Katherine Mackinnon
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kamack.bsky.social
Katherine Mackinnon
@kamack.bsky.social
3.4K followers 910 following 600 posts
Writer and PhD researcher interested in oral history, migration and methodology. Also radical history walking tours, books, social history, Glasgow kmackinnon.org radicalglasgowtours.com she/her
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kamack.bsky.social
This is the vibe I hope I am communicating to drivers as I pech up Hope St on a clapped-out Ridgeback
Old advert for Liberator cycles feat a big woman done up like a Valkyrie, holding a huge sword and with her nips fully out
February 13, 2026 at 11:50 AM
kamack.bsky.social
Brilliant wee research trip to Govanhill Baths and archives today, preparing for a tour we're creating for the 25th anniversary of the occupation of the building.
A small empty swimming pool with a blue border round the top. It's in an Edwardian building with gorgeous arched ceiling and skylights. On the back wall is a design in black and red coloured bricks which looks like a friendly wee face The big main swimming pool in Govanhill Baths, empty and with the focus on the big beams of the arched ceiling. They have been painted red to match the balconies and the paint is peeling in a spectacular fashion. A round, porthole looking window in the upstairs room which was formerly slipper baths - single baths each in their own cublicle. The wall is covered in beautiful old tiles, with some cracked and damaged ones where pipes have once been.
February 12, 2026 at 5:21 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Screenshot of an old post by Shaun Scott @eyesonthestorm with the text: bro they're historicizing u in the group chat - they're situating ur behavior in a broader postindustrial context and they're citing an impressive array of sources bro
February 4, 2026 at 1:24 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Give the people (me), what they want, a large mural in Glasgow City Cente of Coatbridge-born Margaret Skinnider - maths teacher in Lambhill, fighter in the Easter Rising, lesbian feminist icon.
Incredible picture of Margaret Skinnider dressed in men's clothing with a flat cap and a cigarette hanging out her mouth, linking arms with two smiling dark haired women in white shirts. Unbelievable levels of style
January 20, 2026 at 1:45 PM
kamack.bsky.social
The other project, which may in fact take 200 Sammo films to finish, is to knit this incredible jumper designed by the legendary Mandy McIntosh, which features the Glasgow Coat of Arms depicted in Aran knitting. This is the sample and mine will hopefully be identical. 🌳🕊️🔔🐟 👀@glasgowcoa.bsky.social!
Me, a white woman with dark hair, looking delighted wearing an oversized green handknitted jumper, with lovely cables up both arms and a complex cabled design on the front. It has a deep ribbed funnel neck which creates a beautiful round yoke shape. It shows the four components of the city of Glasgow's coat of arms: a fish with bobble stitch making the scale texture, a tree with cabled trunk and branches and leaves knitted separately then sewn on, a bird perched at the top of the tree and a ring held in the fish's mouth. Genuinely an absolute work of art
January 15, 2026 at 4:37 PM
kamack.bsky.social
I like a wee project - see last year's 3m long data visualisation of every book I read in the form of a knitted snake. This year I've a few on the go, one is to watch a Sammo Hung film every Sunday night. Finest of the three dragons by a mile!
Martial arts legend Sammo Hung in a blue shirt with fists raised in a fighting stance. This is a recent photo where he is probably in his 70s, with white hair. Looks absolutely iconic. Martial arts legend Sammo Hung, actually also in a blue shirt in this photo, with one fist raised in a fighting stance. This is an old photo from his heyday in Hong Kong kung fu films of the 1970s. Looks absolutely iconic.
January 15, 2026 at 4:29 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Tenpted by these crafters:
January 8, 2026 at 1:36 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Great sky in Glasgow today
Red sandstone tenements in the sun with a bright blue sky covered in small fluffy clouds, like a mackerel sky but each cloud is rounder and fluffier Just a very impressive scene of small white fluffy clouds scattered across the sky with deep blue background at the top of the photo fading to pale blue at the bottom
January 7, 2026 at 10:54 AM
kamack.bsky.social
Kept this up for the entire year but I underestimated how big the booksnake would be. Has to be nearly 3 metres
Booksnake stretched out on the floor Me with a big grin with the booksnake wrapped several times round my neck
December 30, 2025 at 1:31 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Important milestone as a parent: informed by my son at 7:30pm that he was to have made a model volcano for tomorrow. Feel like this is very respectable under the circumstances but then he refused to even take it into school because “it’s too wee” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
A very decent, I thought, wee 3D volcano made out of brown cardboard from a cereal box. It has lava drawn around the sides and strips of the packet from a multipack of Caramel Wafers are shooting from the top of it like mighty plumes of molten rock
December 17, 2025 at 6:18 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Just picked up a reprint of the vouchers from Good Press and they look class!
A fanned set of 4 riso printed Radical Glasgow Tours vouchers featuring various icons of the city’s radical history including Margaret Skinnider and smudge the cat. Each voucher is printed on a different pastel shade of card giving big Monopoly money vibes
December 11, 2025 at 1:15 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Drake good/bad meme with top text that says "you're getting paid for writing an article with $150 of book tokens", bottom text that says "book tokens which can only be spent on dry academic textbooks, which cost $50 each"
December 4, 2025 at 11:08 AM
kamack.bsky.social
Just sent off an article on Sister Smudge the trade union cat for issue 05 of the excellent @leftcultures.bsky.social. A true icon of the workers movement
Two women playing stringed instruments to an embarassed-looking cat in the winter gardens of the People's Palace. Both are wearing baggy jumpers with Mr Happy and the Glasgow's Miles Better slogan dating this to 1990 when we were European City of Culture The late Elspeth Kind, People's Palace curator and champion of people's history, with Smudge Smudge in front of a row of ceramic repliCATS made by Margery Clinton and sold briefly in the people's palace shop A zine I made telling the story of Smudge's mysterious temporary disappearance in 1987 following a Militant event in the People's Palace. Has some funny quotes everyone involved gave to the press at the time. You can download this in printable and digital versions for free at radicalglasgowtours.com/resources
November 30, 2025 at 9:22 AM
kamack.bsky.social
Extremely fun!
Me looking excited in a radio studio while the host Fran does something technical relating to sound levels Orange door to Studio 1 at Sunny Govan community radio, beside it is a poster with the Jimmy Reid quote “a rat race is for rats, we’re not rats, we’re human beings”
November 26, 2025 at 11:04 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Bit of heroic bloodshed on a Saturday night, what a treat. I love Chow Yun Fat in 80s Hong Kong films - unbelievable levels of charm plus he always wears tremendous outfits
Photo taken in a darkened cinema of the credits of Ringo Lam’s City on Fire (1987), showing Chow Yun Fat in a freeze frame as the credits roll
November 15, 2025 at 11:21 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Research assistant
A lovely tabby cat called Susan with white feet and kind eyes, sitting on top of a pile of notes on a table. In the background are various coffee mugs, a pile of books and a computer. It’s cool Susan I wasn’t even using those notes anyway
November 11, 2025 at 12:24 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Did a @radicalglasgowtour.bsky.social tour for some young people from the Uni of Wisconsin today and one of them drew these amazing notes including a portrait of me 😭
Beautiful pen and ink notes with a portrait of me with notes and words in different scripts surrounding me including “Glasgow: city of defiance” , “Nelson Mandela” “the past we inherit the future we build” and then in big capitals at the bottom it just says RADICAL. I love it so much
November 10, 2025 at 5:54 PM
kamack.bsky.social
I’ve been rereading a load of Alan Moore comics. Full of tremendous sentences:
Photo of a page from Swamp Thing book 1 showing a guy in green scrubs and face mask holding up something that looks a bit like a marrow with text beside his face that reads I WONDERED ABOUT THE UNWORKABLE PSEUDO-KIDNEYS
November 9, 2025 at 8:22 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Current reading while hanging about outside kids gymnastics classes: this beaut new book edited by @suchmayer.bsky.social celebrating maps in the work of Ursula K Le Guin 💙
Front cover of The Word for World: the Maps of Ursula K le Guin with the title in a beautiful font with curling lines around the words, in glossy cobalt ink on a matt black background Highly detailed map of the islands of Earthsea with gorgeous names like Havnor and Karego-At. My favourite are two wee islands shaped quite like hands labelled The Hands Sparse drawing of the the continents of Anarres from The Disposessed Snakey map of the labyrinth from The Tombs of Atuan looking a wee bit like Celtic knit work with no symmetry at all
November 7, 2025 at 5:24 PM
kamack.bsky.social
Some of Pieńkowski’s illustrations:
Intricate silhouetted scene of people, building and plants in black over a marbled sky Baba Yaga’s house and an incredible fence made from skeletons in silhouette in front of a sickly yellow green sky Back cover of a book showing a wee dragon in its subterranean lair under a mountain. This one is black silhouette over rich red, purple and pink tones
November 5, 2025 at 10:35 AM
kamack.bsky.social
Incredible Jan Pieńkowski looking sunset over Pollokshields yesterday
Black silhouettes of roofs and trees against and incredible gradient sunset sky of orange pink and pale purple One tree and the roof of some flats in silhouette against the sky which here is more pink and blue Trees in front of an incredible wash of vibrant colour across the sky
November 5, 2025 at 10:32 AM
kamack.bsky.social
Love Halloween. Great to see Pollokshields is full of militants keeping the old ways alive - no sweeties without doing a turn, dooking for apples means your head is going in the cold water
Group of children guising (tradition in Scotland where they need to do a turn - tell a joke, do a dance etc - before they get a sweetie) at a house covered in cobwebs with witches hats hanging from the ceiling A pals flat which contained a huge inflatable squid the full height of the tenement leftover from an art project. They played haunted music in the background as well A lovely wee friendly pumpkin sitting on a dark step with a smiley face and fairy lights round it Blurry photo of some kids dooking for apples by sticking their heads in a basin of cold water and trying to grab apples with their teeth
November 1, 2025 at 10:01 AM
kamack.bsky.social
Spending my extra hour working on a new pair of gloves. The excellent pattern is Shine mittens by Pia Kammeborn, drawing on patterns found in Baltic knitting traditions (and elsewhere I’m sure).
Half knitted Latvian mitten in plum and grey wool, photo shows the front with a repeating geometric tumbling blocks pattern that is very old. Back of the same mitten showing highly satisfying patterned thumb increases. Thumb stitches are held on a piece of spare yarn which is a nice duck egg blue colour
October 26, 2025 at 10:16 AM
kamack.bsky.social
Barcelona graffiti and stickers
Simple but effective red spray paint symbols = four vertical lines with a wee star above them for the Catalan flag, hammer and sickle, woman symbol that’s a circle with a crossed line running from the bottom Sticker with woven patches of both flags saying “Catalan countries with Palestine” Highly elegant blue spray painted calligraphy saying Antifa One eviction Another occupation!
October 17, 2025 at 9:41 AM
kamack.bsky.social
The knowledge that Nick has of the era is absolutely incredible, as is his skill at communicating the complex politics of the time to a contemporary audience. A masterclass in popular history! @spaincivilwartours.bsky.social
Building with a ghost sign saying “plaça of the unknown militiaman”, a remnant of the Spanish civil war which was only uncovered in 2004 A rusty tin, the kind that open with a key, held in front of a photo of international brigades at the front eating rations out of the same type of tins Well-known to me, a photo of the Glasgow district roll of honour banner listing the names of the men who died in Spain A box of matches produced by the CNT, the anarchist trade union
October 15, 2025 at 8:39 AM