Established in 1992, CCA grew out of the former Third Eye Centre that was founded as a multimedia arts centre by Tom McGrath in 1973. Over the past 37 years, CCA and its predecessor, the Third Eye Centre have played a key role in Glasgow’s rise in international prominence as a vital vibrant cultural city with a particularly strong reputation for contemporary visual and performing arts.

In 2001, CCA re-opened after a National Lottery funded refurbishment. The building, transformed by Page and Park architects, created a gallery space, a cinema, performance spaces, a central café and space for cultural tenants.

CCA operates as a hub for the local artistic community and aims to establish a broader profile in the general cultural life of the city through exhibitions, film screenings, concerts, performances, and a wide spectrum of opportunities for people to participate in the arts. CCA is committed to supporting artists who want to explore new ideas, or who want to move beyond the traditional boundaries of their discipline.

CCA has developed a unique open source programming strategy, allowing a host of creative organisations access to its resources in a collaborative spirit. In addition, an innovative outreach programme is now taking CCA to peripheral areas of the city, engaging with schools and adult audiences at a community level.

CCA has created a core exhibitions programme that both promotes art created locally to a wider audience, and introduces art from other countries to Scotland. It has commissioned key works such as Autoconstrucc’on by Abraham Cruzvillegas, Dirty Hands by Alex Pollard and Clare Stephenson, and The Last Days of Jack Sheppard by Anja Kirschner and David Panos (in partnership with Chisenhale Gallery) and Direct serious action is therefore necessary, by Tatham & OÕSullivan. Around this spine of these activities, CCA has encouraged a much broader use of its spaces by other organisations, individual artists and independent programmers.

This means that CCA effectively operates as an umbrella organisation and creative hub for a range of other smaller groups and independent artists. It has developed a flexible approach, where the level of support provided is dependant on the existing funding available to those it chooses to collaborate with. CCA benefits from the broader programme spectrum available to its audiences in the building, and its collaborators benefit from a high profile platform for their work that may not otherwise be available. In doing so CCA has opened the building to a much wider stream of activity and crucially, to a much broader series of audiences.

CCA offers a series of sought after residencies that provide artists with valuable time and support within the building to experiment and to create new work. The Creative Lab space hosts 12 residencies per year, each with modest funding and use of the artist’s flat. These residencies are primarily aimed at live art and dance practitioners however, CCA also supports interdisciplinary applications. It has found these residencies to be invaluable to artists and we will target sponsorship and trust awards to build up the resources available to each artist on this residency scheme in the future.

CCA has established an exchange programme with CALQ in Montreal, whereby CCA selects an artist from Quebec to work at CCA for three months, and Montreal selects a Scottish artist to carry out a 3 month residency in PRIM, Montreal.

CCA also holds regular residencies directly connected to exhibitions, such as Abraham Cruzvillegas’ 6 month residency in 2008, shared between Cove Park and CCA, at the end of which Cruzvillegas created a new body of sculptural work for an exhibition and published a book and CD. Dutch artists, Bik van der Pol’s two-month residency before their exhibition in October 2009 is another example of an exhibition related residency at CCA.

CCA programmes two strands of film: one focusing on art, dance and experimental performance; the other presenting cult mainstream film. Established collaborating organisations include Magic Lantern, The Jewish Film Club, Camcorder Guerillas, Bildweschel, Document film festival, Master of Fine Arts (GSA), and Glasgow Film Festival and Glasgow Short Film Festival.

CCA’s music program founded in 2006 is a strong collaborative area that gives CCA a strong basis for expansion over the next five years.

CCA’s venue is mostly suited to small concert audiences is and therefore useful for niche musical fields or emerging acts. The policy has been to reduce the overheads for bands and promoters as much as possible, enabling them to make a modest profit at that scale. CCA has also set aside core funds that are used to support two bands per month with some seed funding. This strategy has delivered new audiences to CCA and built a new sense of ownership among musicians and promoters who previously may have regarded CCA as too elitist for their work.

The current focus of CCA’s new outreach programme is on ecology, food production, environment and energy. It has initiated art and gardening programmes in every primary school in the Drumchapel area and, with support from the Royal Society for the Arts, CCA acts as a catalyst to develop a community garden in that district. In acknowledgement of this work, the city has granted CCA two large plots of land in Westhorn allotments where continuous outdoor workshops with artists and the public can be pursued.

CCA publishes regularly, both catalogues for particular exhibitions and 2HB, a quarterly publication dedicated to creative writing within the context of visual art. It also holds an annual book fair, that supports independent publishing in Scotland, whilst inviting leading art publishers to exhibit and organise related book launches and literary events. Over the past 3 years CCA has supported the launch of Aye Aye bookshop in its foyer, supporting this enterprise with a rent-free agreement as an artist led project. In return, CCA receives a large-scale art bookshop with none of the overheads such a business can entail today.

At the moment the budget allows CCA to publish one large-scale catalogue and produce 2HB. These publications are important as they develop critical thinking around the work that takes place at CCA. The large number of high quality submissions for each issue of 2HB makes clear the need for such an outlet for creative writing in the contemporary arts.

Cinema/Screening Room, 70.5 m2; Performance Space, 145 m2; Artist Space Gallery, 50.5 m2.