Elaine Clocherty
GLASGOW 2026 FESTIVAL
AWAKENING
See Spirit - Djunnung Djanga - Faic Anum
29th- 30th -31st July 2026
BOOKINGS Open 15th June 2026
“We are all one people of this planet, and our primary role is caretaker of each other and boodja [Earth]” Mitchella Hutchins
Across cultures and continents this Glasgow summer we invite you to join us as we converge for Glasgow 2026 Festival running alongside the Commonwealth Games. We will create a large, collaborative, ephemeral land artwork/ bora, music and discussions at Bellahouston Park. Acknowledging the First Nations Peoples of the Commonwealth their knowledge and wisdom in connection to Nature/Country and strengthening post-colonial discussions.
Wardandi Elder and artist
Vivian Brockman Webb
Photo credit Martine Perret
Wardandi Custodian and artist
Mitchella Hutchins
Photo credit Martine Perret
Scottish/Australian Land Artist
Elaine Clocherty
Photo credit Martine Perret
Researcher Glasgow School of Art
Dr Daisy Abbott
Writer and Artist, Glasgow School of Art
Dr Amanda Thomson
Writer. Artist & Producer
EcoartScottland/ Gray's School of Art
Dr Chris Fremantle
Glasgow Artist and Project Manager
Shan Daly
Artist and musician from GalGael
Tam McGarvey
Passionate about Language and Culture, Vivian Brockman Webb and Mitchella Hutchins are internationally recognised and opened UNESCO’s Decade of Indigenous Languages in Paris (2023) travelling with Photographer Martine Perret and Audio-visual artist Roly Skender. Vivian and Mitchella have 60,000 years of unbroken lineage connected to the land and a passion for cultural connection.
For 3 days, Vivian, Mitchella and Elaine will be working in Bellahouston Park and everyone is welcome to participate – you can help with the land art, join discussions, guided walks and celebration.
We hope to increase awareness of shared histories, colonial impacts, encourage dialogue around social justice and reconciliation and connection to land, culture, language and community.
This collaboration invites participants to reflect on our shared humanity.
Program
Bookings open June 15th 2026
Land Art Sessions
Connect with the land through texture, colour, and form, using your hands while sharing stories and reflections. These sessions are most suitable for children.
Wednesday 29th 10am–11am & 2.30pm-3.30pm 30 people
Thursday 30th 2.30pm -3.30pm 30 people
Friday 31st 10am —11am 30 people
Guided walk - Augmented Realities
Join Dr Daisy Abbott as she leads a digital guided walk using smartphones to explore multicultural Glasgow and the 1938 exhibition.
Thursday 30th July 10-11.30 30 people
Discussion Forums
Join Wardandi Elder and artist Nan Viv, custodian and artist Mitchella Huitchins, writer and artist Amanda Thomson and writer, artist and producer Dr Chris Fremantle as they discuss the importance of Language and how indigenous languages and place names contain environmental knowledge that is wiped out by the adoption of English everywhere outside England.
Wednesday 29th July 4pm- 5.30 40 people
Join Wardandi Elder and artist Nan Viv, custodian and artist Mitchella Huitchins and writer, artist and producer Dr Chris Fremantle as they discuss Indigenous perspectives on climate action. How we should live with and imagine living with and in the climate crisis?
Thursday 30th July 4pm-5.30 40 people
Music and Celebration
Join in the celebration of the completed land artwork, with music from Tam McGarvey, Mitchella Hutchins, local choirs and other local musicians.
Friday 31st July 5-6
Artist Bios
Bio Vivian (Nan Viv) Brockman Webb, Mitchella Hutchins and Elaine Clocherty
Over the past ten years, Nan Viv, Mitch and Elaine have collaborated on over 20 works together, spanning festivals, public art, and community engagement projects. Highlights include EverNow, part of the City of Perth's Indigenous Festival; Hecate Kambarnap for Perth Festival; and The Buddha’s Birthday at Supreme Court Gardens. Their work has also featured in Lighten Up, funded by the Greens and AMRS; Kwobba Koornt at Margaret River HEART; and the Nannup Music Festival. They have worked across numerous schools and community events, bringing stories of Country, culture, and connection into the hearts of local communities.
Bio - Vivian (Nan Viv) Dwardinan Brockman Webb
Vivian (Nan Viv) is a Dordenup Wardandi matriarchal Elder of the South West region of Western Australia, Wardan country. She has worked for many years to raise awareness of the importance of language and Culture for future generations. In 2003 Nan Viv travelled with daughter Mitchella and French/Australian photographer Martine Perret to Paris to open the UNESCO decade of indigenous languages. Nan Viv and Mitchella had the honour of leading all the other First Nations delegates.
Nan Viv has been making “land art” since she was a child always drawing in the sand and making animals from nuts and sticks. She now leads all sacred sand art ceremonies known as Bora. Nan Viv has also been a painter for 40 years she exhibited in many exhibitions, and her works are found in many private collections.
Photo credit Martine Perret
Bio Mitchella Hutchins
Mitchella Hutchins is a prominent Aboriginal businesswoman and mother of four children. She was a presenter on GWN7’s Milbindi program, has lectured at Western Australian university’s on Indigenous topics and issues, manages her business Waljin Consultancy, created an online learning package for Indigenous cultural awareness training, a foster parent to over twenty children and has shared Culture with literally thousands of people of all ages. Mitchella wants community values to be rediscovered by caring for community and country and believes building a healthy community is essential to tackling many issues affecting people across the planet. A tool maker, painter and Land Artist, Mitchella has exhibited in Perth and the south west and is held in many private collections.
Photo credit Martine Perret
Bio Elaine Clocherty - Project Co-ordinator
As a Site Specific artist, Elaine Clocherty often works directly in the landscape, using found local natural materials whilst following intuition to genuinely collaborate with the Landscape. Allowing the stories and characteristics of a place to directly inform the work. Since 2014, Clocherty works to engage the local indigenous community on whose land the sculpture is made, at a minimum, to get permission and if the stars align, input and collaboration. Working with other artists and community members is developing into a foundational aspect of her practice
During the last 25 years Elaine has created interventions in the landscape and gallery context have been shown locally, nationally and internationally. With a BA Fine Art and BA (honours) Sustainable Development she has been involved in many exhibitions including Sculpture by The Sea (SXS) Cottesloe, Bondi & Arhus, including winning the Helen Lempriere Sculpture Scholarship SXS Bondi 2014, Land Art Poland, Guandu Sculpture Exhibition, Taiwan and kNOw Nature, India.
Bio Dr Daisy Abbott
Daisy is an interdisciplinary researcher and research developer. She specialises in game-based learning, serious games, 3D visualisation, and issues surrounding digital interactions in the arts and humanities. In particular, she is investigating the use of games to teach academic and research skills in Higher Education and the use of Augmented Reality for telling stories about history and heritage.
Daisy is a Senior Fellow Advance HE and a Senior Fellow of ALDinHE. She is a peer reviewer for a range of serious game journals, a judge for the GaLA serious games competition, and a reviewer for EPSRC and ESRC. She is also a STEM Ambassador.
Her publications can be found at https://radar.gsa.ac.uk/view/creators/436.html and her personal research blog is https://gamebasedlearninginhe.wordpress.com/
Research Interests
game-based learning, serious games, serious game design, triadic game design, heritage visualisation, digital heritage, research skills development
Bio Amanda Thomson
Amanda is a Scottish writer and visual artist whose writing is in a number of anthologies and who has exhibited nationally and internationally. She is a lecturer in the Painting and Printmaking Department at Glasgow School of Art. Her work often explores our complex relationships with the natural environment. Much of her ongoing work in art and writing is rooted in Abernethy Forest, where she lives. Her first book, A Scots Dictionary of Nature is a compendium of old Scots words about nature found in 19th Century Scots Language dictionaries. Belonging: Natural Histories of Place, Identity and Home was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing, 2023. Boundary Layers, a short film-essay about nature’s reclamation of Ravenscraig, once Europe’s largest steelwork, was part of A Fragile Correspondence, Scotland’s exhibition for the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale and shown also in the V&A Dundee. She is a regular contributor to the Guardian newspaper’s Country Diary.
Her website is www.passingplace.com
Bio Shannon Daly - Project Manager
Shannon is a Glasgow-born designer, artist and facilitator working across land-based practice, ecology, community engagement and critical design. Her work explores how creative practice can support environmental stewardship, social justice and collective care, often through participatory workshops, material experimentation, sound and installation.
Bio Chris Fremantle
Chris is a producer, researcher, writer and artist, recently moved to Glasgow from Ayr in the South West of Scotland. He is a Lecturer and researcher at Gray’s School of Art part-time and also works with Gill Fremantle managing public art projects in healthcare.
Chris' focus is on the role of artists and designers in public life. The book he co-authored with Anne Douglas 'Thinking with the Harrisons: Re-imagining art in the global environment crisis' was published by Leuven University Press in 2024. There are two excellent reviews of the book, one by Iain Biggs https://www.iainbiggs.co.uk/2024/10/thinking-with-the-harrisons-re-imagining-the-arts-in-the-global-environmental-crisis-leuven-university-press-october-9th-2024-a-review/ and the other by Sarah Strachan https://climatecultures.net/review/conversatonal-drift-thinking-with-the-harrisons/ . His research portfolio is on ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5818-8208
Chris established ecoartscotland in 2011 as a platform for research and practice. He is on the Board of Arts Culture Health and Wellbeing Scotland (ACHWS) and is Art Advisor to the European Marine Board 's EMBracing the Ocean programme.
Bio Tam McGarvey
As well as being a performing musician for several decades and a graduate of the Glasgow School of Art, Tam has worked in the grass roots community sector for around forty years, most notably with the GalGael Trust and was part of the crew who sailed their community built Highland Galley to Northern Ireland in 2003. Among some of his sculptural work is the steel Democracy Beacon on Calton Hill in Edinburgh. He has played in a wide variety of musical contexts and recently performed a variety of gigs in Paris, Dublin and West Texas.
Location - BellaHouston Park
This project builds on research from the Dr Daisy's ‘Decolonising the British Empire Exhibition of 1938 (at Bellahouston park) through Augmented Reality Narratives’. which looked at the original 1938 exhibition from a post-colonial perspective.
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