The Stove Network Podcast
The Stove Network is an arts and community organisation in the heart of Dumfries High Street. We’re a cafe, a meeting place and an arts & events venue with a diverse programme stretching across music and literature, visual and public art, film and theatre, to town planning, architecture and design.We use arts and creativity to encourage, to gather, learn and bring life back to our town centre. We see the arts not as something solely for an ‘arts audience’ but rather as a vital contribution to society on all fronts.At the heart of everything we do is a love for our town and wider region. As the only arts-led development trust in Scotland, we work alongside our local authority, community organisations, local businesses and charities to create a vision for the future of Dumfries High Street. We’re aiming to create a place where culture, community and enterprise work hand-in-hand to support a new vision of the High Street. Our podcast features exclusive content, interviews, news and more. Stay updated by hitting 'follow' or 'subscribe'.
The Stove Network Podcast
The Radical Land: Abriachan Forest Trust & Richard Bracken
In this episode, we visit Abriachan Forest Trust near Inverness.
A scattered rural community of about 130 people set high above the shores of Loch Ness in the Highlands of Scotland. In 1998 the community purchased 540 hectares of forest and open hill ground from Forest Enterprise. Since then, as a social enterprise, the Abriachan Forest Trust has managed this land to create local employment, improve the environment and encourage it’s enjoyment by the public through a network of spectacular paths, family suited mountain bike trails, innovative outdoor learning as well as health and well-being opportunities.
We speak with Suzanne, a community member and manager of the forest trust, alongside artist Richard Bracken, who has been in residence with the trust since mid 2020. During this time, Richard has worked closely with the local community in the design and build of several hand-crafted walking sticks, each bearing a poetic inscription, in which scenery, skies and people intertwine with purpose, responsibility and invitation.