of the 361 acres of historical parkland of Glasgow’s only country park.

As well as the heritage of the house and the lands you’ll learn about a long-forgotten town, witch trials, castles, escapee cows, iron-age forts, prehistoric burial mounds, mouse breeding and why the Pope’s approval was needed…  ( ~ listen here ~)

Govanhill Heritage Trail Podcast

Govanhill was at one time the beating heart of Industrial Glasgow; the iron and steel produced here, the ships and trains built here, fuelled a revolution and helped forge a city and an empire. The industrial days have long gone but Govanhill remains one of the most vibrant and diverse communities in Glasgow.

On this guided walk, find out a little about the history, heritage and culture of a remarkable community and some of the people from around the world who have made their home here, the miners, the iron workers and the shipbuilders, the rifle regiment that became a football team, cinemas and roller-skating rinks, churches, mosques, synagogues, circuses and swimming pools… ( ~ listen here ~)

Subscribing and future podcasts…

As we develop future episodes, we’re keen to hear your feedback and what you’re interested in. Let us know on Facebook, Twitter or by emailing info@sghet.com and sign-up to our email newsletter for news of upcoming episodes.

Our podcasts can be found on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts and other platforms… subscribe and listen on our Anchor podcast page, or find these and all the other platforms ‘Southside Explorations’ is available on listed there. 

Glasgow Doors Open Day interactive brochure is now available to download from their website. Bookings will open on 1st September – but you don’t need to book for our podcasts.

Have a great Glasgow Doors Open Day 2020 festival and enjoy geting out and exploring!

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