Join us at Collective for Quinie on Calton Hill, a song-based walking tour led by Glasgow-based musician and artist Quinie (Josie Vallely).
The walk will follow Calton Hill's footpaths and draw upon Quinie's experiences performing Scots songs, exploring themes of language, landscape, tradition, and identity. Moving from the minute details of plant life flourishing on rocky outcrops to the sometimes overlooked knowledge held within stories and songs, Quinie invites us to consider what dominant narratives have erased, as well as what we can learn by reconnecting with a place.
In an accompanying essay, Quinie imagines Calton Hill as an "archive of knowledge, experiences, and stories" and uses the metaphor of "place as elder" to initiate a conversation about the complex nature of our histories and how we relate to the passage of time.
This work responds in part to Collective's current site-wide exhibition pass shadow, whisper shade (22 October-18 December 2024), a group show by artists in the 2024 Satellites programme. The exhibition explores the complexity of inheritance, raising questions of how we process and make sense of that which we inherit, the expansive multiplicity of legacies passed down by and through earlier generations – be that material, cultural, genetic or spiritual, wanted and unwanted – and how this informs the ways in which we inhabit ourselves and the world in the present day and into the future.
Hot drinks will be provided in the City Observatory following the walk.
Tickets are priced on a sliding scale.
Access
The walking tour will be at a gentle pace, with several stops for conversation along the way. The walk will be mostly on paths, there will be some steps involved. The 60 minute walk will be followed by 30 mins of hot drinks. Toilet facilities available at Collective.
Please dress for hilltop weather. Read access information about our site.