'Previously...' is a Scotland-wide history festival that takes place every 13-30 November. GYRE is 'Previously...'s partner in Moffat and south Scotland. The four partners in GYRE – Elizabeth Roberts, Janet Wheatcroft, Andrew Wheatcroft and the three sponsors/partners in Forestry Purposes LLP have all been professionally involved life-long in the arts. Our associate, Sarah Watkins, is a trained designer and artist who brings a strong, arresting,  iconoclastic and wry eye to the visual aspects of GYRE’s activities.

GYRE is the tier-one SCIO charitable vehicle which will be used to employ our wide cultural skills and expertise for the benefit of the town of Moffat, to Annandale and Eskdale, to Dumfries and Galloway, to Scotland, the UK  and beyond.

All four of us have professional connections with practitioners and opinion formers at government and other levels not only in Scotland, and the UK, but also in Europe, USA, Russia, and Asia (notably China). Using our professional expertise, along with other resources available to us, we plan to put together via GYRE events of local, national and international interest on a wide variety topics, pitched at various interest groups.

The first opportunity GYRE has been offered is an invitation from Ian Harrower to participate in ‘Previously …’ in November 2014. Ian is , with partner Susan Morrison, Previously’s volunteer producer. This nation-wide festival is now in its fourth ever- more successful year. We chose to engage with ‘Previously…’, because it is an extremely appealing, fresh and original way of linking the past  to the present, and is aimed at broad spectrum of  the general public.

‘Previously … ‘ is grassroots but also institutional in its coverage. It celebrates Scotland imaginatively through public events, excursions and exhibitions organized in different localities, including notably site-specific events, by individuals, by large and small groups, by museums, galleries, and libraries etc. throughout Scotland.  

GYRE is about reworking, polemic, debate, lively conversation – and delicious cakes. We believe in looking hard and long at the present through the magnifying glass of the past, collaborating with practitioners in disciplines such as music, dance, theatre, politics and philosophy to reassess our lives today.

We believe in using all the tools in the box -  not only  words but also  images and performance .

To cite one example:. The Carcanet Press After Lermontov. Translations for the Bicentenary which grew out of our 2012 discussions with Ek. Genieva of VGBIL in Moffat. It is a groundbreaking piece of work, transmuting the work of 19th cent Russian national poet (and painter) Mikhail Lermontov into the Scottish poetic tradition – moving from  then into now. We also brokered Richard Demarco’s Imaginary Journey of Lermontov Through Scotland’  - a suite of paintings which has been exhibited in Moscow and will return shortly to be exhibited in Scotland.

Dumfries and Galloway has set up a structure for transforming the role and social function of art . GYRE, including in its first expression under the auspices of ‘Previously…’ this November, embraces the same innovative and effective spirit .