A crowdfunder has been launched to help bring 16 Palestinian artists to this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. Creative Scotland has pledged to partially match the funds if the campaign reaches its £30,000 target. With the deadline just two weeks away, organisers are urging people to support however they’re able to.

The new year brings a fresh urge to explore new activities, and the Southside has plenty to offer – from language classes at MILK to zine workshops at Glasgow Zine Library. We’ve rounded up some of our favourites – all sober, and either free or pay-what-you-can.

Meet Laura-Beth of From the Ground, performing at Celtic Connections, as she discusses blending Scottish traditions with global influences. Discover the band's message of nature, resilience, and unity, plus our guide to the must-see Celtic Connection gig lighting up Glasgow’s Southside.

We spoke with members of the Southside’s creative and inclusive communities, who shared how local spaces like Glasgow Zine Library and Glasgow Sunflowers have fostered their sense of belonging.

Marzanna Antoniak shares her journey from feeling isolated as a new migrant in Scotland to finding belonging in Govanhill through volunteering, multilingual initiatives, and community connections, highlighting the power of inclusive spaces, and multilingual initiatives in fostering belonging and community.

Glaswegian poet and novelist, Shane Johnstone reflects on the ties between language and identity in Govanhill, tracing its evolution through Irish diaspora culture to today’s vibrant multilingual community. By exploring how migration shapes belonging while raising questions about preserving and celebrating the area’s rich linguistic diversity.

Balfour Reparations 2024-2044, a performance lecture by Farah Saleh, uses a mix of movement, spoken word, and participatory action to confront the UK’s colonial role in Palestine and explores our role in shaping a decolonial future.

For those of us far from our ancestral homelands, connecting to heritage is an act of resilience, joy, and community. This piece explores Melissa Espinoza’s connection to food, the role it plays in preserving Mexican culture, and how culinary traditions bridge the gap between past and present – even in Glasgow.

We had a chat wit musician Lizy Stirrat, a Royal Conservatoire alumna and the upper brass teaching musician at Big Noise – a music education and social change programme delivered by Sistema Scotland. Lizy shares how her love for music shaped her life and her passion for helping young people discover their musical talents.

Aliana Michalewicz si sadne so svojou mamou Sonia, aby sa dozvedela viac o ich fascinujúcom, slávnom rodinnom príbehu zakorenenom v hudbe a tanci, ako to priviedli z Poľska do Glasgowa a ich nádeja do budúcnosti. 

In this issue of Roma News and Views, Aliana Michalewicz sits down with her mum Sonia to learn more about their fascinating, famous family history rooted in music and dance, how they brought this from Poland to Glasgow, and their hopes for the future.

From bank robberies to links to the slave trade, the southside has homed a variety of radical social and political histories. In this piece we explore some of the area’s forgotten heritage and dive deeper to uncover the legacy behind these familiar spots.

Community organisations are doing impactful work to support the neighbourhood, but short-term public funding cycles make it difficult for them to plan ahead, leaving them struggling to survive. We spoke with some local organisations to find out their experiences with the current funding cycles.

This year, the Nordic Music Days Festival was held in Glasgow for the first ever time, making its Scottish debut. We went along to The Legend of Kuokkamummo, a performance that combined Finnish storytelling and Scottish music.

In this new series, we’re exploring Govanhill’s heritage, street by street – starting with Butterbiggins Road. Once an 18th-century hamlet for travelling communities, Butterbiggins evolved from a rural outpost to an industrial hub, and later into the residential street we know today.

We spoke with photographer Morwenna Kearsley about Apparatus, her first major-scale solo exhibition at Strange Field – the old Dalmarnock print factory on French Street.

We Incite This Meeting is a powerful performance that invites the audience to discuss women’s rights and question: “What remains to be done, and how are we going to do it?” 

To find out more about a proposed new urban park below the M8, we went along to the design launch and spoke with to local residents about the ambitious transformation which could happen on their doorstep. 

JR Ewan, co-founder of Glasgow’s Southside Studios, is an artist and maker whose journey is marked by his family’s legacy and his own creative evolution. In this edition of Behind the Portrait he shares his insights into his creative process and his experiences working with diverse artists at Project Ability and his own Southside Studios.

The Glasgow Door Open Day is back, taking place from the 16th-22nd of Septemeber. The event aims to celebrate Glasgow’s cultural heritage by opening the doors of over 100 historical buildings to the public across the city. We put together a list of the top five places to visit in the Southside.