Anger over open sale of CCA building and archive
A petition has been launched in response to the open listing of the former CCA venue and archive
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The Centre For Contemporary Arts (CCA) building has been placed on the open market. Meanwhile, the CCA's appointed liquidators will hold an open auction of archival material spanning more than 50 years of Glasgow’s cultural heritage. In response, the Save Our CCA movement launched a Stop the Sale campaign, protesting against both the sale of the building and the archives.
The former multi-arts organisation’s archive documents its rich history of cultivating Glasgow’s culture scene, ranging from art, music, literature and spoken word to film. It contains physical and digital records, exhibition catalogues, photographs, posters and VHS tapes. The archive also encompasses 20 years of material from the organisation’s first iteration as the Third Eye Centre, which was regarded as Glasgow’s hub for counter-culture and hosted acclaimed performers such as Whoopi Goldberg, Allen Ginsberg and Scotland’s first Makar, Edwin Morgan.
Creative Scotland called for organisations to express interest in owning or leasing the Sauchiehall Street property. Encouraging bids from those intending on preserving it as a cultural venue, it stated that it wished to ‘see it remain as an asset for the cultural sector and the public’. It discussed a current collaboration with Glasgow Life and The Ballast Trust to ensure the archival material remains in the public domain.
In response, Save Our CCA launched a petition and announced a planned protest for Friday 31 July, demanding that the building remain a publicly-owned cultural venue, and that Creative Scotland and the Scottish Government ‘work transparently with artists, cultural workers, communities and the wider public to shape its future.’ Independent film festivals including Take One Action have written a letter to the Culture Secretary demanding that the sale be halted.
The arts hub confirmed it would be entering liquidation in January after a series of temporary closures due to increasing financial pressures, disputes with staff members and conflicts with pro-Palestine protestors. The venue experienced significant financial instability following the 2018 Glasgow School Of Art fire, closing despite a prospective funding agreement of £3.4m from Creative Scotland last year.
Conflicts with staff members over working conditions resulted in the 2023 closure of the CCA bar, Saramago. In June 2025, the organisation was criticised for its treatment of pro-Palestine protestors following its refusal to participate in the Palestine Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). The CCA was widely condemned for relying on police intervention during the peaceful takeover of their building by members of Art Workers For Palestine Scotland (AWFPS). Many board directors resigned last year, until the organisation announced it was entering liquidation.
The CCA was initially established as the Third Eye Centre in 1974 by poet and playwright Tom McGrath. Rebranding in 1992, the organisation had since been a beating heart of Glasgow’s arts and culture scene, hosting workshops, festivals and exhibitions, and championing artists, poets, musicians and filmmakers. Having produced a regular programme of six exhibitions a year, it played a key role in platforming and uplifting Glasgow’s experimental art and performance.
The Save Our CCA campaign said: ‘Archives are not simply assets to be realised through insolvency. They are an irreplaceable public record of the people, ideas, artworks and conversations that have shaped our cultural life. Once dispersed, that record is diminished, and the opportunity for future generations to understand, research and learn from it is permanently compromised. A nationally significant cultural archive should remain intact and publicly accessible.’
Frances McKee, former director of the CCA, said: ‘Since the archive opened to the public it has been in constant use by students and researchers, providing the basis for several important PhDs on the various aspects of the Glasgow and wider Scottish arts scene. It has generated many donations from visitors, participants and artists who used the two organisations over the years and who kept important archival material.
‘Preserving this archive as a whole and making it freely accessible to future researchers will enrich the history of the city and give its artists a working memory of what has been achieved in Glasgow and what it is possible to achieve in the future.'
A correction was made to this article to clarify that Creative Scotland does not own CCA, but does own the building. The CCA archive is owned by the former CCA. As CCA is in liquidation, it is the appointed liquidators, not Creative Scotland who are holding the auction of archive. With thanks to Creative Scotland for providing this clarification.
Main picture: Rachel Cronin.