Bridgeman Arts

Procession Snapshot

The Merchant City Festival in Glasgow takes place every summer and as part of the events, for several consecutive years, Bridgeman Arts has designed and produced the street carnival element. In 2018 the event was marked by its incorporation to the 2018 European Championships programme.

WORKING ACROSS BOUNDARIES

All aspects of our delivery and methodology were enhanced in this event allowing us to work with more people than before, take the carnival programme across boundaries and to create art works and parade items in a way that maximised the visual impact of the procession.

We were able to bring together the skills from many disciplines (including - but not limited to - live music commissions, roller skating, stilt-walking, dance choreography, street theatre, costume-making and prop-making) to produce a parade of unprecedented quality and vibrancy that enlivened the city centre as never before. All new work was produced by artists who were drawn from a pool of local talent and this sat alongside a portion of existing work from guest producers who came to Glasgow to join in the celebrations.

Berlin and Glasgow Arts Cross-over

For the event, we were joined by artists from Berlin’s Karnevale der Kulturen who came over on a 2018 exchange programme coordinated by ourselves to broaden the technical and cultural experiences of practitioners from both 2018 host cities. (Glasgow and Berlin)