Glaswegians

Glaswegians - Cranhill Arts, Alistair McCallum & Jane Carroll
19th July – 5th October 2025

On show at Street Level Photoworks, for the first time in over 34 years, portraits from Cranhill Arts Glaswegians project. Begun in 1989, Glaswegians is a vital record of Glasgow at that time and remains one of the most important community-led, from-the-ground-up arts projects the islands of Britain have seen, and is the single biggest photographic project ever undertaken in Scotland. Twenty-two people from Cranhill Arts took 30,000 photographs of their fellow citizens between 1989 and 1993, the bulk 1989 to 1991. Working in black and white and colour, they were taken all over the city – at work, at school, the young, the old, the carers and the cared for, in the pubs, the clubs and on the streets. It is an insider's perspective on Glasgow.

The photographs were exhibited in 26 countries worldwide, across the city in shops, pubs, galleries, libraries and supermarket packing areas. Images were last exhibited in Tramway in Glasgow in 1991. It is also a project which is largely forgotten and unknown to most today.

Street Level Photoworks has paired the Glaswegians photographs with large-scale, full-colour posters from Glasgow’s streets at the time. Screenprinted by Cranhill Arts, the posters, with the photographs, revisit a significant point in Glasgow’s history. The Glaswegians posters, designed by Alistair McCallum and Jane Carroll, recall a time when musicians, pop stars, actors, poets, and comedians from across Scotland came together to collaborate.

Cranhill is a working-class community in the east end of Glasgow, a housing scheme built during the post-war wave of redevelopment. Cranhill Arts Project (still there after 44 years) was started in 1981 by local people, and built up fantastic resources for photography, screen printing and then graphic design. Many Cranhill Arts Project users have gone on to work in the print, reprographic and media industries, especially as photographers of various kinds.