Install shots from Patrick Graf’s project Mr Cow’s Swiss Delicatessen

Alongside providing affordable studios for up to 20 artists at a time, Rhubaba run an annual public programme of exhibitions, performances, screenings and other one-off events. Rhubaba’s programme has included to date solo-shows by Ed Atkins, James Clarkson, Patrick Graf and Hannah James; groups shows and events with works by Nathalie De-Briey, Alex Gross, Rebecca Kressley, Ewan Sinclair, and collaborative projects with David Dale Gallery and Studios, Glasgow, Central Reservation, Bristol, the duchy gallery, Glasgow, Intercity Mainline, London, Lombard Method, Birmingham and Outpost Gallery, Norwich and more recently significant group exhibitions with artists including Gelitin, Julius Koller, Lucy Clout, David Blandy, Gintaras Didžiapetris and others.

Catherine Payton from recent group show We Are All U.F.O-nauts

Rhubaba was founded in 2009 as a communal studio and project space, in response to a gap in appropriate studio provision for recent graduates and the desire to create a space dedicated to both the production and presentation of contemporary art. Rhubaba initially housed ten recent graduates from Edinburgh College of Art and during its first year organised a series of exhibitions in temporary spaces around the city as well as with host venues further afield. Rhubaba has continued to develop an ambitious programme and moved to its current home in 2010 to accommodate more studios and a permanent gallery space.

Graduation by Josephine Flynn, part of the group show Semi

There are currently fifteen artists working in the studios, built within the same space as the gallery, in a warehouse in Leith. The aim of the studios is to provide affordable workspace for early-career artists and foster a critical and supportive community, where self-organised activities such as meetings and critiques are enabled.

Video still from Alan Currall’s video Congratulations and Goodbye, part of the group show Semi

Rhubaba is committed to generating a supportive workspace and a dynamic platform for local and international artists. Rhubaba aims to give early-career artists the opportunity to produce new work in a discursive environment, work collaboratively with other artist-led initiatives and explore wider debates in contemporary art, bringing exciting and challenging works to Scotland. The gallery provides a welcoming and experimental environment for audiences to access thought provoking art projects.

Rhubaba Gallery and Studios can be found at 25 Arthur Street, Edinburgh, EH6 5DA.

For more information, including how to become a member of Rhubaba, visit the website here.

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

The Space is also a place where everybody can experiment with ideas and play with images, text and sound.

Why we like it:
The Space provides access to all of the arts in one place where it is absolutely free to discover and enjoy. Their easy to navigate site allows you to find films including BFI Shorts, musical treats, contemporary dance and performance videos.

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For more creative delights we’ve Spotted on the web take a look here.

The start of the rain also shared the same weekend with the End of Term for schools in Glasgow. Again, not exactly what you want after fleeing the school gates and running for the rounders pitch but wonderful for the first ever Great Scottish Double Rubble Chip Challenge!

In the run-up to Glasgow Harvest 30 schools around Glasgow are taking part in the Double Rubble Chip Challenge for the chance to win money (oh, yes) towards a new or improved growing space in the school grounds. With ‘foolproof’ instructions and growing kits donated by us, the ‘challenge’ is to grow potatoes (from scratch, of course) and to produce the best tasting poke of chips, which will be judged at Glasgow Harvest on the 28th of August by a fierce panel of chip-shop owners.

The growing has already begun and the competition is heating up!

Be inspired by the schools and remember to grow your own, too! If you don’t feel so hot on the planting side of things, get dreaming up some ideas for the Creative Container Competition and grow something from a seedling instead or make a date with some fruit and your hob and get involved in the Jam Dating Agency - someone might just have the fruit your spare jars were looking for (oh dear)!

Put your best shoot forward.

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To find out what Tasty twEATS & Harvest 2010, click here.

Hidden Spaces – what do they mean and how do they affect us? Each person carries with them their own sense of home, tied to their sense of belonging, their past and their wished-of future. From this conception of home we construct the world around us – places we feel safe in, drawn to, wary of, excluded from and intrigued by.  Our idea of these places might change as we grow familiar with them, as personal and emotional associations fluctuate, as our bodies move through space and as others enter or leave that space – constructing spaces of migration, dislocation, settlement and even bereavement, each with conceptually structured layers of surface, accessibility and invisibility overlaying the physical construct of our environment.

With such a subjectively-framed starting point, not only will personal interpretations of hidden spaces vary, but these will be carried into the cultural and professional production of spaces, so an architect’s perception of Hidden Space might be very different from a public artist’s, an anarchist’s or a film location scout’s, and each of these professionals will in turn come to influence how we navigate the space around us.

From this broad and permeable conception of space we’ve drawn a few more concrete examples, and we’ll be featuring differing approaches to the theme of Hidden Spaces. From Curator to Artist to Poet, we’ve invited some guest bloggers to write about their relationships with spaces, here are some of the contributors we’ve got lined up to kick things off:

Matt Baker, in the past Lead Artist for both Inverness and the Gorbals, writing on hidden space from the perspective of someone who makes public art. Read his blogs: hiding, finding and the search, space hidden in things, looking for unconformity… & seasoning time.

Sarah Butler, author and head of the UrbanWords consultancy, developing projects which explore regeneration and place through creative writing. Read her blog here.

Richard Taylor, freelance artist & writer, talks about his collaboration on a project focused on abandoned spaces. Read his blogs: ArtEvict – hidden space and revealing performance, SPLICING HORRISONS, Hidden space – tent as a transitory studio, THE CUMBRIA ENERGY CENTRE & getting lost remaining hidden

Collaborative collective, Sans Facon, gave us a continued visual dairy of hidden spaces being enjoyed in everyday life. See their observations here.

We also had contributions from:
Arika – Shadowed Spaces
Johanna Basford – hidden (work) spaces
Neil McGuire – Hidden Spaces: Supreme Social Networks
Erin McElhinney – What’s in a name?
Susan Castillo – Hidden Space
Fraser Denholm – Tracing Places

Tell us about your hidden spaces - add a link to a blog, a video or photographs from the overlooked or concealed spaces of your city in the comments below.