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Scottish Working Class Network

@scottishworkingclassnetwork

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A space for Scottish working class and working class artists in Scotland to share and platform their work
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The Network (for the avoidance of doubt) is unequivocally and unreservedly in support of trans rights. Trans women are women and trans men are men. Trans right are human rights. We have previously hosted and will ALWAYS host trans people, making space for them and their art practice, thoughts, needs and wants. If you do not align yourself with this, please remove yourself as a follower and also take a good look at yersel, its giving shitebag. by @scottishworkingclassnetwork

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We always want to be more inclusive and representative of the landscape of Scottish, working class creatives as a whole. We would love to see more black and POC creatives featured and would be super grateful if you would share this post widely! by @scottishworkingclassnetwork

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Today we proudly pledge our support for PACBI. Until Palestine is free we will not work with, accept funding from or spend money with any organisations with ties to Israeli institutions. We will continue to support Palestinian creatives and are proud as a platform to have featured a Scottish Palestinian creative given that we are a relatively new organisation. Please see @artworkersforpalestinescotland and @bdsnationalcommittee for more information, ways to help and how you can ask your own workplace or organisation to pledge 🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉 by @scottishworkingclassnetwork

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Gallery installation shots of April's painting within the Index 2.0 Glasgow School of Art Exhibition. @___april____ 📸The works emerge through layers of observation, sensation and invention, drawing together the rural, the coastal and the urban without settling into any one place. Rather than describing a fixed view, they construct an envisioned landscape: somewhere between what has been seen, what has been carried, and what remains beyond the horizon.April’s practice often explores the scale and density of the environments through which we move. In these paintings, fragments of urbanscape, open ground, shoreline and distant terrain overlap and dissolve. Built forms become fields; horizons gather the weight of walls; passages of colour suggest water, weather or land before returning to paint. One landscape appears to sit within another, creating spaces that feel familiar yet remain difficult to locate.#materiality #glasgow #glasgowschoolofartexhibitions #paintingnow #paintingnow by @scottishworkingclassnetwork

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Introducing: April@___april____April is a painter living and working between rural Scotland and the city of Glasgow. Her expansive, abstract canvases are saturated with luminous colour and movement, unfolding as meditations on landscape, rhythm and sheer material presence. Building the energy and vitality of the city into materials, allowing gesture and texture to evolve through repetition, revision, and chance. Each surface becomes a record of thought and touch, an exploration of how the physical act of painting can hold memory, energy and emotion. Fashion, architectural intervention, works on canvas. Her use of oil paint, layered, scraped, and rearticulated over time, creates a dense and shifting materiality that recalls the vitality of Abstract Expressionism while remaining deeply personal and grounded in the everyday. Domestic and sensory encounters, from the texture of fabric to the cadence of a conversation, become embedded within the work’s surface, merging the intimacy of life with the expansiveness of landscape. Paintings emerge over long periods, moving through cycles of collapse and reconstruction, freedom and control. Each canvas feels alive, breathing through its layers of colour and gesture, a living document of process and transformation.Stay tuned for more GSA Exhibition takeover spotlights 👀 #textasform #glasgow #artist #collaboration #materialpractices by @scottishworkingclassnetwork

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Text as Form, gallery images 📸 Moments of pause in the July afternoon light. GSA Library Services Exhibition 2026The Glasgow School of Art Featuring the work of many artists, designers and creatives. Stay tuned for more individual spotlights over the coming days 👀 Images by Esme Hadril S. by @scottishworkingclassnetwork

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My name is Rory A. McIntyre and I am a musician and video artist from Glasgow. This work is from a visual album of sorts, where each track has an accompanying video, edited together from archive footage. The track names are selected from my personal reading, which I then try to match alongside tracks as they are written. The archival footage is then selected based upon the feel of the music and meaning of the song title, to hopefully create a synergy between music and visuals to create a new narrative. I have been working this way since 2020. ‘Index 2.0: Text as form’ is the first time I have shown these works in a gallery context, as my work has only previously been available online. by @scottishworkingclassnetwork

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"At GSA Library, our staff are designers, writers, painters, photographers and much more. The quieter summer months offered a valuable opportunity to celebrate and share this creativity. It also gave us space to look beyond our job roles and recognise the wider creative practices, interests and identities that colleagues bring to the Library.Bjorn and I worked with colleagues across the Library to bring together this exhibition on campus at The Glasgow School of Art, uniting a range of creative voices under the theme ‘Text as Form’. Staff responded through a variety of media and approaches, exploring the relationship between language, image, material and meaning.Join us throughout this takeover week as we reflect on the works, meet the artists, and delve deeper into some of the ideas behind the exhibition." - April 💙 @gsalibrary @bjorn_blakstad @___april____ Music by @roryborealiss , Zugzwang, from his most recent album release- Apportare. Stay tuned for more! by @scottishworkingclassnetwork

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Thank you @ritchie_elder for a gorgeous takeover!! Up next - SWCN introduces the GSA Library Services staff takeover this week. To reflect and share moments from their recent annual exhibition titled ‘Text as Form’ Curated by April Lannigan & Bjorn Blakstad. @___april____ @bjorn_blakstad Stay tuned for individual highlights of the library staff’s creative journeys and outputs working towards the show! From calligraphy to digital typography, woodcut to the printing press, text operates across countless functions and contexts. This exhibition invites viewers to consider text, type and writing not only as tools of communication, but as form, artform and subject in their own right.Bringing together a diverse and flavorsome array of talent from GSA Library Services staff - artists, designers, curators and writers, the show celebrates the creative breadth within the library community. Expect a rich mix of practices that explore language, materiality, and the visual power of the written word! by @scottishworkingclassnetwork

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Hello everyone! I’m Ritchie, an Edinburgh-based portrait and documentary photographer. This is my third and final post of the week on the Scottish Working Class Network account. It’s been great sharing some of my projects and connecting with so many new people.Today I’m sharing work from my ongoing project ’Belonging’. This series explores displacement, identity, and resilience among resettled Ukrainians in Scotland, examining what it means to rebuild a sense of home after conflict. Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, over 28,000 Ukrainians have arrived in Scotland through resettlement schemes, making it home to one of the largest Ukrainian communities in the UK. While news coverage has extensively documented the political and military dimensions of the conflict, there remains a need for sustained, empathetic storytelling that explores the enduring human impact of displacement beyond the headlines.Developed in collaboration with the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain (AUGB), this work focuses on the lived experiences of Ukrainians who have resettled in Scotland. It centres the quieter, human stories that often remain unseen – those of cultural identity, community, and connection.Image 1: Vadim at the Ukrainian Club in EdinburghImage 2: Hanna making varenyky (traditional Ukrainian dumplings) at her temporary home in PeeblesImage 3: Young Ukrainians before a dance performance at St Brides ChurchImage 4: Young Ukrainians during a dance performance at St Brides ChurchImage 5: Mykola playing a bandura (a traditional Ukrainian instrument) at the Ukrainian Club in EdinburghImage 6: Ukrainian musician practicing on his violin before a performance at the Ukrainian Club in EdinburghImage 7: Karina leading choir practice at the Ukrainian Club in EdinburghImage 8: Valeriy at the Ukrainian Club in EdinburghImage 9: Yana at her temporary home in PeeblesImage 10: Vyshyvanka day at the Ukrainian Club in Edinburgh by @scottishworkingclassnetwork

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Hello everyone! I’m Ritchie, an Edinburgh-based portrait and documentary photographer. This is my second post of the week on the Scottish Working Class Network account. The response to my first post was incredible and it’s been great to connect with so many new faces.Today I’m sharing work from my project ’Faith’, a documentary series exploring the diversity of religious experience across Edinburgh. This project seeks to foster a deeper understanding of how spirituality shapes daily life, community, and culture, highlighting the unique expressions of religion across different faiths.Through environmental portraits of religious leaders and followers, this series presents a broad view of faith in Edinburgh. Rather than focusing on a single tradition, it brings together individuals from a diverse range of faith communities, offering insight into their beliefs, values and lived experiences.Image 1: Hindu priest playing the harmonium. Edinburgh Hindu Temple, Leith.Image 2: Suzie, minister at South Leith Parish Church.Image 3: Aryan, Portobello MosqueImage 4: Worshipper washes his feet before afternoon prayers, Portobello MosqueImage 5: Edinburgh King of Glory church, CraigentinnyImage 6: Edinburgh Liberal Jewish CommunityImage 7: Sister Miriam, St Mary’s CathedralImage 8: Dharmveer, Edinburgh GurdwaraImage 9: Emily, Roslin GlenImage 10: Alaa, Water of Leith by @scottishworkingclassnetwork

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Hello everyone! I’m Ritchie, an Edinburgh-based portrait and documentary photographer and I’ll be taking over the Scottish Working Class Network account this week.Growing up in a working-class household has definitely influenced my photography practice, and I’m drawn to long term projects that explore themes of identity, place, and community. For today’s post, I’m sharing some work from my project ‘Dumbiedykes’. The Dumbiedykes housing estate is uniquely situated beside Edinburgh’s Old Town and the Scottish Parliament. Built in the early 1960s on condemned tenement sites, Dumbiedykes stands in contrast to its affluent surroundings and continues to spark debate about social inequality in Edinburgh.My childhood memories of the estate inspired me to return and document the area and its residents. After more than twenty years away, revisiting Dumbiedykes challenged me to reconnect with a place that had shaped my early experiences. by @scottishworkingclassnetwork

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