Catch up on what we've been doing
The Village on a break!
That’s a wrap on another amazing year at The Village Storytelling Centre!
We’d like to thank all of our participants, partners, storytellers, funders and followers for all of your support this year. We wish you all a lovely festive break and a happy new year.
Our team is now taking a break and we’ll be back from the 5th of January.
We can’t wait to share our plans for 2026!
Last Newsletter of the year!
Check out our latest newsletter where you can find out about everything that’s been happening at The Village as well as news on upcoming events!
Click here
Connect with us
As 2025 draws to a close, we are pleased to have connected with so many of you in the community, at sessions, events and through a variety of opportunities for local people. People often ask how they can support us. So we’ve compiled a wee list:
– Come along & enjoy our activities
– Tell other people about The Village and how they can get involved
– Share what you’ve enjoyed with us so that we can tell our funders about our impact
– Volunteer with us
– Finally, only if you can, please support our work by donating through Just Giving or Glasgow Community Lottery. Donations like these are vital because they help to pay for rent, management staff and all the things that help keep the organisation running smoothly, ensuring we can deliver lovely sessions and events for our community.
Residency at the Burrell Collection – Blog Post
Storytellers in residence at the Burrell Collection
Back in November we were given the opportunity to be The Burrell Collection’s storytellers in residence.
Our mission was not just to tell stories of objects but also inspire local communities from the immediate surrounding area of Pollok Park with engaging storytelling visits to the museum and encourage them to make new stories and connections. We wanted to instil a uniquely Glasgow approach to these objects, allowing for the museum to have a deeper resonance to those who may face barriers to accessing the collection.
But where to start? The Burrell Collection is comprised of nearly 9000 objects, collected from across the world so trying to choose which ones that could have the most impact presented us with a unique and overwhelming challenge. Fortunately, we were able to engage with the museums incredible team of curators to tell us the stories that often went untold. We heard tales from decorative arts, arms and armour, medieval art, European art, East Asian art, legacies of slavery and many many more. With all this new knowledge swimming around inside our heads we began inviting local groups to come and take part in storytelling tours of the Burrell. We asked groups to think about all the types of story that were contained within each object. We told folkloric, personal, mythic, historical, anecdotal and imagined stories for objects throughout the collection. Then, after hearing stories the groups went on the create their own. We had tales of radioactive banana’s being fed into the mouths of Peruvian monkeys, we heard tale of bathing in hot chocolate in the giant Warwick Vase in the centre of the Burrell courtyard and one group speculated about how Rodin’s the Thinker lost his clothes!
Our Pollok Voices group made a beautiful connection to Cezanne’s The Château of Médan, by describing the experience of bathing in the river and taking coffee on a French balcony. Our wonderful Pollokshaws Hub group were blown away by the size and scale of The Charity of a Beggar of Ornans by Gustave Courbet, creating a story that compared the opulence of the building next to the dishevelled man at the centre of the picture. One participant from Flourish House, a Glasgow based charity for those in long-term mental ill-health recovery, made a connection between the beautiful middle eastern tiles and the tiles of a Glasgow tenement close. Speculating that they were used to make teeth and therefore where the Glasgow term ‘Wallies’ (Teeth) came from.
So finally at the end of June we celebrated all these stories with an afternoon of roving storytelling. Our professional storytellers, emerging storytellers and community storytellers all came together to share stories of the objects. Stories inspired by the community. Stories that are designed to break down barriers, make people laugh and cry, stories that remind you of the humanity at the centre of these objects. Stories that celebrate the silly and heartfelt ways people make connections to all the art on show at the Burrell. Stories that reminded them of mothers, fathers, friends. Stories of holidays and Glasgow and ancient times. With our placards held aloft we encouraged the public to ask for a story. We told stories in quiet corners, on staircases and in secret dark spaces. We told to little and big audiences, on floors, on stairs and in corridors, to locals, tourists and special guests.
All these stories were collected, recorded and can now be heard as part of a community storytelling tour on the Bloomberg connect app whenever you go to the Burrell Collection. We’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you to The Burrell Collection for giving us your full support and allowing us for a short period of time to take over your beautiful museum. Special thanks go to Caroline Currie, Learning and Access Curator, and her team for being such incredible hosts. Thank you to all the curators at the Burrell for sharing their wealth of knowledge and expertise.
