Special Projects

This July, Xchange Scotland is pleased to be hosting the annual Loesje Summer Camp.

The Loesje Summer Camp brings together members of from around Europe and further afield. The camp will be a creative and innovative gathering where the programme will be developed organically by the participants at the start of the project.

The camp will be held by the coast, west of Glasgow near Largs, a stone's throw from the sea. The weekends will provide an opportunity to explore this beautiful area of Scotland and do some activities with Xchange Scotland members and other local Scots.

There will be a contribution towards the camp of €160 for participants. This contribution will cover food and accommodation for the 2 weeks.

If you are interested in participating in the Loesje Summer Camp or would like some further information do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you to all those who attended the poster-writing workshop last Sunday (15th June). We had a really fun and creative afternoon and the work will soon be posted around Glasgow for all to see and enjoy.

The next Loesje activity will be the Summer Camp near Largs.

If you are interested in being involved in the Summer Camp or fancy coming along to one of the poster-writing workshops then do not hesitate to contact us.

The Cost of Living...

On Saturday 3rd May, Xchange Scotland hosted a unique one-day project with our partners . The aim of the project was to work alongside other Loesje partners around Europe, all on the same day, to create a collective book and DVD.

The overall topic was freedom of expression (that includes freedom of speech, press freedom, opinion forming and making). The aim was to work in every country with artistic mediums such as: music, video, photography, theatre, creative writing, street art and painting, graphical and digital design and dance and movements.

Following our appearance on Radio Scotland's Book Cafe, talking about the project, we had received messages of interest and good wishes from as far away as Arizona and Malta. We never knew Radio Scotland was so international...

On the day itself, we met on a misty morning and started sharing ideas over pots of steaming Tchai Ovna tea. From there we decided to make collective posters on themes related to freedom of expression and to stick them up around the city later on and take photographs of our adventures.

After some more cups of tea the creative juices started to flow and the group came up with our second series of Scottish Loesje posters. In the afternoon, as the sun started to come out, we hit the streets to stick up our posters.

The material from all the other actions from the 3rd May are being submitted and will be centrally edited and printed in June. We will let you all know when we receive copies of the Book then.

For more information on the Book in One Day Project you can visit

On Saturday 19th April Xchange Scotland ran their first Loesje activity - an action day to create content for the next edition of , a magazine that inspires creative activism. The theme of this edition of Masta was identity. The action was part of our ongoing collaboration with the Dutch NGO Loesje.

We all met in the morning and after a bit of fun and story writing, soon began to churn out the ideas. Much fun was had by all and there were some classics moments with a huge mirror in the Botanics and also in our identity stereotyping game, that even Robert Carlyle joined in!

We took lots of great photos too! All the materials will be submitted to the editors of Masta and hopefully we'll see some of them in print by the end of the summer. Well done to all who took part.

Identity stereotypes

Mirror images

Talking about identity

Mirror interviews

Thanks to Cahrola and Julia from the Loesje international office in Berlin for helping us have a really fun and productive weekend. We created the first series of Scottish Loesje posters, which are now up and around the streets of Glasgow. Keep your eyes peeled!

On the Saturday we met in Govan and played some creative introductory games, before starting on ideas for poster-making. Before lunch we all got round one table and put our heads and pens together to create some texts about a range of themes we wanted to cover. As the sun came out we moved to the park to discuss what we had came up with and vote on which poster ideas we liked.

Having picked the best 8 poster ideas we created the layout, then printed them up on A3 ready for putting up around Glasgow on Sunday. We set out with our new creations into sunny Govan amongst the Old Firm fans coming back from the game and wary motorists looking for petrol stations that hadn't run out...

Loesje petrol poster

Loesje dancefloor poster