Public or Private?

My birthday today and so after a bit of checking out the birthday messages on social media - the modern equivalent of a heap of cards coming through the letterbox - I headed up town to catch the Hill & Adamson exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery before it finishes on Sunday. Impressive as it was to see these old prints from the earliest days of photography I did wonder why it cost a tenner to get in. After all I'm pretty sure the images were from the gallery's own collection. Presumably simply a way to get some income in an otherwise free gallery. And this with the exhibition sponsored by the slightly mysterious consultancy firm EY. At least I assume they are a consultancy firm, looking at their website, although there isn't a front-and-centre description of what they are. One of their case studies describes how they have helped Edinburgh City Council save millions of pounds while protecting services. Maybe they also advised the gallery just how much to charge for entrance. And clearly they pitched it right for me, as I did pay my tenner. Will I pay again next time?
After lunch in the gallery cafe, I wandered across the city centre and paused in the open space at the foot of the Mound to watch a group of musicians playing for an appreciative crowd. A public space that can, from time to time, be made at least partially private to suit particular interests. Like when the Christmas market appears and the stalls and food and drink vendors take over the space. Or when art installations of one sort or another close off bits of the space. Today the only exhibition was a set of display boards of photographs portraying "At the Heart of the Nation: India in Britain". Images to mark the 70th anniversary of India's independence showing the inter-twining of the two countries. My first thought was that this was more propaganda for the UK state but maybe its message was actually pro-independence for Scotland. A quote on one of the boards says 'Exploitation and domination of one nation over another can have no place in a world striving to put an end to all wars' (Mohandas K Gandhi 1945).
A visit to the National Gallery to stand in front of John Duncan's St Bride painting for a while was followed by a walk up the hill to the Castle Esplanade where the Tattoo stands were being dismantled after their summer occupation of another apparently public space.
Then it was down the Royal Mile towards Holyrood. A bit over half way I popped in here to see the progress in the New Waverley development, the successor to the failed Mountgrange Capital Caltongate project. The current development is based around this square, dubbed a 'civic space'. But who owns it? Who has spent the £6.5M price-tag that has been put on the square? And if it is the developers, will they retain ownership like Multrees Walk, or pass on the space to the council, to be 'adopted'. To be fair, it is on the council website as 'Prospectively Adoptable' so perhaps that is the plan. The reason I am interested in this today was an article I found talking about 'privately owned public spaces' (or 'pseudo-public spaces') in the UK. Although principally an issue in London, there is a growing number of these spaces across all our cities and in the Guardian piece Edinburgh Council were 'unable to share the information' concerning Edinburgh. A vague phrase that could describe policy or inadequate data. It feels like another part of the landownership jigsaw that really should be in the public domain. In another hot local story, it was the complex ownership pattern of the Sick Kids site that was the cause of the delays that ultimately prevented local community groups from completing their community right to buy application in time to stop the sale of the site to developers. Transparency of ownership would be a huge step in a planning system to better serve the interests of local communities.
After my visit to New Waverley I headed down to the bottom of the Royal Mile to visit another photographic exhibition, this time at the Queen's Gallery. Another paid-for exhibition, but at least you could see where the £7 fee (cheaper than the NPG) had gone. There was an audio guide available to carry round with you, and while sometimes it appeared to be little more than reading out the information panels, in other cases it definitely added to the exhibition. And having bought a ticket to this exhibition I can return to see it, or any other exhibition in the Gallery, for the rest of the year. Something for the National Gallery to copy, or would that impact their financial model too much? Interesting that this was in a Gallery whose ownership status is also at best uncertain. While many other Crown properties were transferred to Scottish ministers in 1999, Holyrood was not, and although Historic (Environment) Scotland pays for the staff, it is the Royal Collection Trust that apparently gets to keep the profits. The exhibition I went to see was of photographs of the Crimean War taken by Roger Fenton, including a print of the famous 'Valley of Death' road, strewn with cannonballs. Although the second version of the image, with the road cleared of cannonballs, was mentioned, it was a shame that there wasn't a full size print to allow a direct side-by-side comparison. Overall I felt it was a much better value exhibition than the Hill & Adamson one I'd seen earlier. I might even go back.