Art workers in Scotland are helpless. Despite public outcry, the contents of the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow are now largely gone, sold to the highest bidder in a shambolic process. And now, despite reassurances from Creative Scotland's Director of Arts that the CCA's archive was to be "saved, protected and future-proofed", and after Culture Secretary Màiri McAllan told the public she had received "concrete assurances" the archive would be "retained in whole and available to the public", the archive is being advertised for sale, with social media adverts declaring that you too can "purchase a piece of Glasgow's creative heritage".

As an MSP whose constituents, festival organisers and filmmakers in Edinburgh and East Lothian have written to me expressing concern that this represents a loss to Scottish culture, and whose calls to preserve the CCA's building and archive have gone unanswered, I share this feeling of helplessness. And what do we do with this feeling?

The CCA building has an offer deadline of 12 August at 5pm. Its archive is currently being advertised by private treaty through Middleton Barton, with offers invited by 14 August 2026. The listing covers the entirety of the Third Eye Centre archive (1973-1991), including committee papers, posters, catalogues, video and audio recordings, as well as the CCA archive from 1992 to the present day: fourteen collections of slides, VHS recordings, photographs, publications and paper records.

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This is 50 years of Scotland's contemporary art history, with no known public buyer yet secured and only days left on the clock.

Residents were quick to point to the stark mismatch between promise and reality, describing those involved in this decision as "vultures" and "rotten", asking whether it was all a sick joke, and questioning why such an important archive was not being placed with the National Library of Scotland instead of being sold off in what many regard as an act of cultural vandalism. I........

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