Steve Smith Studio

About "Close Encounters: Castlegate"

Close Encounters is a collaboration with Aberdeen’s SMART Art Agency, writer and researcher Ian Grosz, and artist & film maker Callum Kellie. Its purpose was to celebrate, record, and reveal the historic and contemporary stories that make up the ‘Castlegate’s’ unique sense of place in the east end of Aberdeen City Centre, and attempts to capture the social history of the area at a time when the city is on the cusp of change.

The Castlegate area has a long and rich social history reaching back to the Middle Ages, but that social history is a story that is constantly being written and rewritten. It centres on the buildings that make up our built environment – The Citadel, St Andrews Cathedral, St. Peters Church, and the shops and residencies along Castle Street and Justice Street - but it plays out through the lives of the people who live, work and worship here.

The project was funded by Aberdeen City Council and is part of a pilot for a wider Heritage and Place project through a grant awarded by Historic Environment Scotland. You can learn more about Historic Environment Scotland’s Heritage and Place Programme here.

The final outputs of the research phase are an exhibition, opening at Aberdeen Arts Centre, late July 2024, alongside an online interactive platform and digital map developed by artist and film maker Callum Kellie.

https://www.close-encounters.co.uk/