Annual Report

Year: 2021-2022

The work of the charity in 2021-2022 continued to be affected by the worldwide Corona Virus Pandemic, also known as Covid-19. This particularly continued to affect cultural venues, galleries, theatres, concerts hall and community venues which remained closed well into 2021. Additionally, retail premises faced restrictions from the prior year lasting until 26th April 2021.

The Company secured a temporary licence to occupy of a shop unit in the Piazza Shopping Centre, Paisley. On lifting of retail restrictions in April, the space, Unit 37, the Company opened as Artspace37 for the showing of The Scottish Drawing Competition, a programme of Creative Learning workshops, and a number of solo artists town centre installations. The programme supported several hundred artists, attracted 1200 visitors, and all free workshops were fully booked by local community participants. It was notable that after 18 months of restrictions, people were keen to get back out into society, to events and to take part again in cultural activities.

The Company had planned an autumn exhibition programme and a further programme of creative learning workshops in the space. However, the temporary licence from Edinburgh Printmakers was terminated in July 2021. At this time office working was still restricted to home working until 8th August. The staff team returned to its Abbeymill office base on 16th August and began transforming the space into a creative learning centre for the visual arts accommodating up to 20 participants.

A programme of workshops was set for Sep/Oct/Nov in drawing, painting, collage, textiles, and pottery. These free workshops attracted a large number of participants and were, once again, fully subscribed by local people.

During the year, the following projects were supported:

  • The Paisley Suite, five new monologues by Scottish writers – Premiered on YouTube in August 2021
  • Artspace37 – development of a new gallery space in the Piazza, Paisley.
  • Artwork Workshops at Abbeymill – a programme of 32 online workshops in the visual arts
  • Town Centre installations programme – 3 out of 5 planned activities took place between May-July 2021.

A summary of the programme and its achievements are as follows:

Activity                Hours                    No. Artists          No. Attendees 

Broadcast            4                              7                              1,128

Exhibition            96                           183                         1,200

Installation          288                         3                              250        

Recording            4                              8             

Rehearsal            64                           8             

Workshops         150                         51                           724                        

Grand Total        606                         260                         3,302

The Company maintained a high social media following of 49,403 – across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Issuu, Mailchimp and website, reaching 240,082 readers.

The Charity continues to be supported by Creative Scotland, Renfrewshire Council and a host of donors and sponsors.