CCA Highlights - January / February 2017

Feature by Sebastian Fisher | 11 Jan 2017

Fully bloated out on seasonal cheer and having told 2016 precisely where it should go, the time for your fresh start has arrived. Resolutions don’t have to just be a drunken burble on a briefly illuminated New Year night, but a quest towards all that is enriching and fulfilling in this Rickman-less world. The CCA is freshly stocked right out of the gates with music, films, performance and military-grade culture you need to start your 2017 with renewed vigour.

Forms of Action (Sat 28 Jan-Sun 12 Mar, free)
The CCA brings the new year in with a fresh focus on civic commitment. In its new exhibition, Forms of Action, a band of fantastic artists come together to create a space that questions the relationship of audience and artist, and how art survives scraping up against the muzzle of day to day life and the change in practice that it necessitates.

The exhibition is gloriously broad in scope, a magnificent miasma of storytelling, photography and performance that tackles subjects as core and intriguing as the socio-cultural implications of food and agriculture and second-wave feminism. Be sure to also check out Marvyn Gaye Chetwynd (or go back for more!), whose playful and nuanced exhibition on the joys and importance of communal art is still ongoing. 

Glasgow Film Festival (Thu 16-Sun 26 Feb)
Next up, our luck is in as the Glasgow Film Festival returns for the 13th time to the CCA. It will offer the usual smorgasbord of premieres, themed screenings and live performance – exploring the highlights of modern film and giving audiences a chance to go beyond the celluloid to peek at the lives and concepts that drive artists to create through Q&As and discussions. The full programme is announced on 19 January. Keep your eyes peeled.

Chasing Asylum (Wed 8 Feb, 6pm, free but ticketed)
The world-flow of migrants is, shall we say, a thorny issue right now. Chasing Asylum – showing 8 February – is part exposé on the practice of keeping a country’s borders tight by unsavoury means, and part exploration of the lives of those who have no choice but to try and get past them.

Anna Meredith (Sat 4 Feb, 8pm, £12.50+bf)
In music, the sonorous dynamite of Anna Meredith returns as part of Celtic Connections. Red-hot right now off the back of her successful 2016, she returns with a battery of orchestral instruments in tow to deliver her neo-cathedral sound. Acolytes to her faith should mass on 4 Feb.

Etel Adnan (Mon 30 Jan, 6pm, free)
For writers, to live in exile is to live unmoored from your prescriptive visions of the world, and those who do have much to give us in our assessment of our times. Come and discuss Lebanese-American artist, essayist and poet Etel Adnan's new book Of Cities and Women at the CCA and explore the experience of exile for an artist whose country has spent the start of the century ransacked by civil and international war.

The End of Things (Tue 7 & Wed 8 Feb, 7.30pm, £8+bf)
Finally, if you like your theatre to go big-concept, then The End of Things might be your – eh – thing. Let go of love and ultimately reality in a stunning performance from the experimental Glasgow-based theatre laboratory Company of Wolves. They offer a diverse performance of dance, music and improvisation as they beckon their audience to walk the path to the end and see what awaits.

http://cca-glasgow.com