As part of this programme, The Stove’s Artistic Director, Martin O’Neill, sat down for an insightful discussion with a panel of speakers whose expertise ranged from history to investigative journalism, Riso printing techniques, and working in the former news and print spaces of Dumfries’ high street.

While examining the current landscape in Scottish grassroots print and journalism, the panel tackled how communities, creatives, and journalists can reclaim their agency while navigating an era marked by an increasingly divided mass media and heightened public scrutiny regarding the accuracy and biases of printed media. This discussion revealed insights and sparked a hopeful community dialogue on the potential future of print, media, and journalism in Dumfries and Galloway.

The discussion directly followed a screening of the film-work Imprints in Time by artist John Wallace, documenting the master printmakers and enduring machinery still in use at Solway Print while uncovering the printing heritage of Dumfries town centre.

The panel comprised Judith Hewitt (Museums Curator East for the Dumfries and Galloway Council), Johnny Gailey (Out of the Blueprint Project Manager), Karen Goodwin (Investigative Journalist and Co-Editor of The Ferret), Pete Fortune (Doonhamer and Printmaker), and John Wallace (Artist & Filmmaker).

Each panellist brought unique and specialised knowledge to the discussion.

In this final episode of our 3 part series, we speak with artist and filmmaker duo Colin Tennent and Saskia Coulson of CT Productions.

Throughout their project entitled Stories of Radical Landownership, the duo sought to co-create visual stories with the community landowners through a mixture of multimedia works, including photographs, audio recordings, and moving images. The pair wanted the communities to use the process as a way to reflect on their achievements, but also to consider the future challenges they might face. Working alongside Bridgend Farmhouse in Edinburgh, South West Mull & Iona Development, North Harris Trust and Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust, the final works are a series of photographs and a short film in Gaelic and English. The work represents their brief dive into the deep, rich world of community land ownership. The works are testimony to this moment in time and the ambition of community landowners during a very remarkable year.

Welcome to the Radical Land.

he Galson Estate is a community-owned estate of 56,000 acres of coast, agricultural land and moor in the North West of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The estate comprises 22 villages running from Upper Barvas to Port of Ness with a population of nearly 2,000 people. The estate passed into community ownership on 12 January 2007 to be managed on their behalf by the Trust.