The Centre for Contemporary Arts, once a vital cultural institution housed in a historic Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson building on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow, collapsed into liquidation on Friday, just one year after securing £3.4 million in multi-year funding from Creative Scotland.
During a video call at lunchtime, all CCA staff were told operations would cease “with immediate effect” and they were all losing their jobs. Thirty-nine employees, plus freelancers and contractors, were made redundant. Events scheduled for January 31, including a drum championship and a party to celebrate a new shop opening in the building, were cancelled.
From the Third Eye to the CCA
The Centre originally opened on Sauchiehall Street in the 1970s as The Third Eye Centre. A beacon for Glasgow’s counterculture community, the Centre boasted performances from the likes of Billy Connolly, John Byrne, Allen Ginsberg, and Whoopi Goldberg. It played a key role in the rise of Glasgow painters like Ken Currie and Steven Campbell, as well as presenting shows from artists like Damien Hirst and Sophie Calle.
It closed in 1991 due to funding problems, reopening as the CCA in 1992. The CCA continued as a self-described “forum for ideas and events” as well as “an arts hub for the city”. It held onto a closed curatorial policy until an existential crisis in 2006 when it underwent a “profound cultural shift” and leaned into a more open-source approach to its programming, becoming a civic hub for Glasgow’s arts community.
In its history lurks embedded structural vulnerabilities. It was always reliant on public subsidy with limited commercial revenue and a building that requires constant investment.
Glasgow School of Art Fire
After a fire ravaged the Mackintosh building at Glasgow School of Art in June 2018, the CCA was forced to close for four months. Just metres away from the fire on Scott Street, the centre was immediately closed within a safety cordon, alongside neighbouring businesses and residents.
At first, the closure was meant to be temporary, but it stretched to four months, with bosses feeling left in the dark. Francis McKee, the Director at the time, told reporters the venue was “on a financial knife-edge,” with zero commercial income and hundreds of cancelled events. Glasgow City Council delayed opening dates repeatedly, with September stretching into October. The cited ongoing risks from the Mack and the CCA were left waiting on a £20,000 hardship payment from the Scottish Government’s Fire Recovery Fund. When it finally reopened on October 15, 2018, many cultural tenants never returned.
The Pandemic
The CCA closed on March 18, 2020, in line with Scotland’s Covid-19 lockdown, with Saramago Café Bar closing as well. Like many businesses, successive lockdowns through 2021 compounded financial damage lingering from the 2018 closure. By 2023, visitor numbers remained down, and a precarious financial model that saw the CCA 87% reliant on Creative Scotland funding and the trickle of commercial income from events and tenants was starting to buckle.
The Closure of Saramago
In March 2023, a rogue group of workers at the Saramago, a longstanding bar operating inside (but independently from) the CCA, organised a work stoppage in the middle of a bustling Friday night service. Lights were switched on, confused conversations slowly dwindled, and a chipper waitress walked around with a freshly printed letter for customers to sign in support of their action, which was about grievances with working conditions.
The dispute led to three staff being sacked on shift for breaching their contract with the “unannounced” work stoppage, and weeks of protests outside the bar ensued. The IWW union (Industrial Workers of the World) got involved and urged the public and arts organisations to boycott Saramago. The staff members claimed they were sacked for taking part in union-endorsed strike action. Owners of Saramago claimed the majority of staff did not support the action. A spokesperson for Unite told The Herald it was aware of the dispute, but no staff were affiliated with the union. "[The IWW] is not a recognised union in the UK or affiliated with the TUC,” the spokesperson added. “No TUC-affiliated union would endorse the action that took place as it breaks union strike guidelines."
On April 21, the CCA severed its relationship with Saramago, and the cafe bar closed. Around 20 people lost their jobs. It was the first shoe to drop. Director Francis McKee, who was at the helm of the CCA for 18 years, stepped down at the end of 2023.
Read more:
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What happened to the CCA? The rise and fall of an art institution
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Inside Glasgow art protest turned ‘Liberated Zone’ amid Palestine solidarity row
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Save us from the puritan left-wing protesters who put Scotland's arts sector at risk
The Funding Crisis
In June 2024, the CCA welcomed six new board trustees: Roddy Hunter, Louise Norris, Kirsty Ogg, Natalia Palombo, Paola Pasino, and Tawona Sithole. Two months later, on August 25, Creative Scotland abruptly closed is Open Fund for Individuals due to the Scottish Government’s inability to confirm the release of £6.6 million in Grant-in-Aid funding.
In October, Creative Scotland postponed multi-year funding decisions until the “end of January 2025” while the organisation awaited the Scottish Government’s December budget. The CCA was forced to publicly acknowledge its financial precarity and warned its strained finances were “no longer viable”. Its reserves nosedived by £250,000 in a year.
By November 2024, the CCA announced a “temporary and partial closure” from December 2024 until March 2025 for “restructuring and ensuring financial recovery”. Eviction notices were given to cultural tenants and partners were informed.
PACBI Protests and Leadership Collapse
Things were starting to look up in January 2025 when Creative Scotland announced the CCA would be receiving more than £3 million in multi-year funding. It fully reopened on April 1, 2025. Then everything changed.
In June 2025, Art Workers For Palestine Scotland (AWFPS) attempted a takeover of the venue. Called the “liberated zone”, the protestors scheduled a week-long programme of events in the venue. The lobby group called on the CCA to adopt a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) policy or endorse the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). The PACBI advocates for a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions, while endorsing BDS would mean the venue and staff publicly support a wider boycott of Israeli institutions and companies. An open letter was signed by more than 800 artists, workers, and audiences, urging the CCA to take action. The CCA refused.
When activists arrived on June 24, the courtyard was locked and police were called. Arrests were made and a protester was injured. It was a tipping point for an institution that has been marred by controversies and closures for the past several years.
Six board members resigned in the aftermath: Andrew Bell, Lesley Davidson, Roddy Hunter, Louise Norris, Natalia Palombo, and Tawona Sithole. Only three remained: Jean Cameron (Chair), Kirsty Ogg, and Paola Pasino. Steve Slater, Acting Director of Venue Operations, stayed on.
Two months after the protest, on August 13, the CCA issued an apology over its handling of the events and expressed regret that a person was injured at the protest. “We recognise that a lack of clarity on our choices had real human consequences, and for this we are deeply sorry,” they said in a statement.
The CCA closed its doors once again, and a provisional re-opening date was set for August 25, 2025. Long-term resident Aye Aye Books was caught in the crossfire and “asked to leave” the premises after 17 years of trading (the bookshop had endorsed PACBI in January). On August 4, Finance Manager Steven Thomson (also CEO of Paisley’s Art Department charity) “liked” an Instagram comment calling pro-Palestine protestors an ableist slur, prompting the controversy to escalate.
Weeks went by before the CCA released a statement, apologising for their handling of the protest.
It’s ongoing challenge of recruiting permanent senior leadership had no end in sight. “The Board had previously agreed on a period of turnaround, which would happen this year,” a spokesperson told The Herald. “Recent events have now accelerated these plans, and we are in active discussion with our funders and other stakeholders about how we move this process forward.”
The CCA reopened on August 25. By October, Thomson had been replaced as Finance Manager, and recruitment for board members and a permanent Director continued. In early December, Muse Greenwood, CEO of Edinburgh’s Be United, was appointed Chair.
A 35-day chair and the collapse of an institution
After just 35 days at the helm of the CCA, Muse Greenwood resigned. A statement released on January 20 acknowledged the Interim Director had "concluded his interim role," the Chair had stepped down, and "governance and leadership arrangements will be shared once confirmed.
The AWFPS group made plans to return. They scheduled a second “liberated zone” for January 24. The CCA responded by saying they would take an “accommodating and de-escalatory approach” and explicitly said police would not be in attendance. On January 24, dozens of people attended a peaceful takeover of the arts centre.
On January 26, Louise Norris, who had resigned as a board member in 2025, was reappointed as Director, rejoining Jean Cameron, Kirsty Ogg, and Paola Pasino. Four days later, the CCA was closed permanently, entering liquidation.
The collapse of the CCA sits within a broader cultural funding crisis in Scotland. Creative Scotland’s budget uncertainty throughout 2024 sped up the building of the CCA’s coffin.
Between June 2024 and January 2026, the CCA had extreme instability at the top. Six board members resigned, six new board members started, a chair was appointed, a chair resigned. It made it impossible to forge a cohesive strategy. The backlash board members faced from protestors for their refusal to endorse PACBI made a position at the table come at a personal cost to many.
A statement issued by the staff of the CCA said they were "deeply concerned" at the way its closing and the winding-up process were being handled.
They also hit out at what they described as "prolonged instability, absent leadership, and repeated governance failures".
A spokesperson for the board of the CCA said in a statement: “The Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) announces that it will cease operations on January 30, 2026 and enter liquidation. As such, the CCA building will be closed from January 30.
“Over the past eighteen months, CCA has undertaken a structured recovery process to address significant financial challenges.
“Despite the efforts of staff, partners, and the broader community, the organisation was unable to achieve a sustainable financial position.
“The CCA extends its appreciation to its team, audiences, artists, and collaborators for their longstanding commitment, creativity, and support.”
A spokesperson for Creative Scotland said: "We understand how unsettling and upsetting this news will be for everyone working at, and with an interest in, the CCA. As owners of the building at 350 Sauchiehall Street, Creative Scotland will explore future options, alongside other partners, with the shared aim of the centre re-opening as a cultural resource as soon as is realistically possible."
Marissa MacWhirter is a columnist and feature writer at The Herald, and the editor of The Glasgow Wrap. The newsletter is curated between 5-7am, bringing the best of local news to your inbox each morning without ads, clickbait, or hyperbole. Oh, and it’s free. She can be found on X @marissaamayy1
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