CCA Highlights: January / February 2018

Collaboration is the key to a bright start for the New Year, as CCA becomes home to local and international artists often working together

Feature by Ben Venables | 04 Jan 2018

If you're hoping 2018 is the year your life becomes less like a soap opera, artist Rehana Zaman's new exhibition (Sat 10 Feb-Sun 25 Mar) might offer a slightly more honest perspective. The Goldsmiths graduate's work, expressed through the moving image, and often laced with sardonic humour, delves into the tangled web of our social and private lives. In this piece she uses both documentary and soap opera to express such ideas as how language may sometimes hinder, rather than help,  our ability to communicate, and how we find ourselves in friction with the state – both in its threat to have us under surveillance and in our hostility to its control.

There's also one final chance to catch Lilt, Twang, Tremor (until 14 Jan), an exhibition comprising the works of three Scottish artists on the nature of the voice and how it interacts with the world. Hanna Tuulikki is concerned with how the voice becomes the meeting point between ourselves and the environment, while Sarah Rose explores bias and prejudice and how this becomes amplified by such innocuous seeming acts as inflection or translation. Then, in collaboration with musician Donald Hayden, inspired by the writings of the ancient Greek Cynics, Susannah Stark uses the voice to demonstrate notions of power and placement, and the inherent contradictions of modern life.

Ten years ago, Lau were a trio of folk musicians. But around them has opened a flourishing creative community. To celebrate their tenth birthday, the events which make up Lau-Land are testament to the co-operative endeavours which have developed around them. Scottish folk artist Karine Polwart (Sat 3 Feb, 12.30pm) is on hand to offer insight into making her astounding debut theatre piece Wind Resistance, a poetic reflection with themes from midwifery to ecology, written in collaboration with the Royal Lyceum. And it is the importance of collaboration, and the many forms it takes, which Polwart is highlighting. After all a finished work includes many elements and working relationships, in dramaturgy, direction, movement, sound design and visuals.

Following a day of such workshops and talks, Lau-Land ends on a high with a late night party (Sat 3 Feb, 9pm). Join folk musicians Sam Amidon and Pictish Trail – and also Dundee playwright Jaimini Jethwa – on the night's guest list. If the next day you need a dose of meditative soul and Thai funk, Texan three-piece Khruangbin (Sun 4 Feb) arrive in Glasgow to offer the help required. Their new release, excellent second album Con Todo El Mundo, translates as 'With Everyone' and it reflects the band's internationalism and ethos of bringing people together.

Glasgow Film Festival's (22 Feb-4 Mar) programme is announced towards the end of January. Expect a feast of premieres, themed screenings and discussions, along with the festival's signature retrospectives. This year brings screenings celebrating Hollywood's rebel heroes, along with an Irish film showcase and another highlighting the exciting new talents behind Baltic cinema. As ever, CCA is a festival hub; the Saramago Terrace Bar hosts the Festival Club, offering a perfect place for film buffs to refresh and repair each evening. 

http://www.cca-glasgow.com