'Glasgow's international reputation in the contemporary art world is founded on the many achievements of artists based locally. This new Festival of Contemporary Visual Art has been designed to showcase the high level of artistic activity that generates such attention and to bring this to a much broader public. In its first year it is clear from the programme that there has been an overwhelmingly positive response to the project by venues and artist-run spaces across the city’ – Francis McKee, Curator, Glasgow International.

E m e r g e D is an international artist-led, non-profit organisation founded in Glasgow in April 2002. E m e r g e D aims to promote and enable up-and-coming artists working across a broad range of disciplines with a fresh focus on site and context-responsive art works; creating accessible and inclusive projects in orphaned spaces.

E m e r g e D has showcased the work of over 300 artists in a variety of sites including vacant shop fronts, churches, derelict cafes, youth hostels and shopping centres. E m e r g e D expanded into Leeds in March 2004 and, most recently, Edinburgh. The organisation offers local and international artists new opportunities to show their work and engage directly with audiences out with the traditional gallery setting.

GLASGOW INTERNATIONAL have commissioned E m e r g e D to present [link], a series of site and context-responsive artworks created by three local and international contemporary visual artists for Glasgow's SPT Subway, opened in 1896 and the world's third oldest subway after London and Budapest.

ruth BARKER (England), juliana CAPES (Scotland) and christine COLLINS (Australia) will create temporary, site and context-responsive interventions which will engage with the physical, social and historical aspects of the subway; placing visual art at the heart of the community, engaging commuters, shoppers and tourists in dialogue with contemporary art and artists.

In Mandala juliana CAPES will create an impermanence of pennies in the cracks of the pavement in St Enoch’s Square, Glasgow. The cracks of the square form concentric circles that will become brief receptacles for symbols of luck. The artwork created will inevitably become dispersed throughout Glasgow through the hands of it’s audience.

Located within Times Square, south entrance to St Enoch SPT Subway station Glasgow from the 1st - 2nd May 2005, 09:00 - 17:00 (33hrs)

ruth BARKER presents, This place, then, or some other?, a text piece created for 41 carriage cards within the subway carriages in which two voices while away an indeterminate summer afternoon. Time and place are dislocated, with an implication of a darkness, which locates the train of thought within the reader's present sense of place.

Located on carriage cards, 41, one in every carriage throughout SPT Subway Glasgow from the 25th April – 2nd May, 07:00 - 22:00 (Mon - Fri), 10:00 - 17:00 (Sun)

Behind Fiction is an intimate sound installation, in which christine COLLINS presents a collection of mini sound portraits developed from vox pop style interviews, conducted with the general public, in public places, in Glasgow. The work is presented within a SPT Subway Glasgow carriage.

Located in an SPT Subway Glasgow carriage on the 1st - 2nd May 2005, 12:00 - 16:00 *Please contact amy SALES via the below contact details if you would like to experience the work out with the above dates and times.

Click here for further information on [link] artists and their work

Click here for further information on Glasgow's first International, Curated, Commissioning, Visual Arts Festival