Modern Edinburgh Film School is an education, research and production project that aims to explore, through a temporary participatory film school, combined themes of the sculptural screen, narrative and space, event as image, and acoustics and noise as form. It is an ambitious project that develops over participation with moving image artists, a curriculum of published film essays on recent and historical figures in moving image practices, a group show and screenings and the development of a new film that seeks to identify and explore the poetry embedded in an “Edinburgh screen, an Edinburgh camera” taken from an essay an American artist wrote in the late 1960s/early 1970s about art and film in Edinburgh.

The project seeks to raise funds to assist in the costs of publications, and to pay a group of artists in filmmaking and the moving image to contribute to the School as visiting lecturers, as faculty.

The work has a venue for next year, to be finally confirmed  and has attracted some public funding and while I am attracted to crowd-funding it does not seem practical to the nature of the show, which is discreet and academic. With this in mind I have created a small temporary print shop, featuring five new limited edition prints in the hope that this will raise £400-£1000 to contribute to the print costs for the Curriculum essays and artists fees.

The School will present a series of sessions on film and poetry, with the notion of a symposium and graduation at its completion. These themes are: “On Spaces of Uncertain Function”, “A Transmitter of Mysteries”, “Filming Day for Night, its message is open and allusive”, “This space evaporates, pursues, too,  yet requests time”, “flowers and questions, indoor: blue, black, permanent”, “Sculptural revisions, additions, equally found on photographs, maybe poetry and  possibly films” and “Displayed revisions echo future actions.”

It continues my work across the possibilities of combined media: writing, performance, sculptural installation, photographic images and recorded sound, alongside a deepening enquiry into the constructs of  and ephemeral gestures of identity, knowledge, feminine connotations and perception, which has included curated projects Belle Helaine for The Briggait, Heavy Influence for ESW and The Consequence for CCA/Intermedia, the installation Leves Vos Skinny Fists Comme Antennas to Heavenfor The Embassy, the performance Untitled (2011) at Edinburgh International Film Festival, the film Linda Fratianne for CCA and writing on Rosemarie Trockel, Kate V Robertson, Tim Rollins and K.O.S. and Kai-Oi Jay Yung.

Modern Edinburgh Film School will call for participants and contributions from Edinburgh-based education sites in moving image, and contemporary visual artists by invitation.

Find more about the project on Tumblr and follow Alex on Twitter here.

The SHO was established in Sep 2010 by Emily (Jewellery maker) & Dan (Animator). Based in Roath, Cardiff, the venture was set up as a friendly boutique art gallery and shop. The SHO supports both local and international artists and designers with frequently changing exhibitions. A mix of traditional art forms alongside contemporary digital design and illustration brings the venue alive with a cocktail of stimulating and inspirational work.

On display we have a mix of Original artworks, limited edition art prints, inspirational literature & magazines, collectable vinyl toys, home-wares and wearable designs such as jewellery and apparel.

Our plan is to host many more diverse future mixed/solo shows alongside one off events such as customised toy auction charity fundraisers, of which we have a couple lined up this summer.

We welcome exhibition proposals from artists [see below for a current callout].

Upcoming Exhibition – Call for entries

We are welcoming artists’ submissions to be part of our upcoming exhibition. This will be based around the art of character creation either in the form of individual character design or compositions of them within scenes of their fictional worlds/landscapes.

Visual personalities with strong/interesting identities and atmospheric characterized settings created through imagination and brought to life through style & design.

For brief download form here and for submission form download here

Visit The SHO’s website.
Follow The SHO on Twitter.
Like The SHO on Facebook.

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From time to time we feature galleries and spaces that showcase & encourage grassroots artists. Brows through more of our Featured Venues. Contact us to talk about a feature on your venue.

I thought the spaces were well considered and professional; more gallery, less Art School. The graduates were all there, happy to talk about their work. Most importantly, there was a dedication to their craft, a sense of hundreds of hours spent passionately creating work which was both beautiful and technically outstanding. Right across the board from Graphics, to Textiles, Ceramics and Fine Art, I felt the Grays graduates weren’t trying to pull any stunts or cocky art tricks, they had put in the hours and made some truly outstanding work.

Call me old school, but I like that.

Some things that caught my eye:

Alex Gordon’s Thin K Gallery – a show within the show. 3 Graduates (a printer, a painter and a sculptor) got together and curated their own exhibition. Clever concept.

You couldn’t miss Tessa Androutsopoulos’ space. A colour explosion of Pandas in rockets and quirky monoprints, eccentricity and bravery combine to make a truly memorable show.

Having followed her final year endeavors on Twitter this year, I was delighted to see the fruits of Jo Dodd’s labour. Graphics graduate with the beautiful ability to move seamlessly from slick digital to tactile screen print.

The textile designer in me loved these huge painted canvases by Jason Murray. Precise, graphic works with painstaking attention to detail. A beautiful, coherent collection of work which I’ll be doing my very best to get into a show at Musa Aberdeen…