To the shore : Exhibition 1 December

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From the realm of the sea

To the shore.

A recent exhibition by continuing Art Space and Nature MFA students investigated the sea’s vibrant materiality and chaotic order, following fieldwork in the Outer Hebrides. A further exhibition building on this work will follow at ‘An Lanntair’ gallery, Stornoway in March next year.

‘ORIGINS’ Russell Beard

Filmed on Tulsa Beach on the Isle of Lewis in the Scottish Outer Hebrides, Russell Beard’s video installation ‘ORIGINS’ consists of a mirrored moving image of the complex patterns created in water, sand and sunlight where a river meets the sea.*

*Alternatively it could be read as a time piece, concerning the origins of our own vital materiality…. and how certain properties emerge from complex chaotic systems amid the ongoing oscillations between the creative generative forces of life’s perpetual becoming and the dissipative cosmic processes of entropy and decay.

Alex Hackett

Photo: Russell Beard

Alex Hackett

Photo: Russell Beard

Alex Hackett

Alex Hackett’s work goes within the sea to experience the shoreline. Adopting sculptural forms and materials from the Isle of Lewis alongside sympathetic found materials, she creates objects reflecting the mystical nature of the shore. Texts document the material qualities of the water as affected by weather, the elements and light, whilst bearing the mark of the personal.

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‘swell’ Will Urmston

Will Urmston’s piece came to light during a stay in a cliff-side bothy on the west coast of Lewis. Looking through to the sea below, we enter ‘the cave’ and look outward with clarity as we face the peace of our own elemental existence.

‘…No Better Than Its Woods’ at Patriothall Gallery

“This great society is going to smash;
They cannot fool us with how fast they go,
How much they cost each other and the gods.
A culture is no better than its woods.”

– from ‘Woods’, W.H. Auden

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This exhibition brought together work by current MA/MFA students on the Art Space and Nature programme at Edinburgh College of Art following recent fieldwork in the Black Wood of Rannoch, one of the few remaining areas of ancient Caledonian forest in Scotland.

Olivia Tutton

Chrissy Hughes

Russell Beard

Will Urmston

Teddy Hunter

Alex Hackett

Photographs : Alex Hackett

CLUSTER at ECCI, Edinburgh International Science Festival

Art Space and Nature students recently exhibited as part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival, with an exhibition at Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation [ECCI]. The exhibition explored carbon in its many forms, whilst working within the context of the state of the art building and ECCI’s approach to creating a low carbon future.

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Chrissy Hughes and Olivia Tutton

Yulia Kovanova

Alex Hackett

Russell Beard

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Photographs : Sam Sucík

Solo Shows in Tent Gallery

Art Space and Nature MAFA students recently organised a series of One Day Solo Shows in Tent Gallery, showing current work.

The first of the solo shows featured work from three artists; with Olivia Tutton’s work delicately exploring themes of memory and language. Russell Beard examined entropy and transitioning physical materials, and Alex Hackett’s installation of sculptural objects presented an absurd and Anthropocenic sea.

Olivia Tutton

Russell Beard

Alex Hackett

Photographs : Russell Beard and Alex Hackett

STRAVAIG : an exhibition of wanderings, 9 December

Photographs from the opening of the exhibition ‘STRAVAIG’. From the Scots [to wander, roam, traverse] ‘STRAVAIG’ is an exhibition of material wanderings from all current Art Space and Nature MAFA students.

Maria Van Beuningan

Yulia Kovanova

Russell Beard

Coral Mallow

Alex Hackett

Olivia Tutton

Will Urmston

Chrissy Hughes

‘b e t w e e n’ at Tent Gallery

The first exhibition of the new and continuing MA/MFA Art Space and Nature took place on Thursday 22 October. Performance, installation and language combined to form an exhibition of work on the spaces in between things, the shadow, in all its dimensions.

b e t w e e n exhibition

Will Urmston

‘Anthropogastronomy’ Alex Hackett, Hilary Masin and Olivia Tutton

‘Arboreal’ at Patriothall Gallery- Photo Recap

First year ASN students recently put on a show centered around the theme of forests, inspired by a weekend fieldwork trip to the Black Wood of Rannoch. Works included installation, video and digital media, painting, and audience-participatory and interactive pieces.

Rites of Silence

Sonia Ali and Wolfgang Thomas

This audiovisual installation inspired by Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’ brings forth that which we cannot see and hear. The constant toil of the unforgotten micro-organisms without which we in the macro sphere would not exist.

Rites of Silence – Sonia Ali and Wolfgang Thomas

Bryo

Rachel Powell

Exploring the micro and the macro. Often overlooked and trodden underfoot, the smallest environments in the world are often the most important.

Bryo – Rachel Powell

Lotophagous

Zhao Xie

“Lotophagous behaviours, which are fuelled with imaginings and illusions as they can easily lead to reality disavowal.” (Quote from Jean-Francois Vernay’s reviewing book Water from the Moon of Australian Novelist Christopher Koch’s works)

Lotophagous – Zhao Xie

Rhizome

Yanli Shen

The title comes from root systems and philosophy. It refers to the idea that everything touches at some point, dense Black wood, sunlight, and darkness. It is about not seeing what’s there. Nature uses camouflage you can miss what’s in front of you unless you really look. The work mimics this thinking.

Rhizome – Yanli Shen

Dancing Shadows

Nadia Dermatopoulou

It is an experimental video installation trying to capture the relaxation and the calmness of being in a forest based on shadow theater techniques.

Dancing Shadows – Nadia Dermatopoulou

By foot

Akshaya Lakshmi Narsimhan

walk. blink. look down – A piece of the forest floor to walk on, by foot.

By foot – Akshaya Lakshmi Narsimhan

Colours of the Blackwood

Christina Gråberg Røsholt

The Blackwood of Rannoch seen through a pinhole. Capturing the beauty of the forest with its natural lighting and colours, but not in a conventional ‘picture perfect’ way.

Colours of the Blackwood – Christina Gråberg Røsholt

Element in Green

Elin Webb

A film that both enhances and distorts the movements inherent but usually missed within nature.

Element in Green – Elin Webb

Forest Geometry

Diandra Saginatari

Abstract visualization of three dimensional space in the Black Wood of Rannoch through two dimensional geometric shape explorations.

Forest Geometry – Diandra Saginatari

O-hOrizon

Allison Palenske and Sonia Ali

The amplification of microorganisms through a sensory investigation and isolation of fungi, algae, lichens and insects. Brought to you by The[Dinner]Lab- finding utility within the overlooked.

O-hOrizon – Allison Palenske and Sonia Ali

Arboreal took place at Patriothall Gallery from 24 May-26 May 2014.

‘C’ exhibition at ECCI: Photo Recap

The students of Art, Space and Nature opened a well-received exhibition at the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation last week, amid the many wonderful events for the Edinburgh International Science Festival.

The following works were included in the exhibition, which is set to run until 25 April 2014.

24 x NO2

Christina Gråberg Røsholt

Giving a size and shape to the hourly average air pollution in Edinburgh measured at St. John’s Road. Monthly timeline for the past two years, 2012-2013, showing the change in air quality.

Inhale:Exhale

Sonia Ali and Allison Palenske

A set of works exploring the ‘macro’ role of ‘micro’ algae within the carbon cycle, through its power of carbon absorption. The combination of wall installation, projection and carbon-mitigation themed cocktails explores algae’s versatility and potential for impact.

Commodity

Elin Webb

All the shoes I have ever owned from birth until now- 31 years. I have no particular interest in shoes but when trying to remember them all, I realise that my own environmental impact regarding their manufacture is (necessarily?) considerable.

Wham

Yanli Shen

A painting made with great anger against the production of carbon.

Viral Space

Javier Vidal Aguilera

Digital photographs of three ephemeral installations in Orkney, Glen Nevis and Edinburgh.

Let’s Talk Carbon!

Zhao Xie, Diandra Saginatari, Akshaya Lakshmi Narsimhan

The string installation is designed as a 3 dimensional graphic tool that maps out people’s emotional response towards carbon and climate change.

Carbon Symphony

Patrick Lydon, Stephanie Ghetta, Nadia Dermatopoulou, Flavia Salvador

Using sound and visual illumination, this installation takes per-capita carbon emissions statistics for 200 of the world’s countries, and maps them to our most personal form of carbon emission, the human breath.

Surrounded by mist

Sara Ocklind

This is a mixed media piece. Where I relate the landscape with the carbon itself.

ASN Students Prepare Exhibition at Pier Arts Centre

ASN students are in Orkney this week, for the upcoming Element exhibition. Working alongside curator Andrew Parkinson and other staff members of the Pier Arts Centre, the students are installing a variety of two-dimensional and three-dimensional pieces. The show includes photography, three-dimensional models, digital compositions, video art, paintings, and sculpture pieces, all inspired by their fieldwork on the islands in October 2013.

The exhibition will open tonight (Thursday, 13 February) at 7:30pm, and will run through 28 February 2014.

Photo Recap from Topoi Exhibition Series: Dystopia

ASN students continued the Topoi exhibition series this past Thursday with a dehumanizing take on the theme of “Dystopia”. The show received great attendance, and included performance art, video, photography, sound, and three-dimensional work.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and participated!

The next show in the Topoi series will be the 14th of November, addressing the theme of “Utopia.” More details to come!