In Search of Space was a series of talks and events that explored the ethos and legacy of the 60s counterculture, its various social and cultural experiments and their legacy. It was programmed to coincide with the exhibition ‘Taking Liberties’ by John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins.

PANEL DISCUSSION
Andy Roberts, Stewart Home and George Robertson
Took place on Saturday 19th September
This informative panel discussion covered the hidden past of LSD in Britain, the 1960s counterculture of art, drugs and mysticism, the roots of the underground, the influence of the International Times in Scotland, and the recuperation of psychedelia.


Andy Roberts - Albion Dreaming cover - Stewart Home - Tainted Love cover, George Robertson.




GALLERY TALK
‘Talking Liberties’: John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins in discussion with John Cavanagh
Took place on Saturday 26th September
This was a rare opportunity to hear the artist discuss his career, spanning his newspaper assignments photographing rock stars and beat poets, as well as political figures such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. The talk also covered key moments of Hoppy’s subsequent activities, such as co-founding of underground newspaper International Times, the London Free School, and London’s first psychedelic club, UFO. 

Leading the discussion about this life less ordinary was John Cavanagh, writer, musician and broadcaster for BBC Radio Scotland and others, and author of ‘Pink Floyd: Piper at the Gates of Dawn’.

The video ‘Hoppy: Against Tyranny’, by Natasha Hoare and Ben Strebel of Bog Standard Productions (in association with Idea Generation) was screened before the talk.




FILM SCREENING - DOUBLE BILL
‘Wholly Communion’ by Peter Whitehead (33mins), ‘Pilgrimage from Scattered Points’ (45 mins) by Luke Fowler
In collaboration with Glasgow Film Theatre. Sunday 4th October 2009

During a 4 year period in the 60s Peter Whitehead documented the seminal events of the counterculture, shot in a personal style influenced by cinema vérité. ‘Wholly Communion’ was described as Whitehead’s breakthrough film. Focusing on the Poetry Convention at The Albert Hall in 1965, it includes footage of Allen Ginsberg, Glasgow’s own Alexander Trocchi, Adrian Mitchell and a wired Harry Fainlight.

Luke Fowler’s work has been described as a rigorous and energetic testament to film’s ability to transcend its own limits as both art form and document. ‘Pilgrimage from Scattered Points’ is a subjective documentary film about the composer Cornelius Cardew (1936-81), and the Scratch Orchestra, capturing their internal contradictions and struggles, which are related through first person interviews, recent and archive footage and predominantly unreleased music. A short Q&A with Luke Fowler followed the screening.


Peter Whitehead (holding camera).



PANEL DISCUSSION
Joe Boyd and Bruce Findlay in discussion with John Cavanagh
Took place on Saturday 10th October 2009
“The times were truly changing and music was not only the soundtrack for the times, but was articulating how we felt by challenging the establishment and suggesting alternatives to a right-wing/racist/bomb loving government.” (Bruce Findlay)

Facilitated by John Cavanagh, this public talk covered music making in 1960s Britain, its inseparability from the counterculture of the time, and its influence on the present.

Joe Boyd has worked with and produced Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, The Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, Toots and the Maytals, 10,000 Maniacs, Billy Bragg and many others. In the 60s Joe was involved with John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins in setting up London’s first psychedelic club - UFO, and the London Free School. Joe will be available for a signing of his book ‘White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s’ directly after the talk.

In 1967 Bruce Findlay opened a record shop with his brother, and by the early 1970s this had grown into Scotland’s best known record shop chain, specialising in American imports and underground rock. In 1973, he organised the first ever Edinburgh Pop Festival which featured amongst others Kevin Ayres, Gong, The Incredible String Band, Can, Procul Harum, Planxty and The Chieftans. He set up his own record label Zoom Records in 1977 and between 1978 and 1990 managed Simple Minds. He currently manages Edinburgh band Aberfeldy.


Bruce Findlay outside his Record shop in Edinburgh, 1969. Courtesy Scotsman publications.
Joe Boyd - White Bicycles, Making Music in The 1960's cover.




PANEL DISCUSSION
Jim Haynes, Barry Miles and Jenny Fabian
Took place on Saturday 17th October 2009
Three legends of the 1960s came together to discuss the time and their place in it. Writer Jim Haynes launched Britain’s first paperback bookshop in Edinburgh in 1959, co-founded the Traverse Theatre, before moving to London to establish the Arts Lab which exploded on London and became overnight the heart of the city’s underground movement.

Barry Miles is an author and luminary of the 60s who will talk about his life and work which includes establishing Indica Bookshop (‘the command centre for the London underground scene), International Times, various projects with John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins, his association with Paul McCartney, plus a multitude of other endeavors and encounters. His book ‘In the Sixties’ is a fascinating and revealing memoir of 1960s counterculture, told from the inside.

Freedom was a keynote of the Sixties, and liberation for women became an important issue. Jenny Fabian shall examine the background to the kind of sensibility that evolved through the rock’n’roll counter-culture of the 60s as represented in her book ‘Groupie’, by Katie - the protagonist and her own involvement in the whole scene.


Jim Haynes - Thanks For Coming! cover, Barry Miles - In The Sixties cover, Jenny Fabian & Johnny Byrne - Groupie cover.




SCREENING AND DISCUSSION
John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins and Sue Hall
Took place at the Centre for Contemporary Arts on Saturday 24th October 2009
As part of Document 7, the International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival.
In 1969 the video portapak arrived in Europe and for the next 10 years, Hoppy and Sue Hall used video, mostly black and white, in a variety of situations – on the street, as art and as television, at a time when non-broadcast video was a new, undeveloped creative medium. In 1979, through their company Fantasy Factory, they established the first independent U-matic edit suite for cheap access. This informative talk showed excerpts of their early work demonstrating the social uses of video for community action and development.