The Back of Your Face, 2015, by Holly Hendry

For full documentation of the artwork go here.

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The piece is a development of Techno Utopia from his 2015 exhibit Anticipatory Objects and explores ideas around migration.

Techno Utopia, for 23:57

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Mail Boxes Etc. Izzy Bocchetti

The highly individual installations for The Rose Street Project create a public gallery right on the high street, providing public art open to everyone visiting the city, day and night until early January.

The project is a result of measures put in place by Essential Edinburgh to improve Rose Street’s identity and community engagement. Nestled between George Street and Princes Street, Rose Street and its independent retailers are often overshadowed by the major retailers nearby. This project aims to help put Rose Street on the map by boosting footfall and increasing activity there.

Murdo Maclean’s Anupa Gardner

Social Bite Louise Smurthwaite

The result has been less about traditional Christmas display, but instead has created highly individual installations in a new, public context, demanding new and fresh approaches to the invited artists’ creative practices.

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Grid Play, 2015, Projected Stop Motion Film, Laser Cut Wood, Perspex, Screenprints

Grid Play installation by Rachel Hendry.

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ASCHENPUTTEL ballet stage design by Germany based stage designer, Sebastian Hannak.

For more from Sebastian on his work process for stage design, read his article on Central Station here.

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Clyde Reflections is a 33-minute film and audio-visual installation based around interviews with seven people that explore their perceptions of the marine environment in the Firth of Clyde. It has been selected to run at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), from 29 May to 5 July, as part of the gallery’s Moving Image Season. The project was devised by Glasgow-based artist filmmaker Stephen Hurrel and social ecologist Ruth Brennan, a research associate at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS). They got in touch to tell us a bit more about their creative work process.

Stephen Hurrel & Ruth Brennan at GoMA, photo by Katie Bruce

Clyde Reflections grew out of ideas and working methods employed within recent marine-based film, digital media and social science projects that Hurrel and Brennan have undertaken, both as a collaborative art-science team, since 2011, and independently. Clyde Reflections was commissioned by Imaging Natural Scotland/Creative Scotland and is currently installed in the grand, main space of GoMA as part of their Moving Image Season.

Still from Clyde Reflections (featuring underwater footage by Howard Wood) by Hurrel and Brennan

Hurrel and Brennan’s collaborative activity began after meeting on a Cape Farewell (art-science) expedition, which involved sailing to several islands in the Outer Hebrides to explore ideas around sustainability. Following that trip Hurrel was offered a Cape Farewell commission to produce a short film on the island of Barra. He had also become aware that the research methods that Brennan was using as a social ecologist on Barra were similar to approaches that he, and other artists involved in socially-engaged art practice, had used.

So it seemed a good opportunity to explore possible crossovers within the same environment. Brennan’s doctoral research aimed to gain insights into the roots of a conflict over the creation of two marine protected areas off the coast of Barra through exploring the cultural, social and historical context of the local community. She used this cultural groundwork to shed light on how, in Barra, people and place function together within, and as, an ecosystem.

Stephen & Ruth, Barra outdoors studio by Stephen Hurrel

It became evident that there were meeting points in terms of working methods and areas of interest, and that the sharing of information, ideas and skills would be beneficial. One such interest lay in exploring different people’s perceptions of the same landscape as a way to reveal hidden relationships within natural and man-made environments.

The first art-science collaboration (that also involved social ecologist Iain MacKinnon) resulted in the publication Dùthchas na Mara/Belonging to the Sea*. Following this, Hurrel and Brennan developed a proposal that expanded on the research for the publication, and that engaged further with the people of Barra. That year-long project resulted in the online cultural map of the sea Sgeulachdan na Mara/Sea Stories: Barra.*

Barra Map by Stephen Hurrel

By 2013, Hurrel and Brennan had worked on a combination of independent and collaborative marine-based projects, and had a good foundation on which to develop a new project.

Work in Progress: text edit on wall and video edit by Stephen Hurrel

With Clyde Reflections, their initial idea was to engage in an exploratory process to reveal the complexity of an area of sea that is not normally evident when looked at by an outsider. By engaging with people who connect deeply with their environment, they wanted to create a multi-perspective representation of a particular marine area that would challenge a simplistic representation of a familiar environment. They believed this could provide a creative example of how ‘landscape’ is not a fixed entity, or separate from people, but is dynamic in terms of its socio-ecological properties as well as how it can be perceived. They were more interested in revealing a multi-layered reading of place than presenting a negative perspective and in creating an immersive experience that takes the viewer on a journey by creating a specific mood and pace.

Ruth said: “The aim of the film is not to deliver a specific message, but rather to provoke thought and reflection. How are people’s perceptions of the Clyde formed and how can the same body of water be perceived so differently by so many people?

“We also want people to consider and contemplate the bigger picture: How can we live sustainably? How do we deal with climate change? What is our relationship to the sea?”

Still from Clyde Reflections by Stephen Hurrel

Hurrel and Brennan’s grounded as well as creative approach is recognised as an important contribution to research being undertaken within the wider policy environment. They are currently collaborating as an art-science partnership alongside a multidisciplinary research team developing new marine spatial planning approaches in Sweden. This allows them to continue to explore complexities of relationships between nature and culture, and to devise new ways of employing visual, audio and digital art within a scientific context.

* www.mappingthesea.net – to download a PDF copy of the publication (Dùthchas na Mara/Belonging to the Sea) and to access the online cultural map of the sea (Sgeulachdan na Mara/Sea Stories: Barra)

There will be a free seminar tomorrow afternoon 13 June at GoMA with artist Stephen Hurrel, social ecologist Ruth Brennan, Prof Andrew Patrizio (Professor of Scottish Visual Culture, University of Edinburgh), Prof Sian Sullivan (Professor of Environment & Culture, Bath Spa University) and Chris Fremantle (independent researcher and producer, writer and initiator of ecoartscotland). For more information, visit here.

Clyde Reflections continues at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art until 5 July.

Hurrel and Brennan would like to thank their interviewees for their generous participation:
Howard McCrindle (retired fisherman) | Prof Paul Tett (Reader in Coastal Systems and Biological Ocenaographer) | Ven. Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche (Abbot of Kagyu Samye Ling and Executive Director of the Holy Isle Project) | Dr Fiona Hanna (Former Acting Director and Senior Lecturer at University Marine Biology Station Millport. Honorary Lecturer at University of Glasgow) | Howard Wood (Diver and Chair of Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST)) | Andrew Binnie (Executive Director, Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST)) | Adam Rose (Holy Isle Project Volunteer)

More: Stephen Hurrel | Ruth Brennan | Clyde Reflections

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Sleeping like a log by London based freelance Art Director and illustrator Matt Saunders (aka rabbit portal).

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Tess Williams is a London based artist specialising in painting and painting installation. She is currently at Central Saint Martins where she will complete her MA Fine Art in June 2015. She has exhibited widely across London at galleries including The Griffin Gallery, Studio 1.1, Schwartz Gallery and recently had a solo show at Chelsea College of Art. In 2014 Tess was chosen to be part of UK Young Artists where she exhibited in Leicester at Two Queens Gallery. Here she delves into her work process…

M.M.B., 2015

At the moment my work exists within the boundaries of traditional / deconstructed painting, installation and large-scale collage; exploring where one discipline ends and the next begins.

I am first and foremost concerned with the sensual immediacy of paint and its interaction with the porous materials that I chose to apply it to. My work explores the unprimed materiality of these textiles and how they can be enhanced, altered or adapted by paint. I never prime my materials in order to leave as much amount of absorption as possible. Meaning that the material and the paint become one, rather than the paint just lying on top of a surface, as with many primed paintings. The materiality of the work as a whole is important to me, allowing its evocative power to resonate.

I am also engaging with how folds, creases and movement within the materials can act as a form of mark making, creating shadows, lines and shapes, whilst adding new tones to the colours of the paint. I also explore the way folds introduce both inside and outside, in front and behind, what this evokes, compared with the emphasis on surface alone of traditional painting. Much of my work is questioning the role of the wooden stretcher within my work and what importance it plays. It adds a familiar structure for me to work with but can also hinder my freedom when making.

Outside In, 2015

Now you see me, 2015

I prefer to be surrounded by rich and absorbent visual stimuli in order to add depth and balance to what I perceive to be a world saturated with screen-based imagery.  I tend to disconnect from flat shiny impenetrable metals/plastic surfaces, and highly photoshopped or screen-based imagery. It is also because I cannot sense the physical touch that I veer away from this type of work. For me, the physical link between artist and viewer is important.

My reason for making the work I do is my reaction to the constant desire I have to produce things that don’t already exist. It is my way of working through everything I see and experience in daily life. It is how I process my ‘thinking’ and get the inside out. I want to make things that feel ‘right’ to me, in order to counteract all the things I see around me every day that seem so aesthetically wrong. ‘Right’ meaning imperfectly perfect and visually satisfying, not just ‘correct’.

Pocket, 2015

T.T.W., 2014

Collections of my visual memories and imprints coalesce into single paintings. These visual memories are documented by my support work of collage, photography and print. This is becoming an increasingly important way of sustaining the visual input into my practice and solidifying the feed of information, which I then translate into the final pieces.

I aim to create work that engages with the space it is placed in. Creating a dialogue between the install space and the work; the wall and the materiality of the painting.
Total immersion in a space/artwork is enveloping and grounding, and I find this to be one of the most engaging physical experiences as a viewer.

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Dialectical Materialism by Glasgow based illustrator and printmaker Emer Tumilty.

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Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival returns for its 10th anniversary from 17 – 21 September. Focusing on the theme of Border Crossing, the five day festival will feature film premieres, site-specific installations, workshops and live events.

The opening gala and UK premiere, Maramosh by Momcilo Mrdakovic explores the journey of middle-aged cinephile and film projectionist Pera from war-torn Serbia to New York. Installations can be found around Berwick and include work from artists Rachel Maclean, Douwe Dijkstra and Kristina Cranfeld amongst others exploring complex questions about identity and war. Orchestra of Samples is a live event by Addictive TV which delivers electronic music with visuals; the music will be provided by a group of virtual musicians from all over the world who have never met.

Find more information about the festival programme here.

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