Earlier this year we worked with Citizen Curator and Out of The Blue on the Gretna 100 project. Our curator Jan Bee Brown led a group of community researchers on a 10 week journey to create an exhibition at The Drill Hall to commemorate the Gretna Rail Disaster. The site specific exhibition 7 of the Seventh complemented Active Enquiry’s promenade community play Persevere.

Recently the flexible exhibition was re- installed for Previously ,the Leith History Festival and the week finished with Rare Bird Media‘s film showing. Ray Bird followed the project from start to finish and his film clearly shows how a diverse community came together to both remember and create history. You can see the film by following this link:

Fresh frae the Forth – It’s time to sing whilst we work! On Sunday November 1st The Thrive Archive presented an hour of story and song with Newhaven Community Choir at The National Library of Scotland.

Commissioned by the outreach team for The Scottish International Storytelling Festival 2015 our curator Jan Bee Brown worked with the choir and storyteller Marie Louise Cochrane to celebrate the feisty fishwives of Newhaven and their community in response to the wonderful exhibition Lifting the Lid .

Jed Milroy leads the choir set up by Citizen Curator two years ago.  They sing a mixture of soul and folk ballads as well as tackling traditional fishy songs from the repertoire of the famous Fishwives and Fisherlassies’ Choirs. Their USP is that they always get the audience singing along.

We followed the story of one young lassie – Charlotte Eadie (Chatty -for short) who, losing her job in a factory in Leith when the heroes came home after The First World War followed the herring. Her daughter is in the choir and Chatty’s heart-breaking adventures as a gutting quine moved us all so much that we have now found our next research project Come Awa – the title comes from the famous Song of the Fish Gutters:

Come all ye fisher lassies now and come awa wi me,

Fae Cairnbulg and Gamrie and fae Inverallochie,

Fae Buckie and fae Aiberdeen and a’ the country roon,

We’re awa tae gut the herrin, we’re awa tae Yermouth Toon.

We had such fun playing with Creative Carbon’s Re-See 3 it exhibition that we are running a series of carbon friendly bite size events at The Thrive Archive as part of our residency at St Margaret’s House this winter.

As we are ‘a sandwich short of a picnic’ in funding terms our pop up events will be tasty morsels or light bites as we team up with food entrepreneurs including The Real Junk Food Edinburgh team and breadshare community bakers to intercept good food going to waste for our Soup for Story Swap.

Earlier this year we ran a series of mono-print workshops with the lovely Link – Up ladies support group and they shared some fabulous stories with us. We have all had a memorable festive meal…share yours on Sunday 13^th and get a free mug of heart-warming vegetable soup, a chunk of delicious artisan bread and a wee festive gift of relish from our bonny friends Dollop & Scoff!

Having found over a thousand tiny blocks of wood in the Swap Shop at Edinburgh Palette recently The Thrive Archive  were delighted to be selected by The Green Team at St Margaret’s House to be part of their Re-See it 3 exhibition this autumn.

You got so creative with the dried-glue side of wee fingers of parquet floor that our interactive exhibit was invited to get playful at ArtCOP 21 at  Gayfield Creative Space in Edinburgh. This this a fantastic alternative gallery space which is located just of Gayfield Square at the top of Leith Walk.

Thanks to all who  made the event happen, especially to the person who lovingly took up the 1000 piece floor in the first place and thought – someone will have a use for this… and to all of the creatives who got stuck in and turned the random glue patterns into artworks!