Please note this is a two-day workshop with participants asked to attend both sessions.
Session 1) Thursday 13 March 2025, 17:00-19:30
Session 2) Thursday 20 March 2025, 17:00-19:30

About this Event
Are you interested in reshaping how we remember Glasgow’s history?

The 1938 Empire Exhibition was a landmark event in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, visited by 12.8 million people, yet today there is so little evidence remaining that most people are unaware of its existence, even if they regularly use the park.

The Glasgow School of Art has produced significant research into this event, including a meticulously researched photo-real, 3D model of over 100 buildings and structures that comprised the Exhibition, video interviews, recollections of visitors, co-design by schoolchildren, and immersive experiences in game engines and VR. However, we now want to reassess narratives of the Exhibition from a post-colonial perspective.

We want to find out what people in Glasgow think about this Exhibition – and about Glasgow’s history in relation to this event. This project will create narratives to highlight the voices of marginalised peoples, as well as everyone who has a connection to Glasgow’s heritage. We want to present these new stories, alongside the archival data, as augmented reality, using a location-based mobile app within Bellahouston Park. This will allow people to explore the diversity of narratives and see the buildings of the Exhibition in their original context. We hope that this will create contemporary understandings of the Exhibition and its legacies and encourage both critical and playful re-readings of history.

Workshop details
You are invited to take part in two workshop sessions to explore, discuss, and capture new narratives. You will receive a voucher for participating in each workshop session as a thank you for your time and contributions.

The workshops will use existing digital assets about the Exhibition, such as 3D models, photographs, ephemera, and radio broadcasts, as tools to inform and inspire learning and discussion. During the session, you will explore 3D models that recreate the Empire Exhibition of 1938 and view archival images. We will ask you to share your reflections on the Exhibition’s relationship to Bellahouston Park, Glasgow, and the British Empire. Your contributions to the workshop will be documented through a mix of voice recording, writing, and visual methods, and you will be fully supported by the research team to contribute in ways that feel most comfortable to you. These will then be applied as resources to support the creation of new narratives in the next phase of the research.

The first workshop session will take place on Thursday 13th March from 1700-1930, and the second will take place on Thursday 20th March from 1700-1930. Both will be hosted at Woodlands Community Anti-Racist Library, 66 Ashley St, Glasgow, G3 6HW.

Find out more
This workshop is part of a research project led by the Glasgow School of Art. By participating in the research you will be contributing to the research findings and outcomes. Because of this, you are required to consent to your responses being used within the research. More information on participating in the research can be found here and the consent form can be found here.

Please note that spaces are limited, but we are also hosting a further workshop in March – sign up for this here.

Please contact Cara Broadley on 07485923821 or c.broadley@gsa.ac.uk for further details.

Image: courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Empire Retold: Glasgow’s 1938 Empire Exhibition in Augmented Reality