Platform Festival

Venues across Perth and Kinross, March 24-31

Perthshire’s wealth of creative talent goes on show at the second Platform Festival.

The eight-day extravaganza is a chance to engage with an array of established and emerging artists across exhibitions, performance, music, talks and workshops.

Among the participants are copperplate gunpowder artist Frank To, filmmakers Helen McCrorie and Su Grierson, travel photographer Amy Sinead, festival poet Jim Mackintosh and visual creators Aileen Stackhouse and Susie Johnston.

Music also features prominently in the programme, with a highlight being a one-off concert at St Matthew’s Church in Perth with Scottish Album of the Year winner RM Hubbert alongside breaking Perth songwriters Jamie Bacon, Katie Thomson and Bethany Wappler.

A diverse range of performers also feature at the same venue for Mass of the Night River, showcasing such talents as Fife funksters Bohemian Monk Machine, Perth Jazz Quartet, spoken word exponent Rana Marathon and Polish psychedelic rockers Parampampam Trio.

Visitors are being invited to explore their own creativity by taking part in workshops, including ukelele taster sessions, pendant-making and walkingand-drawing excursions.

Analogue photographers Jo Cound, Dave Hunt and Jamie Grant — aka the Silver Alchemy Collective — are showing a series of themed portraits at Perth Civic Hall where they’re also staging demonstrations of the wet plate process, darkroom printing and pinhole photograpy.

Comrie-based artist Helen McCrorie’s specially-commissioned film about the flood which devastated her home village in 2012 will premiere at Perth Playhouse tomorrow from 5pm.

The Earnsong Choir led by Christine Kidd, Irene Railley and Adelaide Carlow is providing live accompaniment, with Stirling University media expert Dr Sarah Neely leading discussions at the screening.

Helen interviewed residents who lost precious photos and other belongings in the flood as a means of examining the importance of memories stored physically in an online age.

“I’ve never shown my work in a cinema before so it’s very exciting to have this opportunity,” she says.

“The film doesn’t just focus on loss and there are some really positive stories. One example I came across was a family who possessed a cookbook passed down through four generations of women.

“They had each used the recipes and added their own notes and tips. The idea that this might ever be lost brought new meaning and value to the book.”

Gunpowder artist Frank To.