From June 2013 until August 2015 Mitch Miller produced, Games’ End, a series of three new ‘dialectograms’ as part of Collective’s All Sided Games. Mitch’s project traced the route of the Commonwealth Games in Scotland from past to present, starting in Edinburgh in the area of the former host venue of the 1970 and 1986 Commonwealth Games, Meadowbank Stadium and Sports Centre, before moving to Glasgow’s east end, site of the 2014 Games.
For the first dialectogram Mitch worked with staff and users of the NHS Lothian run Piershill Community Flat. The Flat is located in a former council owned property in the Piershill area of Edinburgh – a pre-war housing estate built around two public squares, Piershill East and Piershill West. It offers a range of services to local residents, from a credit union to craft classes. Similar to previous projects, Mitch, working in an ethnographic manner, visited the flat on a weekly basis over a six month period to develop content for the dialectogram. In December 2013 staff and users of the Flat visited Mitch’s studio in Glasgow to feedback on the in-progress dialectogram. The completed dialectogram was gifted to Piershill in June 2014.
Located around five minutes walk from Piershill, the former host venue of the 1970 and 1986 Commonwealth Games, Meadowbank Sports Centre’s recent history has been one of uncertainty, with various demolition and redevelopment plans mooted. Mitch worked with reception staff, who act as the public facing hub of the Edinburgh Leisure run facility, to get a sense of the day to day running of this modernist icon. The completed dialectogram was gifted to Meadowbank and displayed alongside the Piershill Dialectogram on 14 June 2014 to coincide with the Glasgow 2014 Queens Baton Relay visiting Meadowbank.
The final dialectogram of Batlic Street Adventure Playground in Glasgow, was completed in August 2015 and gifted to the playground. Located in the shadow of the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome and Emirates Arena in the Dalmarnock area of Glasgow’s east end, Baltic Street Adventure Playground – initiated by art and architecture collective Assemble – is an adventure playground that takes its inspiration from the post-war adventure play movement. Mitch worked closely with local playworkers and Assemble to develop the new dialectogram.
Throughout All Sided Games Mitch has maintained a comic book style journal titled Games’ End, which chronicles Mitch’s time working on the project and expands on the rich encounters at Piershill, Meadowbank and Baltic Street.
Mitch Miller is an illustrator, writer and editor of The Drouth. He ‘invented’ the illustrative style of the Dialectogram in 2009 and has since worked with residents, employees, users and visitors to a number of different spaces in Glasgow. Educated at the University of Edinburgh, Mitch has worked variously as a social researcher, educator, sign painter, sessional lecturer and film programmer .
Click here to view the Games’ End publication on ISSUU
Archive, Offsite, Events, All Sided Games: Queen's Baton Relay, 14 June 2014
Archive, Offsite, Events, All Sided Games: Nils Norman and Assemble, 12–14 April 2014
Archive, Offsite, Events, All Sided Games: How Near Is Here? Symposium, 8 September 2014
All Sided Games set out to find new ways to work with families in their locality, seeking out areas of mutual interest by thinking and acting through the production and presentation of art. Six commissions by Jacob Dahlgren, Mitch Miller, Cristina Lucas, Nils Norman and Assemble, Florrie James and Dennis McNulty brought artists, individuals and groups together in and around venues built or used for the Edinburgh 1970 and 1986 Commonwealth Games and the Glasgow 2014 Games. The project also explored and expanded on ideas of the local through How Near is Here? a symposium and intensive programme.
This is an archived programme entry.
