During the opening weekend of Glasgow International Festival, Graham Fagen delivered a series of tours for the A New Path team between Ian Hamilton Finlay’s carving at George IV Bridge and Douglas Gordon’s Empire. Fagen’s tours asked us to consider the ‘empires’ which exist in both of these seemingly polemic works and within the history of Glasgow as whole. Taking in the Classical Greek and Roman traditions of Finlay’s work, as well as the colonial shipping routes of the Clyde (including the near emigration of ‘Rabbie’ Burns) Fagen tangentially led the group to the personal empire of Gordon in Brunswick Lane via anecdote, local history, personal memories and a few lines of song: I belong to Glasgow/ Dear old Glasgow town/ Well what’s the matter with Glasgow/ For it’s goin’ ‘roon and ‘roon/ I’m only a common old working chap/ As anyone here can see/ But when I get a couple of drinks on a Saturday/ Glasgow belongs to me.

Fagen is both a featured artist in A New Path’s research phase for his work at the Royston Road Parks Project and contributed a newly commissioned text on Finlay’s carving for A New Path.