Draft:Easterhouse Festival Society

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Easterhouse Road (in 2017)

The Easterhouse Festival Society was formed in Autumn 1977, partly influenced by the similar and earlier initiative, the Craigmillar Festival Society formed in Edinburgh. It was a community led initiative, designed to be run by the people of Easterhouse rather than by a national authority. The aim of the Society was to inspire community action and bring people from the community together, developing the talents of those living in the area. Easterhouse was a fairly socio-economically deprived area of Edinburgh, for example, suffering from a significant gang culture in the 1960s-1990s.

'The Easterhouse Project'

Easterhouse had a history of social problems related to deprivation and gang violence. In 1968 singer and actor Frankie Vaughn visited Easterhouse estate and he was so concerned about the problem of gang violence that he co-ordinated, with the police, a knife amnesty. Vaughn provided funding, from the proceeds of shows he played in Glasgow, to set up The Easterhouse Project to support young people away from gangs. The Easterhouse Project was opened in 1968 by Lord Kilbrandon.

The Project emphasised the need for social investment in young people, and concerns around funding added to continued negative press coverage. The Easterhouse Project closed in 1971 before reopening as a project run by police. The Project, however, helped to highlight Easterhouse as an area for grassroots community development, such as a community newspaper The Voice in the 1970s, and the Easterhouse Festival Society during the late-1970s and 1980s.

The Easterhouse Festival Society

The Easterhouse Festival Society was formed in Autumn 1977, after a meeting was facilitated by community leaders Jim McCrossand and the Rev. Ron Ferguson. As written in the Easterhouse Festival Society's first annual report (1978), the aim of the Society was to:

celebrate the life of the community, to raise questions about our community and take action, to give youngsters something to do, to bring all sections of the community together. It would also show the authorities that we as a community appear to organise things for ourselves.

— Easterhouse Festival Society, Easterhouse Festival Society 1st Annual Report (1978)

The first festival took place in the summer of 1978, with a focus on art and events were organised both by the society and independent local groups. Events included were a Pageant, Folk Weekend, 'Welly Chucking", and the "Helping Hands Competition".

Following the success of the first summer festival, the Society expanded to support a number of different areas of community life. For example, the Society was involved in employment creation schemes, and by 1980, the Society itself employed approximately 46 people. The Festival Society received district and regional council funding through the Urban Aid Programme, the Scottish Arts Council, and other community education groups such as the Gulbenkian Foundation. Other initiatives involved with the arts included setting up a recording studio enabling local bands to practice, rehearse, and produce demo tapes which they could then use to further promote their bands.

Impact

At the 1979 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Society's Easterhouse Summer Festival Drama Company won a Fringe 1st award for a play it produced - Freddi Anderson’s Krassivy: A Play About the Great Socialist, John Maclean, in which a young Gary Lewis appeared in the lead role. The Easterhouse Festival Society was the subject of an episode, aired on April 28th 1979, of the BBC docuseries Open Door.

Detail of the West Wall of Lochend Mosaic depicting Liberty (photo from The Easterhouse Mosaic brochure)

Lochend Road Mosaic Mural

The most famous project undertaken by the Society was the creation of the Lochend Road 'mosaic'. The creation of the mural involved a number of artists working with Easterhouse locals over a period of three years. Construction of the mural cost roughly £100,000.

The mural represented Liberty and consisted of twelve twenty-foot sections of mosaic, each of which were made from numerous small ceramic tiles. A photograph of the mural was featured in the April 1984 issue of Glasgow City Council's newspaper The Bulletin. At the time, the mosaic was one of the largest of its kind in the UK measuring 240 feet in length, by 5-9 feet in height, with a total surface area of 1500 square feet.

The mosaic and the publicity that surrounded it, is credited with giving the Easterhouse housing estate some "get up and go". The artwork helped attract a lot of positive publicity to the work of the Festival Society and Easterhouse community. While the mosaic was still under construction, it was exhibited to Princess Diana when she visited the area in February 1983.

The Lochend Road Mosaic was officially unveiled in June 1984 but, due to weather damage, the mural was removed in 2004.

Disbandment and Future

The Easterhouse Festival Society was essentially phased out when community arts projects were taken over by local authority arts and service delivery agendas in the 1980s. Dr Liz Gardiner founded Fablevision to carry on the legacy of the Society.