Trust This Journey, oil on canvas, 120 x 110cm, 2015-16

I paint with intent, with a working theme in mind that expands and evolves as the work continues.  When mark-making I use memory and feeling merged and fused with conscious forms.  I usually work on a few pieces at any one time in a variety of scale, oscillating between canvas on the wall or easel, pieces on the floor and sketchbooks on the table.  I like the physicality of painting, of mark-making.  I enjoy the dialogue between pieces when placed next to each other by accident or intentionally and the thoughts and ideas that protrude from this.

This Island This Edge, ink & gouache on paper, 74 x 57cm, 2015

My recent work focuses on death, loss and transition.  I have been exploring this by creating something that I destroy to then create something new.  This could be a painting that I cut up to use the pieces as stencils on another painting, creating sections within it that are ‘missing’ but are making up a whole.  I am exhibiting a piece from this body of work at the international festival of contemporary art, Cupar Arts Festival, as an invited artist for the LIMINAL group exhibition from 18th – 25th June.

Missing 2, ink on canvas, 120 x 100cm, 2016

In my solo exhibition “Interconnections” at the Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries in 2015 I was exploring human relationship to nature through childhood memory, our desire to reconnect coupled with our distance from it.  For the exhibition I undertook a residency on the Isle of Eigg with The Bothy Project for which I am doing a talk at The Stove, the artist-led organisation and multi-purpose arts venue, in Dumfries on 23rd June.

Installation views of “Interconnections” 2015

Other exhibitions include “Inscapes”, a solo exhibition at &Collective Gallery in Bridge of Allen earlier this year,  “Detritus & Other Stories” solo exhibition at Iota Gallery in Glasgow in 2014, D&G Out group exhibition at James Harvey Gallery in London 2014, Visual Arts Award Restrospective Exhibition at the John Gray Centre in Haddington 2013.   I am also currently Chair of Upland, a new and ambitious visual art and craft development organisation in Dumfries & Galloway.

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Each project I do is unique to the space its for. Gapfillers at Wasps Briggait spaces last year was a 5 day 40hr drawing performance that took the idiosyncrasies of the front of house project spaces as its starting point. It was an exhibition that united repetition, accumulation and endurance alongside specific references to the site.

Gapfillers, 2015

Gapfillers, 2015

I‘m keen to bridge the anomalies between the spaces organisation and the interrelation dynamics of moving in and around those same spaces. I worked out how many pairs of post it notes would fill the gap between the length of one space and the other. I would then apply this rule to making marks that occur across a regular gap between pairs of post-it notes in an accumulative act of repetition, I continue this until the post-its don’t stick and fall off. As an outcome the resulting wall drawings led by their rules and processes, in seeking to fill those anomalies within the site may in fact be renouncing itself in the very act of extolling its presence. In doing so Gapfillers may be less a ‘fullness of space ‘and instead a ‘fullness of emptiness’.

Scapelands at DrawingBox Belgium sought to extend and immerse the viewer in what exists between what Blanchot refers to as the ‘two spheres that didn’t know each other, two moments in time perhaps entirely foreign to each other and yet coming together within their shared foreignness’. This could be identified as the body meeting the site and how one activates it. The spaces were measured with A4 sheets that were numbered then were rolled up, the last sheet rolled up determined where the ‘rolled space’ would be placed. Alongside this, a system of drawing 1000’s of coloured squares (done in the order of the dryboard markers as they come in the packets). The rule was the first line of squares (which was based on the length of the doorway or pillar opposite etc.) would determine how many rows of squares should be made, that would determine the next block of squares until only one square was left. The result was two bodies of work, one extending an imploded space, the other an expanded activation of space.

Scapelands, 2015

Scapelands, 2015

Scapelands, 2015

Of late the performative element sees me interrogate the conceptual framework of drawing, from drawing as a means to cover, to a form of grafting of one space onto another through absurd acts measuring space.

This is best seen in the bad drawing/ paper cell for The Prison drawing project in March this year where I presented a film grafted onto the space that is the cell. It takes the notion of drawing as an act of covering and form of measurement, in an immersive act of attempted liberation. Measuring using rolls of paper, the film chronicles what could be seen as a bad day wallpapering a space, no assistants, paste or ladders just a desire to cover and negate the cell. Only stopping when exhausted, I’m offering up to the viewer a spectacle of endurance undaunted by a failure doomed from the start. In my attempts to be free of the cell, I’m potentially submerged in the paper as a result. The outcome is a film projected across the cell walls that unites the tension between the restricted, solid space with a fluidity and potential of the performative act. Consequently, the solid and static of the prison cell could be in doubt and liberation maybe indeed may be possible.

bad drawing/ paper cell, 2016

I only use office materials ranging from post-it notes to highlighter pens and photocopy paper alongside process led, rule based repetition, endurance, accumulation and duration. Taking anomalies of the space, I’m seeking to test or expand alternative body/site relations with regard to space and thinking. The results in the form of wall drawing, films, performances and installations, propose new dialogues and frameworks that aim to generate a condition of becoming, translation and flux instead of stasis; a site of experience rather than merely location.

bad drawing/ paper cell, 2016

 I’ve a bookwork coming out next month on my project/residency/ /exhibition WhiteNoise, which took place at The Centre for Recent Drawing in London last year, published by marmalade visual theory in London, I’m showing some performances in Concept  at Czong Institute of Contemporary Art (CICA) in South Korea next month, other projects this year include commissions for a walking drawing/ game in France and another for a cultural Centre in France where I’m working with a Brussels based dance company that will result in a series of wall drawing works and live performances where they wear the drawings quite literally albeit the ‘outfits’ so to speak will resemble nothing akin to clothing.

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OERSTED

RASMUS DANØ, SØREN HÜTTEL, DIRTY MAC, DAN MILLER, STEFF NORWOOD, KEV POLLOCK

Tree God, Mixed media on paper, 29cm x4 2cm, 2014. Image courtesy the artist (Photographer: Dan Miller).

Oersted will feature new work by six artists from Glasgow and Copenhagen. It will incorporate a wide range of media to create a dynamic and immersive audiovisual environment – a place of intermittent ocular and auricular experience.

The exhibition is named after the Danish chemist Hans Christian Oersted, who was the first person to produce aluminium in 1825. This discovery is directly linked to the industrial legacy of the site, which included the operation of an illegal smelt during the 1970’s. The title creates a dynamic link between the exhibition context and the manipulation of material, taking further inspiration from Oersted’s pioneering research into electromagnetism and acoustics.

Hopeful Landscape, Mixed media on paper, 11cm x 20cm, 2014. Image courtesy the artist (Photographer: Dan Miller).

Oersted is hosted and supported through WAVEparticle’s AiA (Artists in Arches) initiative, one of three dynamic spaces included in their Open Spaces programme. Over the past two years WAVEparticle have worked in partnership with the New Gorbals Housing Association and Urban Union to deliver the Art & Living: Laurieston strategic plan.

The inception of this project can be traced back to my first meeting with Rasmus Danø during the 2007 Supermarket art fair in Stockholm. We became firm friends and organised an exchange exhibition between Glasgow and Copenhagen in 2008. I first met Søren Hüttel during the installation of Through the Looking Glass at SWG3. It soon became clear that we all shared very similar artistic concerns and methodologies. Since 2008 we have exhibited together across Scandinavia, including Copenhagen, Malmø and Esbjerg.

I’ve worked collaboratively with Dirty Mac, Steff Norwood, Kev Pollock for the last ten years on a variety of collaborative projects and group exhibitions. The Cleland Lane arches provide the perfect context for the Glaswegian and Danish artists to work together on this ambitious large-scale project.

Spinalonga, Letterpress ink and lino cut on paper, 20cm x 25cm, 2014. Image courtesy the artist (Photographer: Dan Miller)

I’ll be working collaboratively with Dirty Mac to present a live audiovisual performance, concentrating on the themes of resolution, distortion and fidelity. I’m currently editing footage for a multi-channel synchronized video projection that will act as a catalyst for Mac’s sonic performance. For the exhibition I’ll be presenting a new series of digital banners and paintings. These allegorical works will investigate the legacy of capitalist realism and the territories of ratio and repetition.

OERSTED

RASMUS DANØ, SØREN HÜTTEL, DIRTY MAC, DAN MILLER, STEFF NORWOOD, KEV POLLOCK

Artists in Arches
Arches 1-3,
Cleland Lane,
Glasgow,
G5 9DS

Fri 8th April – Mon 25th April 2016
Mon – Sun, 1.30pm – 6pm

Preview Friday 8th April: 6pm
Live audiovisual performance Friday 8th April: 7pm

Scheduled performances will take place throughout the festival.
For more information and updates: www.oersted.industries

Supported by WAVEparticle and The Danish Arts Foundation.

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Tsunami

Blowing your own Trumpet

One Step

Recent residencies I have undertaken tend to use collaboration as a modus operandi, and include a Creative Lab at CCA Glasgow, 2012: a Collaborative Residency for Counterflows Music Festival 2013, with Berlin based sound artist, Annette Krebs, at CCA Creative Lab; a Rough Mix cross platform collaborative residency for Magnetic North Theatre Co, at Tramway March 2013; a Protest and Propaganda Lab at Metal Liverpool; and a Team Effort residency at South Side Studios, Govanhill, Glasgow.

Recent exhibitions include Sluice Art Fair, London; Turin & Marseille Artists’ Exchange for WASPS’s Studios; ‘Rough Edit’ at InterviewRoom11, Edinburgh Art Festival 2014, ‘East End Transmissions’ at the Pipe Factory: ‘New Wave’ at the “Old Hairdressers”, ‘Seven Inch’ and ‘Record Store’ at Monorail Records, Glasgow and Avalanche Records, Edinburgh; ‘Fools Gold’ at the Briggait Project Spaces.

Wealth

I am currently President of Scottish Artists Union, (the main representative voice for visual and applied artists living and working in Scotland, campaigning for better working conditions for the artistic community); I am also a Freelance Representative for Engage, the National organisation for gallery education; and a Regional Advocate for the Paying Artists Campaign.  These involvements doubtless have an indirect influence on my practice through an ongoing preoccupation with the politics of creativity and cultural engagement.

At the moment I’m up on Lewis, about to start a project for ‘Mapping The Arteries’ through An Lanntair, using the bus routes of the islands as a starting point to develop artworks that will be sited in the iconic bus shelters of the islands. This commission will be an interesting way to develop new works that further consolidate different aspects of my practice.

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E215 by Scott Willis

As a filmmaker, I get excited by the process of retrieving materials from the idea of an objective reality, similar to found object art. An absurd reality that does not have a structure. It is the deconstruction of those findings within the films post-production that excites me; new meanings emerge and the world becomes more intriguing.

When editing I get a comfort from the delusion that I am able to make sense of it all by directing narratives. You are able to strip down a physical world and allow an ethereal form to take over. I am told the act of meditation provides similar results and is more cost effective?

As my work process is derived from the idea of retrieving materials and treating film as if it were sculpture. My films have mainly been focused on objects and the people they come into contact with.

E215 began by observing a fridge that was abandoned in a disused quarry pool. I felt that the object floated with a sense of elegance, ignoring that it was decaying and was no longer suitable for its primary function. I realised that the fridge stuck to a daily routine and could be located at specific spots of the pool at certain times. This allowed me to plan shots to showcase its individuality.

I made E215 at art school while I lived with my gran. Did you just snigger at me?
Incorporating audio from a conversation we had, the films visuals then evolved into her psychological landscape. She was unaware I was recording so the audio feels intimate, not forced and very much her.

E215 is an insight into a meditative space where a woman reflects on her physical self change. Overall the film highlights that there is still life and beauty to be obtained from entities often left behind.

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I love working with anything I can get my hands on, print, wood, metal, textiles. It’s fun to make things which have some kind of interactive element which people can take part in. For example, squeezing your own lemonade or burning a paper mache goddess on a bonfire with baked potatoes in her belly to eat in a big feast. Making sculptures, or functional things or making food and music events all roll into one if they are all important, which I think they are.

At the moment I work mostly in clay and paint posters. I like throwing clay on the wheel, and sculpting on to them and paint them with coloured slip. I do not like to be too precious and there is so much to learn so I am constantly experimenting with shapes and paint differently as I go, ending up with quite a mixed bag of designs. I work to what I enjoy at the time, playing with mud is really fun… and it turns out I like to paint faces more than I thought. Some pieces are more like sculptures but their functionality is important to me because it can become part of your small everyday rituals and add beauty and happiness to a day and home.

I am exited to be collaborating with a woodworker right now as I think that collaborating is an interesting way to go with ceramics.

I have done a couple head cup painting workshops in my studio where people get a cup which has ears and they get to make it into whoever. I will be running new workshops in the new year…and am also planning to do more food/ceramic projects because to me they are always a good combination.

Look here for more information about the Firework Ceramic Studio.

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I’ve spent the last 10 years living in London and Brighton working as a photographer and in Production & Education within the Arts & Heritage sector for institutes such as The Photographers’ Gallery as Oral Histories Coordinator for The World in London project; commissioned for the London 2012 Summer Olympics, Photoworks; Curatorial Assistant for Myth Manners & Memory: Photographers of The American South exhibition at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, and Brighton Photo Biennial; Workshop Facilitator and Leader for Snapshot and You’ve Been Framed projects working with local school groups. More recently I worked as Studio Manager for Newangle, a creative digital agency that design interactive games and video installations nationally and internationally.

Since returning to Scotland in April 2015, I was awarded the Six Foot Gallery’s Artist in Residence Program, Glasgow, in association with Street Level Photoworks and Menzies Hotels, which concluded with a solo exhibition, Awakenings; a series of works created during the one-month program in July.

Following my diagnosis with Multiple Sclerosis in 2013, my practice has focused on relaying the associated feelings of uncertainty, fear, loss and liberation through my photography. Awakenings is an attempt towards dealing with notions of identity and the play on this in relation to my diagnosis, as well as the intention to raise awareness of MS.

My photography training developed when I enrolled on the BTEC National Diploma in Photography at City College Brighton and Hove in 2005, which then led me to complete a BA (Hons) Photography degree at the University of Brighton in 2010.

After graduating my creative practice lapsed between 2011 and 2014. I had focused the latter part of my degree on my father’s diagnosis of Motor Neurone Disease with the projects Railing At The Enthrallment to The Failing of The Light part I & part II. Part II gained notoriety when I was shortlisted for the International Talent Support Photo 2011 competition in Trieste, Italy. The objective of the competition was to also create a new body of work in response to Open The Possibilities. My response to the brief can been seen here The Diving Bell and The Butterfly.

It was tough dealing with the ‘card’ my family had been dealt. My way of dealing with my father’s diagnosis was by creating work in relation to the experience. My creativity was sucked out of me due to the emotions that unravelled. It wasn’t until I was dealt with my own diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis in 2013 that my creativity flourished and bounced back again.

A few months after being diagnosed I was introduced to George Pepper, Co-founder of Shiftms, a social network for people with Multiple Sclerosis. I became closely connected with the Shiftms team and in August 2014 I was invited to create a new body of work in response to the #GOOB (Good Out of Bad) commission, as part of their MS Energy initiative. With this, Perceiving Identity was created, which launched my photography into the public domain again with the #GOOB private view exhibition in London, February 2015.

I have always drawn inspiration from spending time in Scotland, in and around my parents home. Many of my projects have been shot in the North of Scotland, where I grew up. The combinations of internal/external landscapes of home/nature have been very influential in my work. More recently I have taken great interest in the writings of Oliver Sacks. His style of writing really hit home to me and has led me to dream up lots of ideas for continuing my photographic work in relation to my MS.

Next month I will be starting a new post in my hometown of Forres, with Digital Health and Care Institute who are in partnership with Glasgow School of Art. DHI innovate health and care solutions for Scotland, and more so, the harder to reach parts of Scotland, hence their location. I will be working closely with DHI in relation to my photography. The prospect of bringing my photography skills back to my hometown is a very exciting proposition for me, let alone the fact that the key objectives of DHI are health and care solutions, which is very in line with my own passions and the photographic work that I create.

My hope for the coming months is to have another exhibition in Scotland or UK, to push my work out there in order to raise further awareness about MS.

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Are you willing to participate?, 2015

With the help of the objects and sculptures that I produce or select, I lead an investigation of what objects communicate and are able to modulate within social relations. Through my work I tend to question the impact and subversive potential of our material environment in our lives. I use fiction as a means to negotiate reality: it allows me to explore and point out the artificiality of what is engraved as being intuitive, natural or presented as the norm.

Lately video has taken a substantial place in my practice. I write the scenario at the same time as I produce the objects that will later play a part in the video. In this sense constructing the characters happens both in words and through material research. Therefore the two processes influence one another in the construction of the narration. I see exhibitions as occasions to extend the fictional space developed in videos through sculptures and installation that generate new directions for the work. Likewise the installation of a video can engender another installation, until it reaches a sense of exhaustion.

When I arrived at the Cooper Gallery Summer Residency in July, I’ve just finished the video Nothing Remains, Only Us and freshly set it up in a group exhibition. The video presents a man recalling a community he was part of. The people living in this community aimed to inhabit together a shared house in a way that will disturb their way of living and therefore create new means of experiencing and acting in society. The only rule which is said to have existed and been stressed was to produce a new object a day “which implied as a tacit agreement to break one thing beforehand”. The work shown in Dundee extends the research explored in the video on strategies of resistance towards productivity and participation. It addresses what relations and ways to inhabit the world can material empowerment invent. The sculpture presented acts as a body that spatially regulates the three approaches to material production in relation to individual withdrawal to the logic of labour.

One side of the sculpture shows the video on a flat screen TV. Viewers are invited to sit in this space filled with objects being in a bad mood or displaying their feelings and weaknesses. They express their dissatisfaction toward their functionality echoing a broader contemporary requirement of being happy, complete and accomplished but also functioning and productive. Inter-dependence is put on focus when care is applied to wherever the sculpture needs to: bandages cover flat angle brackets that needed to be added during the install to fix the fleshy beam as for the cushion that stands where the beam needed support.

During the residency, I started to reflect on notion of productivity within an artistic practice when responding to invitations to work. That’s what the opposite side of the sculpture draw upon. There, a drawing of an open mouth made with pink glitters rests on a curvy wall. The hole is cut out which allows to see the inside of the structure. Through this hole I’ve thrown the genuine and organic ceramic objects I made in the first weeks of the residency when aiming to populate and decorate my working environment Dundee. Performing a mindless and wrecker maker seemed to be an appropriate reaction when thinking of perpetual mobility and immediacy of production. I came here reading over The Lesbian Body of Monique Wittig again. The author is known for a statement she made in The Straight Mind, which was that lesbians are not woman since woman is nothing but a social class that they refuse to be part of. What is interesting is how she implies that lesbians refuse to become or to remain heterosexual, implying a conscious decision over passing a simple desire to revolt by taking concrete action endangering the patriarchal society. In The Lesbian Body she recalls the physical, material and mental love from one woman to another. This desire is mediated through the consumption of every bit of the partner’s body. A carnivorous, violent and destructive experimentation where the body has to be eaten and digested in order to be understood adored and re-invented. That was an opening point in considering the motif of destruction as a form of empowerment over one’s existence. This is extremely present in the video and I extend this aspect in the back of the sculpture when thinking of my own relation to labour.

Finally, on top of the structure, I’ve placed a terracotta pot that my mum made before I was born. We had a discussion around this pot a couple of days before I left for Dundee. It served as a proxy to discuss her long life living-and-working economy in which I was raised.  My stepfather and her started to rehabilitate a house whilst we were living there decades ago. Once the house was ready, it was sold in order to buy a new site. This process happened over and over and merged work and life. The pot is one of the rare objects that remain from all the relocations. Family and friends already appeared in some of my works, either through their material production or featuring some videos. Florent Dubois who plays the interviewee in the video presented at the Cooper Gallery is also a friend of mine. It was his first experience as an actor and for me the first time I asked someone to enact a well-defined role and to deliver a script. We spent three days together in what used to be my studio in Lyon and shot the whole thing on green screen.

Anouchka Oler will exhibit at Cooper Summer Residency Exhibition 2015: THINGNESS? until 10 October.

Images courtesy of the artist and Cooper Gallery DJCAD, University of Dundee. Photographer: Ross Fraser McLean.

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Eve McConnachie is a graphic designer based in Glasgow. She trained as an animator at Duncan of Jordanstone Dundee and has been in-house designer and filmmaker for Scottish Ballet since 2009. The Bird is the first piece created under ‘Scottish Ballet Creative’  – an ongoing project in which the Company collaborates with contemporary artists, filmmakers and musicians. This short film for Scottish Album of the Year Award-winner Kathryn Joseph, directed, filmed and edited by Eve. Here she tells us more about the making of this film.

Scottish Ballet’s online audience has been growing steadily for the past few years, with our online videos receiving hundreds of thousands of views per year. The films I create are mainly behind-the-scenes documentaries and trailers that promote productions, but Scottish Ballet have been looking to produce more creative content that would not be for promotional purposes. This led to the idea of ‘Scottish Ballet Creative’, an initiative that would see the company produce creative digital projects and collaborate with other artists.

Kathryn Joseph’s involvement came about very organically; we were listening to her music in the office and were awestruck by her haunting vocals and her raw and emotive lyrics. When we approached Kathryn for this project she was pleased and, I think surprised, to hear from us. She is a big fan of dance already so she was very enthusiastic from the start. When I asked if she’d like anything in particular for the film, she said she’d be happy whatever we came up with. It was a completely open brief and you can’t really ask for anything more generous.

The first thing I did was to listen to the track on loop. I also collected a ton of visuals that fit with my emotional response to the song. I showed these images to Kathryn and she confirmed that I was on the right track. I wanted to create something that would do justice to her beautiful song – and then Kathryn won the SAY award and I really knew the pressure was on!

Image by Christina Riley

The film features Sophie Laplane (pictured above), who is not only a wonderful dancer, but also a talented choreographer. I knew that she would bring something special to the film. Sophie decided not to choreograph a complete dance piece; instead we workshopped some key movements and then Sophie improvised to the track on the day.

Kathryn already had a short video for The Bird – of a murmuration of starlings. I didn’t think I’d be lucky enough to find a similar flock of birds, but I wanted to echo Sophie’s choreography with the natural movements found in a wild landscape. So I knew I was looking for a location with long grass and water, and I was hoping to film at sunset.

I spent the next week combing the west coast for a suitable location, accompanied by my dad and his bearded collie, Ben (pictured below). Eventually we found a great spot at the edge of an Irvine golf course: secluded, with a nice view of Arran, even a gorgeously silvered driftwood tree on the beach nearby. It was a typically dreich evening – grey, windy and wet – so I couldn’t get an idea of the sunset, but Ben (the dog) unearthed the bird wing which you see at the start of the video.

On the day of the shoot the sky wasn’t the atmospheric grey that I’d expected – instead we got the best day of the summer! We packed my gear into the car along with sandwiches, biscuits, chocolate and gallons of hot tea – all the essentials. When we arrived the coast was bathed in the beautiful warmth of a low evening sun so we quickly got to work.

I was shooting on a Canon DSLR with 50mm and 28mm prime lenses; shooting on a DSLR lets me get the shallow depth of field that I love. It’s also lightweight enough that I can shoot without a tripod – which meant that I could adapt quickly to Sophie’s movements.

After years of filming dance at Scottish Ballet, I’ve found that it’s best to keep the camera loose and responsive. You can plan your shots to a certain extent, but often on the day it’s the happy accidents that are the bits I like the best. I use my own (cheaper!) version of steadicam, using the camera strap stretched tightly against my neck to steady the shot. I think if the camera is free to move then you can respond better to the dancer – perhaps your shots aren’t as perfectly composed but it makes the performance more alive. Personally, my favourite shots are often technically imperfect; out of focus or only catching a small part of the dancer onscreen, but I think that imperfection makes you focus on the detail in a way that isn’t possible in a live performance.

We shot from 7pm till just before midnight. Fortunately I had good light for a long time because it was just after the longest day of the year. However, that also meant that poor Sophie spent hours in the wind in nothing more than a light dress. You’d never guess from the footage, but when the camera stopped filming her teeth would immediately begin to chatter. You can’t see, but there was always someone standing ready just off-camera armed with a blanket and a hot cup of tea! She still looked amazing though and never complained once.

Image by Christina Riley

Image by Christina Riley

My favourite part of the video is the last third, where the sun is low and the sky was especially vivid. By this point Sophie was freezing so we only had time for two shots – one ultra wide to get the sky and a second in close up. The colours were absolutely beautiful, so I’m glad she toughed it out.

Sophie then escaped to sit in the car with the heating on, while I stayed to get some final shots of the deserted beach. I ended up leaving the camera balanced carefully on the sand while I ran at a group of seagulls waving my arms frantically to scare them into flying into shot. (I’m glad the beach was empty at this point.)

The shoot only lasted one evening but the edit took far longer. I probably listened to the song another hundred times over this period. My first step when editing is to re-watch all the footage, picking out my favourite moments. Then I’ll piece together a rough edit. We’d thought we might need to do a second day of shooting but I could tell immediately that I had enough footage to tell a complete story. Just as well, as that sunset was never to be repeated!

The first edit came together fairly quickly, but then I spent days chopping, changing, and rearranging – trying to get the overall flow of the film right. I’ve learned that, with dance on film, perfect continuity isn’t as important as visual flow. Rather than piecing together movements that match up perfectly in a linear progression, I think it is much more effective to combine shots which have the same feeling, or contrast in an interesting way.

The end result was really well received, and bringing us to the attention a lot of people who might not have noticed us before. Everything worked for us on the day – that freakishly beautiful sunset and Sophie’s amazing improvisation. I can’t wait for my next Scottish Ballet Creative project!

Sophie Laplane’s new work Maze will be performed in September and October as part of Scottish Ballet’s Autumn Season 2015. Find out more information here.

See Eve’s showcased work on Central Station here.

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Nothing is Lost: Three artists, three artforms, one city, a shared sensibility. Alison Irvine, Chris Leslie and Mitch Miller set out to document the East End before, during and after the Commonwealth Games. Glasgow’s East End is one of the most impoverished areas in Europe. The Games brought a promised legacy of change and regrowth, of rebuilding, economic and cultural investment – of a new East End, where gap sites were filled and populations returned.

The three artists met market traders, travelling showpeople, playworkers, community activists, cafe owners and local children. They gathered stories and sought out images from the places changed by the Games, those largely untouched, and those left behind. Are things better for the East End? Nothing is Lost offers a way for the reader to work out the truth of the post-Commonwealth city for themselves, through words, photographs and dialectograms.

Chris Leslie’s photographs chronicle Glasgow’s changing fabric. His beautiful, yet unflinchingly stark photographs document the breaking and remaking of the city, its broken bones, lost relics, inconvenient remnants.

Mitch Miller makes dialectograms, illustrations as idiosyncratic as the word suggests, the edges of the city drawn from on high, but as those at ground level see and live it – an intricate, entangled and glorious mess – place as something made up as we go along.

Alison Irvine provides the words. Alison is a novelist who weaves stories from intensive research. She teases out stories, testimonies, moments, follows networks of friends, relatives and acquaintances. In her spare but textured prose the characters speak in select, but eloquent voices that speak from, and of the place itself. Alison explains the trio’s work process below.

In a recent email, prospecting for work, I wrote of our collective:

Our skills lie in unearthing little-known or untold stories about Glasgow the city and its people, and our strengths lie in the fact that we interpret our research in a variety of artistic forms giving a rich, comprehensive and multilayered view of our subjects.

I think that’s a good formal summing up of us: me, the writer; Chris the photographer and filmmaker; and Mitch the illustrator and maker of dialectograms.

An informal summing-up would include the fact that we all benefit from the shared experience, both artistically and socially. We share ideas, hunches, tip-offs, photographs, interview transcripts, anxieties, moans, coffees, shandies. We share family, friends, contacts – anyone who could contribute to our project. And we share the impending deadline which when you’re working with others you could potentially let down if you don’t do your bit, is a massive motivator. Because ultimately, after all the research, it’s just each of us on our own, getting our ideas down and making our work.

In this project we all came with some ideas which we pursued together – we interviewed Gary Barton of the Barras and Schipka Pass fame together, for example – and then we followed the interview up individually, exploring our own narratives and angles.

I liked being at Baltic Street Adventure Playpark, Dalmarnock, and chatting with kids and their families, seeing Mitch with his sketch pad, Chris with his camera, and knowing that we three with our different disciplines were attempting to capture the essence of the play park for the same artistic end. ‘More bloody artists than weans,’ I remember Mitch saying at one point, but the kids didn’t seem to mind.

It’s a sociable way to work and also an expansive one. It stops the ideas from drying up, it makes me think bigger, and respond to the questions that the others ask. We by no means agree on everything and our work definitely has our own experiences stamped on it – personal and political – but I hope that there is also a collective sensibility, some kind of coherence that ultimately ties it all together.

The story they tell takes us from the glamour of the Barrowland Ballroom to the hidden communities caught in the crossfire of major regeneration. It taps into the hopes, fears and dreams of East End youth and the fading memory of demolished districts and East End entrepreneurs. We meet Games volunteers and visit the Adventure Playground built by Assemble Architecture in sight of the new Athlete’s Village in Dalmarnock. We find an East End of many faces, and many possible futures.

Take a look at the limited edition (only 500 printed) box set of 3 books and 2 fold out dialectograms from Nothing is Lost here. Mitch Miller will be exhibiting and selling the books throughout his PhD show SOCIAL MATERIAL: Encountering the Dialectogram at Project Space 2, Art School Union, The Glasgow School of Art from 5-8 September 2015 (preview 6pm, 4 September 2015).

Read more from Chris Leslie and Mitch Miller on Central Station.

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