Doors Open Day 2025

Last Saturday Gaada was excited to open the doors of Toogs Artist Workshop, inviting folk to Mak a Lang Erm and come and have a look around!

It was a beautiful sunny day, and it was great to welcome so many familiar faces and lots of new ones too. Doors Open Day is Scotland’s largest free festival, and this year we were pleased to be one of three Shetland organisations taking part, alongside Fort Charlotte and Bressay Development Ltd.

Visitors were welcome to explore the workshop, browse the Island Zine Library, and see recent work by local artists, including our current exhibition The Weather Man by Robbie Burns as well as work by 5 Shetland Artists, currently on display as part of the Nordic Letterpress Network Exhibition in Stockholm. Folk also got stuck in printing their own letterpress postcards on the Adana press, which was loads of fun!

The Gaada Shop was open too, showcasing the incredible spread of artist editions, publications, apparel and stationery available in collaboration with artists from Shetland and beyond.

Andrea from Radio Shetland joined us, and it was lovely to chat about what we get up to at Toogs Artist Workshop and the wonderful community of Artists surrounding Gaada. You can listen back to the conversation on Good Evening Shetland on Monday 8th September via BBC Sounds.