The Honourable K.W. Harman

The Shop

132 Nithsdale Road, Glasgow G41 5RB

The Shop is Ltd Ink Corporation’s experimental headquarters in Glasgow. The shop-front windows make the space ideal for display: objects, workshops and performance. What happens inside the space will be visible to the public. On occasion, it will also be accessible, either by invitation, appointment or buzzer-access.

The Shop is also an artwork, one that defies definition and is in a constant state of flux. The Shop is informed by its contents and the material conceived or transformed within. This material may leave the space as footage or audio etc.

The Shop will be under constant surveillance; the interior and exterior filmed via CCTV 24/7. The recorded footage will capture the happenings that take place within the space, alongside the local community: walking past and peering in. Filmmakers and photographers will be invited to document the exhibitions and performances contained within the space, thus creating a year’s archive of The Shop.

Objects bought into The Shop will be transformed, critiqued and displayed. They will then be available to buy. Revenue raised from the sale of Harman’s Assemblages will fund the plays and performance pieces work-shopped within The Shop. In the meantime, they will act as props and provide a backdrop to the actions taking place within The Shop.

Short stories, plays and performance pieces will hover on the boundary between documentary and fiction. The people encountered through the shop, their movements and stories told, will inform the characters and the narrative of Harman’s theatre.

The Shop will be a centre of alternative artist-led learning. The premises provide a space where industry experts and professionals can hold talks and workshops in the fields of theatre and performance. Playwrights, performers and artists will be invited to perform and critique each other’s work-in-progress, whilst the public bear witness to the creative process.

The Shop will be a social space where friends and acquaintances can meet over coffee and sandwiches, or a beer in the evenings. Relationships will strengthen and be stretched. The context for conversation should guide but not limit the internal debates and discussion. As with everything else, dialogues will be recorded and live conversation will be audible via speakers attached to the shop front.

The Shop will be an imaginarium; a place where ideas are produced, fertilized and come alive. Everyone and everything that The Shop encounters/encounters The Shop will be used to create artworks or blueprints for future projects and performances. It will be a self-generating space; a place to collect, to create, to critique and to showcase, and so on. The Shop shall be a generator and a container of artwork in its widest sense.

“Mr. Honourable” will remain above the shop-front as a nod to The Shop’s recent past as Harman’s Private Detective Agency. The Shop was the first of many Shops That Never Open; a physical shop-front for Harman’s genuine Private Investigations into some of the most prominent figures working in Scotland’s art scene. The reports were displayed for the public’s perusal at Ltd Ink Corporation in Leith Docks and shall be available to view in the The Shop’s archives.

The Shop is unscheduled and ongoing. The public’s (local community / Glasgow’s arts community) involvement is key, but shall rely on their presence and engagement with the space. The Shop will cultivate human relationships through conversation, and our ‘events’ shall spread via word of mouth. The Shop’s input and output will continue regardless of audience so there shall be no need to advertise using mailing lists and social media platforms.

The Shop is “open”.