This Assembly is the first of four taking place across Europe over the next three years as part of the BEPART programme. Taking form as a community radio station broadcasting from the rural village of Lumsden, Scotland, the Assembly will centre on POWER, with a particular focus on community action. The first Assembly is hosted by Scottish Sculpture Workshop (SSW).

The radio station, Lumsden Live, has been created by a collaborative programming team, made up of; Maxine Smith (community activist, entrepreneur and local resident), Angela Main (artist and local resident), Mark Vernon (artist and founder of Glasgow-based art radio station Radiophrenia) and the team at SSW. It will broadcast from a temporary studio based in SSW’s street-front office in rural Aberdeenshire, around the clock.

Tune in to Lumsden Live at www.lumsden.live or if you are in Lumsden, tune in on 87.9 FM.

Working together with the local community and the wider BEPART network, the radio programme sets out to explore how collective community action has and continues to make change happen at institutional, local and international levels. Voices and contributions from next door, to across the globe, describe and consider why and how people are joining together to take action with their communities. The shows include long-form discussions between activists and artists, meditations with the local landscape, introduction to BEPARTners’ projects taking place across Europe, Lumsden residents’ ‘takeovers’ and live discussion and debate with local groups.

Through Lumsden Live, we hope to better understand the practicalities of working together, learn from a wide range of contexts and struggles, and galvanise communities to move collectively beyond this (and the next) crisis.

Protocol

Running in parallel to Lumsden Live, the BEPART Critical Network, Marwa Arsanios, Lotte van den Berg, Roland Gunst and Fanny Robles will be working with BEPART stakeholders to develop a first iteration of a ‘Protocol’ driven by their exploration of the ethics of participation. The Critical Network will present the first manifestation of the protocol on the Lumsden Live station at the end of the week, followed by live responses from artists, co-creators, arts organisers and community members at SSW.