What Do Artists Do All Year!? 2024
In our last working week of 2024, it is a Toogs tradition to reflect on all that Gaada has achieved in 2024. For the first time ever we are sharing some of the numbers Gaada has racked up in 2024! We have always been about quality over quantity, but these numbers are particularly eye-popping against our average of 2.6 Full Time Equivalent staff. Suffice we have been very busy totties…..
Throughout 2024, Gaada ran a whopping 410 workshops …..
….. This equates to a staggering 717 hours of support to artists in Shetland.
Gaada ran 337 individual 121 Workshops, which provided 505 hours of supported workshop access to artists living with a disability.
Gaada provided 31 Open Access sessions which enabled members and visiting artists to use the facilities here at Toogs Artist Workshop on a semi-supported basis.
Gaada ran 13 public workshops which explored different creative processes from Screen Printing, Risography and Zine Making to Etching with the humble Tetra Pak!
Gaada has hosted 3 WorkShare + Artist lunch events, which provided a space for 36 artists to come together, share ideas and strengthen connections within their community!
For the second consecutive year, Gaada worked with Bergen based art org Pamflett to facilitate our “Brigði” Shetland/Norwegian artist exchange.
Gaada has held 5 exhibitions at Toogs Artist Workshop including Print, Flood Repeat – a three-part exhibition of work created in our screen printing workshops; Zines for Hoping and Coping by #ShetlandCrew and Bad Artist by Bursary Recipient Becky Robertson.
Gaada have awarded 4 Workshop Bursaries to Shetland based folk which support them to overcome barriers they may experience in accessing creative development in the isles, by providing 12 sessions and 36 hours of 121 support.
The next round of workshop and new access bursaries for 2024/25 have been announced and we are excited to continue with these sessions in the New year!
Gaada hosted 3 Artist Talks: by our New Print Artist + Organiser Issey Medd; Oslo based Artist Aidan Moseby; and a very special in person talk and printing session at Shetland Library with bicycle-led letterpresser Nick Hand.
Gaada published over 20 artist editions this year – all of which were printed and produced right here in Toogs Artist Workshop, Burra!
Gaada and Struan Haswell collaborated on a range of 3 exclusive artist editions for the V&A Dundee – Scotland’s museum of design!
Gaada developed a bespoke micro-commission opportunity for artist Helen Balfour exploring her journeys between Grytviken, South Georgia and Toogs Artist Workshop.
Gaada has also worked on a further 2 additional artist and architectural commissions which will be launched in the new year.
Gaada collaborated with the #ShetlandCrew, a group of care experience young people, to creatively explore their personal experiences and journeys through the care system. The resulting works were a series of 10 mini-publications collectively titled Zines for Hoping + Coping.
The organisation added loads of new zines to its special collection: the Island Zine Library which now has over 600 artist-made publications catalogued online.
Gaada created two new paid staff positions: the first for illustrator Issey Medd who joined the team in July as Print Artist + Organiser; the second for artist and cyber security undergraduate, Tristan Rafferty, who joined the Toogs team as Zine Library Assistant!
Gaada celebrated the 1st Anniversary of it's membership for Shetland Artists which today stands at 56 members representing a diverse swathe of our island population. Why not considering getting involved?
None of this would be possible without all the energy, interest and enthusiasm that is brought by the amazing community surrounding Gaada and Toogs Artist Workshop. We give our deepest thanks to you all.
A huge thanks also to Gaada’s funders Creative Scotland and Shetland Charitable Trust who make this work possible.
Happy Yül from all of us at Gaada + Toogs Artist Workshop!
