Listening Back! Community Fundraiser in support of Listen Gallery
A month-long community fundraiser in support of Listen Gallery
From late August to early October 2026, artists and organisers from across Glasgow and beyond will come together to support Listen Gallery. Listening Back! is month-long campaign comprised of performances, workshops, discussions and social gatherings dedicated to this purpose.
For five years, Listen Gallery has been an essential space for experimental sound, performance and artistic exchange in Glasgow. Founded and run by artist Riah Naief, the gallery has nurtured emerging and established practitioners alike, providing a rare environment where listening is treated not simply as an artistic practice, but as a means of building community.
Following Listen Gallery’s displacement from its previous premises earlier this year, Listening Back! has emerged as a collective response from the community that Listen has helped to cultivate. Coordinated by Glasgow Autonomous Community Orchestra (GACO) in collaboration with participating artists, collectives, venues and volunteers, the campaign will bring together independently organised events under a shared fundraising initiative to support Listen Gallery in opening their new space.
At a time when artist-led spaces across the UK face increasing financial pressures, Listening Back! is also a reminder that cultural infrastructures are sustained not only through funding, but through communities willing to organise, collaborate and care for the spaces that have supported them. The campaign demonstrates how a dispersed network of artists, venues and audiences can come together in mutual aid, to safeguard the conditions that allow experimental artistic practice to flourish.
Across more than a month of activity, audiences can expect:
• Performances
• Poetry and spoken word
• Collective listening events
• Open Sessions for Improvisation
• Community discussions and roundtables
• Workshops
• Tango and social dance
• Artist testimonials and online activations
Events will be announced individually throughout the campaign.