AT least some of the legacy of NVA, the often-times extraordinary, frequently immersive Scottish arts company which has announced its closure this week, is permanent.
The Hidden Gardens, behind the Tramway in Glasgow's south side, still stands.
And in the last ten years the small arts charity, led by Angus Farquhar - who previously had been in the industrial music group Test Department - also wrought significant change at St Peter's Seminary. For NVA to take on, and try to transform, the modern ruin, did always seem like an ambitious, perhaps extraordinary, task.
READ MORE: Scottish arts firm to close this year and abandons plans to restore St Peters
The company did begin work on its project to breathe new life into the ruin: deadly asbestos was cleared, the vaults were stabilised, and thousands of invasive rhododendron bushes have been removed. But ultimately, without a major national institution to step in (which, at some point, perhaps NVA was half expecting to happen) and provide funding, scale and stability, the project proved too much. The public money that was raised for the project and not used was paid back last year. The company will close without lurching into bankruptcy, I am told. But NVA is over, and who knows if art work like Speed of Light or The Path in Glen Lyon will be attempted again.
What cannot be lost in the closure of NVA is the role of Creative Scotland, the nation's arts funder. In January, in the Regular Funding round which has been the cause of much controversy and debate, NVA were not granted regular funding. It had been funded before. At the time it seemed a surprising decision, but was somewhat lost in the tumult surrounding similar decisions in theatre and music. Mr Farquhar, too, did not - at least in public - kick up much of a fuss. Perhaps he was politic to do so. However, when Creative Scotland made a series of U-turns on its cuts, NVA was not among the reprieved.
READ MORE: Scottish arts firm to close this year and abandons plans to restore St Peters
Mr Farquhar will, one suspects, find a new outlet for his creativity, and one hopes his team can find new jobs, too. And as for St Peter's? Completed and consecrated in 1966, it was only used for its planned purpose for 13 years. It has been longer a ruin. Perhaps NVA has saved it from perdition entirely, but now it has been cast back into limbo.
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