Edinburgh Diamond | Books

Perspectives on HIV and sexual health in Spain

Jaime García-Iglesias — 2024-10-16

This report explores the perspectives of the situation of HIV and sexual health in Spain from numerous stakeholders, including healthcare professionals, policymakers, civil servants, activists and artists. It employs a multidisciplinary analysis to distill key problems and issues: including significant rises in STIs, a process of sexual transformation, a crisis of identity and loneliness, and a lack of coordination among services. The report includes key recommendations. This report also includes a prologue by the Spanish Secretary of State for Health, Javier Padilla.

Alternative Futures: Who Decides?

Rachel Green — 2024-10-02

This mini-book tells the story of the ‘The Ripple – Past, Present, Future’ Project, conducted as a research partnership between the Ripple Project, a community organisation in the Restalrig, Lochend and Craigentinny areas in Northeast Edinburgh, and the Binks Hub (University of Edinburgh) in 2023-24. The project used community art-making, creative and curational methods and practices to co-research local people’s experiences and understandings of their community, and express their hopes, dreams and demands for the future. In this mini-book we focus on the four artworks produced through the project and the series of exhibitions we curated to display them. We discuss how these exhibitions were curated to carry the wisdom of the community to wider audiences, and how this wisdom gives rise to a series of participatory democracy demands made of policymakers. The policy-focused aims of the project are summarised here, but are expanded upon in greater detail in our companion publication Alternative Futures: Who Decides? – The respectful inclusion of community voices in decision-making.

Alternative Futures: Who Decides?

The Ripple Project — 2024-10-02

The following report is a call to action. It describes the outcomes from a research partnership between “The Ripple Project”, a Community Centre serving Restalrig, Lochend and Craigentinny, and the “Binks Hub”, a research group based at the University of Edinburgh.

This collaboration has highlighted both a strong desire for improvements in core areas – such as community and green spaces – and demand from the community that their voices be heard on their own terms. Community members feel excluded from decision-making processes, despite prior engagement attempts from local and national government. They feel that lip service is paid to their local knowledge and lived experience, but they are not able to set the foundational terms on which policies are formed.

Our work shows that different ways of working together are possible: ways that allow community knowledge to be brought to the forefront and which deliver more efficient outcomes that will have a much greater positive impact on the communities being served.

Daire’s Airc, Vol. 1

Iain Scott — 2024-06-24

Degree Show Catalogue documenting the first year of a two-year ESALA MArch (Integrated Pathway) studio, ‘Daire’s Airc’. Studio Leaders: Iain Scott and Mark Bingham. 2023-2025.

Close Encounters: Berlin. Experiments with Data, Nature, and Collective Life in the Urban Milieu

Andrea Faed — 2024-06-12

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘Close Encounters: Berlin. Experiments with Data, Nature and Collective Life in the Urban Milieu’. Studio Leaders: Andrea Faed and Miguel Paredes Maldonado, with Andrew Brooks and Jack Green. 2023-2024.

SeaVoice Annual

Georgia Holly — 2024-06-07

The SeaVoice Annual: Issue 01 is the first-ever SeaVoice book, featuring a curated selection of 20 stories from 16 countries which highlight the voices of ocean advocates, scientists, artists, and community members working and living around the ocean.

Through thought-provoking articles, captivating stories, and insightful narratives, our articles shed light on the intersection between the ocean and culture, inspiring collective responsibility for our blue spaces. SeaVoice is a recognised action of the UN Decade for Ocean Science (2021-2030) under the Ocean Decade Heritage Network’s Cultural Heritage Framework Programme. With a focus on the key global challenges of the UN Ocean Decade, SeaVoice emphasises the importance of understanding the complex interplay between culture, heritage, and the environment in tackling the pressing issues we face today.

“SeaVoice tells stories that explore the collision of culture and climate with our ocean, rivers, and lakes, amplifying voices of the people who work, live, and survive by bodies of water. We invite you to read with an open heart and mind, to learn from those whose voices have too often been silenced or ignored, and to join us in our mission to create a more just, equitable, and sustainable future for our ocean, and therefore for life on Earth, humankind very much included.” Dr. Sylvia Earle of Mission Blue and Dona Berteralli of Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy.

Desastre, reconstrucción, liderazgo

Ana Cabrera Pacheco — 2024-06-06

El paso de la tormenta tropical Stan en octubre del 2005 se cuenta entre las tormentas más trágicas que se ha vivido en Guatemala. En el departamento de Sololá, el impacto más grande se sintió en el municipio de Santiago Atitlán, lugar devastado por días continuos de lluvia. El cantón Panabaj fue escenario de un deslizamiento de tierra masivo que soterró gran parte de la comunidad, dejó cientos de muertes y damnificados, y generó estragos infraestructurales significativos. En la respuesta al

desastre, la sociedad civil y líderes locales asumieron un rol protagónico, articulándose con instituciones estatales, así como con la cooperación nacional e internacional. Hoy en día, a casi veinte años del desastre, se considera necesario sistematizar estas experiencias de la reconstrucción que aun repercuten en el tejido social, cultural y político del municipio. La sistematización nace precisamente de una solicitud de la comunidad. Se acercaron varios líderes al equipo del proyecto Ixchel para proponer la elaboración de un estudio que contara con las voces de personas que vivieron de cerca el desastre y el proceso de reconstrucción, identificadas por su liderazgo y por su participación en varias iniciativas que siguieron el deslave. Con este documento, se busca ofrecer un análisis crítico e identificar los factores externos e internos que caracterizaron la respuesta antes, durante y después del deslizamiento en Panabaj, provocado por el paso de la tormenta Stan. La organización comunitaria generada durante dicho evento se caracteriza por una fuerte reivindicación de la cultura tz’utujil, una articulación del poder comunitario, estatal e institucional, así como con el entonces emergente escenario político tras los Acuerdos de Paz (1996).

From Arthur’s Seat

Jesús Nares Jaramillo — 2024-06-05

The 9^th volume of From Arthur’s Seat is a diverse collection of emerging writers from all around the world, brought together by Scotland’s UNESCO City of Literature. Production by the MSc Creative Writing students at the University of Edinburgh. Their differences make for an exciting collage of prose and poetry.

BLACK/TIME/LINES/WHITE/TIME/LINES

Susan Mowatt — 2024-05-30

The output is a wall mounted artwork consisting of two wooden panels, each measuring 100cm x 100cm x 6cm, covered in vertical woven strips. The strips are long and narrow, woven on two warps using wool, linen, cotton, mohair, acrylic, chenille, silk, and polyester thread. The research challenges conventional understandings of tapestry and its historical associations, and explores its significance as an action in the 21st century. Mowatt invests the act of weaving itself to test the limits of weaving and its relations to painting, drawing, performance and installation art. The output was a large-scale work that consists, unusually, of multiple, discontinuous, woven elements, constructed using an innovative self-taught technique that uses a continuous weft thread woven on the absolute minimum of warp threads (two). The methodology employed challenges customary associations of tapestry with luxury and expense, to instead present it as an ongoing process of material use and re-use. The work was accepted for several tapestry exhibitions, all juried and international: Artapestry 4 (2015), which showed at four international venues, the Royal Scottish Academy (2016), Cordis International Tapestry Prize (2016), Karpit 3 (2017), and A Considered Place (2019), at Drum Castle. The output won the Cordis International Tapestry Prize in 2016, which is the biggest international prize for this artform.

Eraser Drawings

Jonathan Owen — 2024-05-30

The output consists of a group of fifteen drawings. To make the works, Owen developed and applied a distinctive process involving the careful erasure of ink from found photographic images. Drawing usually involves making marks by adding and accumulating material (graphite, ink, etc.) on a surface. In contrast, Owen's drawings are made purely by erasure; a gradual, irreversible process of removing the ink of the printed image by hand. This series was made using illustrated pages from books on cinema, usually large, ‘coffee table’ publications focusing on a particular genre, director or actor. The books were found and bought online, in bookshops and secondhand shops. In each drawing the central figure, usually an actor or director, is erased. This disables the Focal point of the photograph, bringing a new importance and directing attention to the peripheral details of the image. Drawings from this series have been exhibited in solo exhibitions at:
• Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh Art Festival, Edinburgh, 2016.
• Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India, 2016. And in group exhibitions at:
• Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, 2017. • David Totah Gallery, New York, 2018. • Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, 2019.
Further dissemination of the research has taken place through public lectures given by Owen at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, 2016, and GoMA, Glasgow in 2019. The Kochi-Muziris Biennale had an audience of 582,000 visitors. Twelve of the drawings were included in the monograph, Jonathan Owen, published by Ingleby, Edinburgh in 2016.

Why Can't a Woman be More Like a Man

Fionnuala Doran — 2024-05-30

This practice-based output is comprised of two original comic illustration works, created in the style of graphic novels: Why Can’t a Woman be More Like a Man (2018) and Granny Alice in Slumberland (2018). Doran created the works during her invited participation in a 10-day international artist residency at the European School of Image, Angouleme, France. The residency was part of Wom@rts, a €1.6M European Union Creative Europe Programme. Participating artists were invited to respond to Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, on the 70th anniversary of its publication. Why Can’t a Woman be More Like a Man is a single loose-leaf comic illustration (30 x 40cms) consisting of 4 full-colour panels. It is a visual and textual exploration of Christine Blassey Ford’s accusation of sexual assault against the Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh in 2018; a case that achieved instant notoriety for exposing the machinery of political power. Doran’s work presents itself as a feminist critique of this case, and employs comic illustration to interrogate the dynamics of male-dominated political institutions. Granny Alice in Slumberland is a single looseleaf comic illustration (40 x 30cms) consisting of 9 full-colour panels. The work presents a critique of the work of de Beauvoir and other first-wave feminists in their relative oversight of workingclass and other marginalised women. It does so through a quasi-fictional account of Doran’s great-grandmother’s career as a writer – which explores conflicts within the female identity. Text and image are combined in such a way as to explore a world where barriers to female cultural participation do not exist.The two works were presented in a touring international exhibition, at the following venues and accompanied by a programme of artists’ talks, outreach workshops, press conferences and opening events.

Polterheist

Emma Renhard — 2024-05-30

This practice based output consists of a body of costume designs created by Emma Renhard for the original British fiction feature film Polterheist (2018). Renhard’s costumes created an original visual language for this film about gangsters, missing money and a physic medium. The costume design was produced on a budget of around £7K, within an overall production budget of £70K, and as such the research was also an experiment in how to produce high quality costumes within financial limits. The film premiered as part of the British Independent Film Festival, Leicester Square London 2018. It has been selected for a number of independent film categories, including Out of the Can Festival and Toronto Indie Horror Festival.

Tremble Tremble

Tessa Giblin — 2024-05-30

Tremble Tremble was an exhibition curated by Tessa Giblin for the Irish pavilion of the 57th Venice Biennale 2017. The exhibition was a collaboration between Giblin and the Irish artist Jesse Jones. It built on Giblin’s curatorial practice of ‘exhibition dramaturgy’ – methods of theatricalising contemporary art installations and enhancing their effects through modes of performance and immersion. The exhibition explored the relation between women’s struggles in the 21st century and the oppression of women in the middle ages, with a focus on the witch trials. It was developed in the context of the national conversation about women’s rights in Ireland, amidst the intensifying debates concerning the right to abortion. The exhibition brought this politically charged backdrop to the international stage. Following its Venice presentation – seen by audiences of over 600,000 – the exhibition toured internationally to four prestigious venues.

Navigate the Blood

Gareth Williams — 2024-05-30

Navigate The Blood is an 80-minute opera conceived by Gareth Williams, co-composed by Williams and Admiral Fallow, with a libretto by Sian Evans. The work aims to find new partners, participants, collaborators and audiences for contemporary opera in Scotland, by developing a new methodology for creating work in this genre. The work was developed at NOISE Opera between 2015 and 2018, and produced in partnership with Glasgow Distillery, where the premiere took place on 2 November 2018. The work toured throughout November 2018 and 40% of the audience who attended performances were new to opera. Williams, opera composer and musical director of NOISE Opera, invited the indie folk band Admiral Fallow to collaborate on a concept opera that explored the industry and community of distilling in Scotland. After a series of research trips, interviews with distillers across Scotland, musical workshops, and readings of the libretto, a process was devised to mentor the new operamakers (Admiral Fallow) through the process of co-creating opera, creating a common language across the genres of indie folk/pop and opera, during the writing of this music theatre work. Through a new partnership with Glasgow Distilleries, seven distilleries across Scotland were secured as performance venues, and the whisky/gin making communities of Scotland were consulted and involved in the process of creating the libretto for the work. The work was performed in distilleries across Scotland: Glasgow Distillery, Oban Distillery, Glen Scotia Distillery, Campeltown, Ardnahoe Distillery, Islay, Blair Atholl Distillery, Pitlochry, Lost Loch Distillery, Aboyne, Summerhall Edinburgh and La Taverna Aviemore. The completed score is a collaborative document, where Williams placed the work of Admiral Fallow songwriters, Louis Abbot and Sarah Hayes, into the framework of the opera, alongside his own music, blending the different voices, gestures, genres and timbres into a cohesive, singular, dramatic piece.

We began as a part of the body

Beverley Hood — 2024-05-30

We began as part of the body was a practice research project that interrogated the impact of technology and science on the body and human experience and ethical questions concerning these dynamics. It was developed with Professor Sara Brown, in the laboratory at the School of Medicine, University of Dundee, Scotland, and ASCUS Art & Science, Scotland’s first non-profit organisation connecting art and science. The project resulted in a multi-component body of outputs, including: 1. A 6 minute spoken word sound piece. 2. A set of thirty eight 3D printed skin cell models. 3. Three 360 degree photographs. 4. A Mixed Reality (MR) immersive experience for Magic Leap headset. 5. An 8 minute film. 6. An Augmented Reality app for iOS. The project sought to bring together scientific rigour with poetic methods, and make complex genetic research more accessible. It challenged audiences to think critically about science, their role and responsibility within genetic research, and the impact such engagement might have on our understanding of what it means to be human. We began as part of the body extends Hood’s interests in creating sophisticated, experimental and challenging, yet accessible creative research projects that explore the relationship between the body, technology and science, where research, practice and impact are intertwined.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Dee Isaacs — 2024-05-30

The BASCA-nominated Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a 3-act site-specific opera for large ensemble, SATB choir, and children’s chorus involving multi-staged performance and video projection, performed in the University of Edinburgh’s Old College Quad and Playfair Library.A collaborative project by composer Dee Isaacs, writer Gerda Stevenson, theatre director John Bett, and film-maker Ian Dodds, the project was conceived and produced as part of the University of Edinburgh’s Music in the Community programme in collaboration with teachers and pupils of Leith Walk Primary School and two professional musicians from West Africa, Gibril Camara and Aboubacar Sylla. Isaacs and Stevenson retell the story of Coleridge’s epic poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner for our times. The opera explores the issues raised by the current refugee crisis in partnership with 25 university music students and 60 school children in a multi-lingual primary school with a high proportion of immigrants in an area of deprivation within the City of Edinburgh. In this multi-cultural environment, the participants’ experiences became an integral part of the production process, allowing a complex of interactions to arise through the media of music and theatre. The video and scenic components were devised to immerse both audience and participants in contemporary experiences of flight and diaspora. The production process was monitored and a final evaluation report was produced, allowing the stake-holders to assess the social and educational impacts of the project.

The Magazine

Alan Mason — 2024-05-30

The Magazine is an experimental novel conceived as a series of 13 books, written and illustrated by Mason and produced over a decade. The novel was commissioned by the independent publishers, The Caseroom Press (University of Lincoln.) To date, three books have been published. (January, Autumn 2013, February, Summer 2015 and March, Spring 2019). The Magazine takes its inspiration from Victorian illustrated compendia. It employs the inherent multiplicity of the compendium form to explore ideas of authorship, narrative and relations between text and image.

Uppland

Killian O' Dochartaigh — 2024-05-30

Uppland is a 30-minute research film tracing the complex relationship between landscape, displacement and the global extractive industries within, and beyond, sub-Saharan Africa. The film documents a new-town called Yekepa, designed and built by and for a mining company prospecting for iron-ore in the late 1950s, that exploited and transformed the indigenous landscapes of Yeke’pa. The film represents an original collaboration between an architect and a filmmaker. This research took them to the remote highlands of Liberia, once a thriving mining community, now a concrete ruin in the West African bush. Exploring the town, the researchers discovered promises of prosperity, abandonment and forgotten injustices. They revealed insights about western architecture, the remnants of colonialism, and the spiritual costs of mining. The main outputs from this work are a number of international screenings at major film festivals, architectural biennales, as well as contributions to an international conference in Sweden. Educational rights to the film were acquired for the distributing to international research institutions and universities across Europe and North-America. ‘It is a galling portrait of the harvesting of African resources and the damage done to both land and people... Uppland avoids most of the pitfalls of the narrated, exploitation documentary genre, its disembodied voice- over never becoming too authoritative, outraged, or self-indulgent – a rare achievement in this ever-expanding field.’ Danny Hoffman, Africa’s a Country, May 2019.

The Kurds

Kevin Dagg — 2024-05-30

The Kurds is a group of six wooden portrait heads of members of the migrant Kurdish community in Edinburgh. The output builds on Dagg’s longstanding practice research into figurative sculpture, in particular techniques and processes of woodcarving, including novel approaches to polychrome. It brings this research expertise to a focused interrogation of the meaning and potential of portrait sculpture with respect to a particular, marginalised community. It investigates how portrait sculpture can meaningfully function as a mode of community engagement and through this foreground broader questions around migration, identity and exclusion.Three of the heads were exhibited in After The Storm, Royal Botanical Gardens, Edinburgh, April 2017. Two heads were selected for the Society of Portrait Sculptors Annual Exhibition in London: FACE 2019, 3–8 June 2019 in La Galleria Pall Mall, the only forum for contemporary portrait sculpture in the UK. One of the sculptures, The Poser, was the only sculpture to be selected from over 700 entries for the Scottish Portrait Awards, which was held at Scottish Arts Club, Edinburgh, 26 October – 1 December 2018, and Glasgow Arts Club,Glasgow, 21 January – 9 February 2019. The Poser was shortlisted as one of six finalists by a distinguished judging panel (including the artist John Byrne, and deputy director and chief curator of the Scottish Portrait Gallery, Imogen Gibbons) and was awarded the Glasgow Arts Club Award for Fine Art. The Matriarch, won runner-up in the Heatherley School of Fine Art Prize for the best 3D human portrait, June 2019."

The Dunbar Battery

Chris Rankin — 2024-05-30

This practice-led research output is a new public gathering and performance space within the Category B Listed Lamer Island Battery in Dunbar. The civil defensive bastion was built in 1781. The new battery design exploits the site’s palimpsest, using the layers of history to inform and guide the design and distribution of various contemporary interventions. The project demonstrated how a crossdisciplinary approach to design in the public realm under the leadership of regeneration landscape architects can impact positively on communities locally and further afield. As a work of conservation, adaption and renewal, the project provides a model for the radical reinvention of coastal ruins and the greater understanding and dissemination of Scottish coastal history. A process of archaeological investigation preceded and informed the design work at each stage. A responsive and sympathetic approach was taken to the discovery of further elements of historic interest as they were uncovered during the course of construction. The most significant new structure, the amphitheatre, is integrated into the void formed by the walls of the former hospital building so as to leave the trace of the hospital untouched. Community engagement was continuous over the course of the project with a dedicated website set up to gather views and inform local residents of progress. Since its completion in spring 2017 the battery has hosted numerous musical concerts, private functions, performances, and a Christmas carol service. The space continues to be maintained by local people including those who care for the coastal garden. In addition to its increasing use by local people the new battery plays an important role in attracting visitors to the town from further afield. The project has been published in a number of journals and websites internationally and has received a number of national design awards.

Double Exposure

Claire Ferguson — 2024-05-30

The output is a garment, designed and made by Claire Ferguson. The research used fashion design to explore how fashion silhouettes signify accepted notions of female beauty within the Renaissance and contemporary eras. It was initiated in response to current issues relating to body image in fashion and contemporary culture. Ferguson’s aim was to raise awareness of these issues and explore historic trends and fashions and ideal body types. The garment is composed of two dresses layered over one another. The under dress is made from fine lace in a minimal, modern form. The outer is a knitted dress combining innovative knit structures and contemporary yarn, to create an accentuated Renaissance silhouette. In contrasting the theatrical dress of the Renaissance period with the simplicity of contemporary design, the garment invites us to reflect on the changing meaning of beauty. Double Exposure was created for ‘Beauty By Design’, an exhibition of contemporary fashion design and Renaissance painting at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, 14 November 2014 – 3 May 2015. A collaboration with the fashion designer Malcolm Burkinshaw and the art historian Jill Burke, ‘Beauty By Design’ explored relations between contemporary fashion design and historic portraiture to interrogate changing ideals of body shapes and beauty from the Renaissance to the present day. Visitor numbers for the exhibition were in excess of 146,000. A range of associated events were attended by audiences of 1,166 in total.

Kiosk

Charles Stiven — 2024-05-30

The output consists of a body of 22 hand-made, small-scale architectural models that replicate European street kiosks. The research addresses questions about the nature of kiosks as symbols of aspects of contemporary culture such as transience and the fragility of small-scale commerce. Through this, it explores larger issues around the way disused architecture can incite reflection upon the impact of global systems of production and consumption on collective urban experience. Kiosk was selected for two international exhibitions: Intersection, Scottish Architecture Fringe 2017, Edinburgh, 14–16 July 2017 and Make-Shift, Collyer Bristow Gallery, London, 12 October 2017 – 13 February 2018.

Radical Harvest: Earth/Care/Reuse

Simone Ferracina — 2024-05-30

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘Radical Harvest: Earth/Care/Reuse’. Studio Leaders: Simone Ferracina and Asad Khan. 2023-2024.

Metis : On the Surface

Mark Dorrian — 2024-05-30

Metis : On the Surface is an exhibition of seven projects that range from installations to large urban restructuring proposals. The exhibition and the projects are by Metis, an atelier for art, architecture and urbanism founded by Mark Dorrian and Adrian Hawker at the University of Edinburgh in 1997. The projects aim to connect architectural research, teaching and practice. As this exhibition attests, the projects research the city and the complex ways in which it is imagined, inhabited, and representationally encoded. The research produces rich, multi-layered outputs that resist immediate consumption and that are instead gradually unfurled over time through interaction with them. The work demonstrates a poetic but critical approach to the city that is sensitive to the city’s cultural memory but is also articulated in relation to its possible futures. Working between two contrasting scales, the exhibition itself constitutes an original research output. The seven projects have been redrawn, crafted, reinterpreted and combined into a complex topographical surface. Visitors entering the exhibition encounter a vast drawing on which they walk, carpeting the floor of the gallery. Through this, an internal terrain is inserted within the display space, which is then inhabited by glass display tables that hold detailed drawings and models. The viewers of the exhibition thus not only see a series of projects, but find themselves – as they travel across scale and space – active participants in a speculative architectural imaginary, one in which the architectural object is always in communication with the broader historical, cultural, material and representational conditions of the city or landscape within which it is positioned. The exhibitions ran from: 10 October – 14 November 2014. Arkitektskolen Gallery, Aarhus, Denmark. 27 March – 6 April 2015. Sculpture Court, Edinburgh College of Art, (ECA), Edinburgh, UK.

The Gardens

Jane Hyslop — 2024-05-30

The Gardens, Edinburgh is a group of five artefacts – consisting of three folios of drawings, a set of paper objects in a wedge-shaped box, and a publication made from linen. It was produced as an investigation into the history of the Royal Scottish Academy and the adjacent Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh, and originally exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 2015. The output was commissioned by Visual Art Scotland 2015, for their annual exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy. It combines drawings, paper folding techniques and digital printing with historical and contextual research to investigate two key aspects of the site: first, the development of the linen industry in Scotland during the eighteenth century; second, the layout of the gardens, particularly the relation between the formal design arrangements and the growth of indigenous plants that infiltrate planned spaces. These interests tie into Hyslop’s longstanding research into the social and industrial history of Scotland and its impact on the land. Works from the exhibition were purchased and exhibited by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the National Library of Scotland.

Naked Craft Network

Juliette MacDonald — 2024-05-30

The Naked Craft Network (NCN) was a multi-component, international collaborative research project (2014–2017) that investigated topical issues in contemporary craft practice in Scotland and Canada. Through an innovative combination of practice and theoretical reflection, bridging design history and theory, practice-based research and public engagement, the project brought together an international network of practice- based researchers, writers, curators and industry partners. They questioned the value of craft as a practice, an historical phenomenon and a contemporary experience. The main outputs from the project were a cluster of interlinking research events, including residencies, workshops, a public education programme and accompanying symposia. The research was disseminated to the public through a touring exhibition of Canadian and Scottish craft that was accompanied by a catalogue with commissioned essays. Led by craft historian and theorist Juliette MacDonald and Dr Sandra Alfoldy, Nova Scotia College of Art & Design, Canada, NCN was the first major craft partnership between Scotland and Canada and involved four academics, 23 professional craftspeople, five curators, and three research assistants. The Make workshop and symposia brought together individual makers from local craft communities, and researchers from academic institutions from Canada and Scotland. 20 June – 6 September 2015 Art Gallery of Burlington, Burlington, Canada. 26 September – 28 November 2015 Centre Materia, Quebec City, Canada. 14 January – 10 April 2016 Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Canada. April – May 2016 Thurso Gallery and Iona Gallery, Kingussie, Scotland. Both galleries at once with one month in each, but it was counted as one exhibition venue. June – August 2016 Barony Centre Craft Town, West Kilbride, Scotland. October 2016 – February 2017 Peebles Art Gallery, Peebles, Scotland. April – June 2017 An Lanntair, Stornaway, Orkney, Scotland. The legacy of the research lies in the way it has opened up channels of communication between the two communities to establish a space for reflecting upon and re-evaluating the traditional roles of craft practice for the future.

Iron: Mapping Material Practice

Gordon Munro — 2024-05-30

The output consists of a body of 19 sculptural works made of iron, produced by Gordon Munro in collaboration with Ewan Robertson. The works were presented in two solo exhibitions – Iron: Origins and Destinations at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, 2017, and Iron: Artefacts and Actions at Park Gallery, Callendar House, Falkirk, 2018. The research explores the historical, geological, social, cultural and aesthetic registers of iron and brings these findings to the contemporary practice of sculpture. By examining iron’s multiple facets and roles within and beyond art, Munro and Robertson map the diverse territories that tie the art object into an expanded domain of inquiry. The research seeks to unveil diverse perspectives on and understandings of the physical world and bring new light to the complex creative potential of a singular material. The exhibition Iron: Origins and Destinations was accompanied by a series of public events including a symposium, publication, practice workshops, archival film screenings and a documentary film about Munro and Robertson’s practice (see Appendix, page 28). The artists were subsequently invited to stage Iron: Artefacts and Actions at the historic Callendar House in Falkirk. The brief was to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Falkirk’s iron industry and its global impact by creating work that responded to and explored Falkirk Community Trust’s extensive Carron Works archive. A publication and public workshops accompanied the exhibition.
The complete list of 19 individual works:
1. Searchlight, cast iron, 70 x 20 x 20cm, 2014.
2. Block and Maul, cast iron, 50 x 50 x 40cm, 2014.
3. Filter Funnel, cast iron, 20 x 20 x 60cm, 2014.
4. Timelines, cast iron, 24 x 14 x 15cm 2015.
5. Coil, cast iron, 23 x 23 x 10 cm, 2016.
6. Block and Rope, cast iron, 30 x 10 x 9cm, 2016.
7. Book, cast iron, 18 x 18 x 22cm, 2016.
8. Pulse, cast iron, 18 x 15 x 10cm, 2016.
9. Hammer, cast iron, 52 x 8 x 19cm, 2016.
10. Sump, cast iron, 20 x 14 x 28cm, 2016.
11. Scroll, cast iron, 30 x 8 x 8cm, 2016.
12. Fuel, cast iron, 60 x 30 x 30cm, 2018.
13. Rake, cast iron, 26 x 17 x 7cm, 2018.
14. Sleeker I, cast iron, 10 x 14 x 14cm, 2018.
15. Sleeker II, cast iron, 20 x 20 x 20cm, 2018.
16. Sleeker III, cast iron, 10 x 10 x 10cm, 2018.
17. Spatula, cast iron, 10 x 6 x 10cm, 2018.
18. Material Book, cast iron and cement block, 17 x 10 x 22cm, 2020.
19. Meteorites from Wrocław, cast iron, 20 x 10 x 10cm, 2020.

Untitled

Jonathan Owen — 2024-05-30

The output is a life-size figurative sculpture, produced as a publicly-funded commission for Edinburgh Art Festival, 2016, an annual city-wide festival of international contemporary art. It was made by carving into a section of a 19th century marble statue to alter its shape by replacing the torso with movable, interlinking forms. This intervention rendered the statue unstable, leaving it intact and upright but shifted into a new posture. The work is one of a series of deconstructions of neoclassical sculpture that Owen has made over the past five years. For the duration of the festival, the work was exhibited inside the Burns Monument, a neoclassical temple on Edinburgh’s Calton Hill. It received an audience of 13,058 people. The sculpture was subsequently exhibited at Frieze London, 2016, where it was acquired for the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. It was exhibited in the NGV Triennial 2017–2018, with an audience of 1,231,742 people.

The Story of the Fallen Cone

Rachel Everitt — 2024-05-30

The output is a collection of eight prints (each 20 x 30cm), which is the outcome of practice-based research into printmaking processes – particularly etching – and expanding the potential of children’s book illustration by combining etching with colour. The output expands traditional printmaking methods and materials, in particular dry point etching. Everitt was keen to retain drawing through etching as the primary mode for children’s book illustration. The research was conducted over a period of nine months between January and September 2017. The prints combine multiple techniques, including drypoint etching, monoprint, watercolour and drawing. They were made to accompany a short story for children that was written by the New Zealand author Vibhusha Delamore. Titled The Story of the Fallen Cone, this story is aimed at young children (ages 3 to 7) and tells of a pinecone who encounters various animals within a forest, including a crow, a small bug and a hedgehog, and reflects on the meaning of its life through these interactions. The story explores aspects of ecology, origin, growth, nature and life cycles, identity, belonging and interpersonal relations.

Cloud Dialogue

Ewan Robertson — 2024-05-30

Cloud Dialogue is a sculpture (approximate dimensions 7.5 x 11.5 x 2.6m ) which investigates the potentials of iron as a sculptural material. The work expands the expressive, associative and poetic potential of iron within the context of contemporary art. The work was conceived, made and installed by Ewan Robertson in collaboration with Scottish sculptor Gordon Munro. The research builds on the symbolism and the historical associations of iron, as a ubiquitous element of our lives. Through the creation of a large-scale sculpture and experimentation with techniques of fabrication, it challenges perceptions of iron as a utilitarian material. Cloud Dialogue has been made in several iterations, with different combinations of nodes and arms. Each form conjures different symbolic associations whilst responding to their different sites. As such, the research is also an extended experiment in site-specific installation.

Re-Created Pictish Drinking Horn Mount

Jennifer Gray — 2024-05-30

The output, a re-created Pictish drinking horn mount, is a bespoke silver mount fitting, hand-made by Jennifer Gray. The output is the result of Gray’s research investigation into the re-creation of historical artefacts in order to bring new visibility to, and understanding of, material processes and techniques that are now forgotten or little-known. The design was inspired by early medieval objects in the collection of the National Museum of Scotland (NMS). The work was commissioned by the National Museum of Scotland (NMS) and The Glenmorangie Company as part of The Glenmorangie Early Medieval Research Project, which set out to re-examine objects from the period c.300–900AD in collaboration with artists and designers.The mount was presented at the exhibition Creative Spirit, at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, 5 January – 24 February 2014. It was subsequently exhibited at the All Makers Now? conference at Trelissick House, Truro, England, 10 – 11 July 2014, and the Journées Particulières, at the Glenmorangie Distillery, Tain, Ross-shire organised by Louis Vuitton, Moët, Hennessy (LVMH) 20 – 22 May 2018.

Sculpting the Spirits

Noe Mendelle — 2024-05-30

Mendelle and Luis Correia (co-director & co-producer) were the first filmmakers to visit the Bijagós archipelago and, after spending time with the village chiefs, were invited by them to film their daily life, beliefs, and rituals. Mendelle and her team lived with them for extended periods, twice yearly for 5 years. The elders, alert to radical changes coming their way and conscious that their culture is only orally transmitted, saw a unique opportunity to document their way of life and preserve it for future generations. Their collaboration was essential, both in terms of access and understanding the meaning of their rituals, but more importantly how they perceived change. The film gives voices to the Bijagós in their language without any commentary.However, unknown to the film makers and the islanders at the time, the film ended up capturing their downfall and their absorption into a modern capitalist and global society. The film explores how, in the context of a tribe, the dialogue between generations involves other layers of power beyond the living and how their philosophy of life will be affected by their cultural transformation. Through observation of two main protagonists in a father/son relationship, the audience begins to understand the cultural gap growing between two generations. This is universal to most cultures, but for the Bijagós any change threatens the equilibrium between human beings, nature and the spirits who contribute to tribal decisions about daily and social life. The film premiered 15 September 2014 at the Gulbenkian Museum of Modern Art, Lisbon, Portugal.

A Place is a Space Remembered

Kenny Hunter — 2024-05-30

A Place is a Space Remembered consists of four monumental patinated and painted bronze sculptures. This public artwork addresses the identity, history, geology and economy of the Deux-Caps region in France through the use of sculptural symbols that are both meaningful and absurd. It is permanently installed within the courtyard of the Maison du Site des Deux-Caps, a venue situated near the the village of Audinghen, France, a key site in World War II. The work was commissioned in 2015 through the ‘Nouveaux Commanditaires’ programme, a prestigious French organisation that has commissioned over 300 artworks across Europe, working with internationally recognised artists including Vito Acconci, Ugo Rondinone and Erwin Wurm. This output belongs to Hunter’s longstanding investigation into the contemporary practice of public sculpture, particularly in relation to collective remembrance and war memorials.

Imitate

Jessamy Kelly — 2024-05-30

Imitate is a body of twelve glass works that was exhibited at the exhibition Like a Rolling Stone which opened at the Museum Reich der Kristalle, as part of the Schmuck International Jewellery Fair, Munich (2017). The exhibition toured to Edinburgh, Scotland (2018) and Padua, Italy (2020). Imitate interrogates the capacity of glass to act as a medium of imitation. It experiments with the way glass can imitate materials and media including ceramic, paper, metal, wood, stone, plastic and semi-precious stones. Kelly situates this research in a lineage dating back to the 12th century, when Venetian glassmakers used imitative techniques to imitate semi-precious stones. She extends this historical method as a living mode of inquiry and experimentation, bringing new dimensions to the contemporary practice of glass.

The Lodestar Project

David Moore — 2024-05-30

The LodestarProject is a multi-component research output produced by David Moore and Kate Davis. The output is comprised of 8 illustrations for a poetry pamphlet, a multi-media installation, a live event, an exhibition and a set of designed ‘advertising’ materials including badges, flyers, banners, 3 billboard-size images and 3 films. The output explored the cultural history
of the iconic Lodestar nightclub in Ribchester, Lancashire (1960–1984), and its legendary owner Margo Grimshaw (1928–). The Lodestar Project was commissioned by Andrew Grimshaw, a Ribchester local who had worked at the club and was the son of its owner. It was funded by Blackburn Chamber of Commerce, Blackburn and Darwen County Council and The Bureau Centre for the Arts, Blackburn. The output centered around a group of 8 illustrations that combined images made by Moore and Davis with poems written by the British poet Mark Ward in response to oral testimonies given by Margo Grimshaw. These were published as a poetry pamphlet titled Portrait in Black. A selection of these works was exhibited at The Bureau Centre for the Arts, Blackburn, 3–29 September 2017. The images were also developed and disseminated across Blackburn and Burnley as billboard prints, advertising banners, flyers and badges. Moore and Davis produced a short film, Lodestar (Space Odyssey), which they projected on the large digital screen at Blackburn Rovers football ground on 29 April 2017. This reached a mass audience in excess of 56,000. The output was thus disseminated through a variety of techniques that reflected modes of popular advertising which the club itself would have used in its day. This area of Lancashire has low levels of cultural engagement and as such, the research was an experiment in encouraging cultural participation by re-activating local history.

Hybrid Soundscapes

Linda O'Keefe — 2024-05-30

Hybrid Soundscapes is a multi-component body of outputs investigating acoustic ecology. It is comprised of sound installation, an album, participatory community engagement activities and peer-reviewed publications.The output was the outcome of three years of practice-led research into the impact of renewable energy technology on rural and natural landscapes. O Keeffe investigated four sites where new types of renewable energies have had an impact on natural landscapes: the southern region of Iceland, the Northern Terra Alta region of Spain, Barrow-in-Furness in the UK and Beijing, China. The research also investigated graphic composition as a mode of mapping sensory, social and ecological sonic experiences over time. The research employed different methodologies including retreats in natural landscapes, participatory listening workshops with local communities and documentary research. Hybrid Soundscapes was commissioned by the curator Christine Eyene in 2016 (curator of the 2019 Moroccan Biennale) for a touring exhibition titled Sounds Like Her that would for the first time present established women artists who have expanded the field of sound art. For the exhibition, O Keeffe presented four large printed graphic scores/sound maps and an immersive audio composition for five speakers. The scores comprised photographic images and drawings of the sites in which O Keeffe conducted field research. The audio composition functioned both as a single immersive audio work and a spatialised site-specific performance. Hybrid Soundscapes I–IV was first presented in the exhibition Sounds Like Her at the New Art Exchange, Nottingham, 13 October 2017 – 3 January 2018. Subsequent exhibition presentations included: York Art Gallery, 12 July – 25 August 2019, and Gallery Oldham, 14 December 2019 – 7 March 2020.

Becoming Animal

Emma Davie — 2024-05-30

Becoming Animal is a feature documentary film, co-directed by Emma Davie and Peter Mettler which set out to challenge the traditional nature documentary and its structure. This film is set in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, over the course of a journey with cult writer and eco-philosopher David Abram. The documentary was filmed and edited over a 4 year period from 2014 to 2018. The aim was to find a different relationship between the viewer and ‘nature’ as represented on film: one which used the tools of cinema to explore the act of observation itself. The research objectives centered on the following questions:
• How can we use documentary film to go beyond an anthropocentric worldview?
• Can film give an insight into how the current environmental crisis might be rooted in a crisis of perception which has evolved over time in how we see ‘nature’?
• How can the documentary essay form be combined with a more experiential, immersive aesthetic to involve an audience in a sensorial understanding of the themes of the film?
The film emerged from a rigorous process of interdisciplinary research involving collaborations across many disciplines ranging from philosophy, eco-phenomenology, to vision mixing. It involved bringing together disciplines which describe the world in radically different ways: the literary, philosophical writing of Abram was to meet the experimental cinematography and directing style of Davie and Mettler whose work explores the immersive characteristic of cinema and its ability to re-create a haptic of sense of experience. It attempted to create a somatic experience for an audience which also included an awareness of the act of looking at representations of nature on film.

A Requiem for Edward Snowden

Jules Rawlinson — 2024-05-30

A Requiem for Edward Snowden is a 50-minute audio-visual work by Matthew Collings and Jules Rawlinson which addresses surveillance, data privacy, loss of faith, moral choice, and personal sacrifice in an environment where we are totally reliant on electronic communication and daily routines; and in which our privacy is routinely compromised. The work is performed by a chamber trio comprising violin, cello and clarinet, with live electronics and live visuals. The work is multi-layered and textured, both sonically and visually, and includes computer generated, fixed-media and live captured imagery, manipulated in real-time. This output makes an original contribution to performance practice knowledge about audiovisual ‘comprovisation’ (fixed composition with open or improvised elements) using audio-visual narratives of surveillance and sousveillance. In addition, it makes an original contribution in terms of experimenting with distributed agency in respect of sound-image production. Collings and Rawlinson worked in the studio together in a series of twelve day-long sessions over an initial period of 6 weeks to develop a set of prototype audio-visual sketches that could be arranged for the full ensemble. These sketches explored cryptographic treatment of live camera input, masking, displacement and distortion together with representations of data, networks, street-level surveillance and drone footage. These studio sessions focused on the opportunities that each of these offered for combination and manipulation and for congruence and contrast with the audio part. For example, visual congruence might be demonstrated by threaded clusters of computergenerated strokes responding to audio feature tracking and represent the slow, detuned glissandi of the string part. The main outputs from this work are seven performances in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Utrecht, a digital release on Denovali Records, and contributions to an international conference in Edinburgh and a national conference in Aberdeen.

Maggie’s Lanarkshire

Kenny Fraser — 2024-05-30

The project is an enclosed walled garden for the Maggie’s Centre at Lanarkshire Hospital in Airdrie. Maggie’s Centres provide the physical space for practical, emotional and social support to people with cancer, their family and friends. The garden has several distinct components comprising an entrance courtyard, a woodland garden, and a series of four small external courts which are embedded within the building plan, all of which are enclosed and linked seamlessly and cohesively to the building by a finely articulated perimeter wall of Danish bricks which also embraces two detached stands of mature lime trees. Fraser’s practice-based research over 4 years involved all stages of the design and construction of the project. It enhances knowledge associated with designing outdoor environments to improve human well-being in a cancer caring environment via design team, client and stakeholder engagement, design development and iteration. The research also establishes a model for future centres by emphasising the relationship of building and walled garden (internal and external spaces) as a cohesive overall environment in contrast to many of the earlier centres, in which building and garden remained detached from one another. The research contributes further knowledge to the delivery of projects via the technical resolution of the walled garden/hortus conclusus concept which allowed the retention of the existing mature trees despite the associated boundary wall foundations on a site with Japanese knotweed present. Both the wall and the presence of Japanese knotweed would typically require the removal of the mature trees and the dilution of the concept. The retention of these trees suggests a dialogue between them, the series of enclosed gardens and the building itself. Significance has been recognised by a wide variety of awards, reviews, publications and peer reviewed website and exhibition inclusion. The project was also shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2015.

The 306

Gareth Williams — 2024-05-30

The 306 is a trilogy of music-theatre works co-created by composer Gareth Williams and writer Oliver Emanuel that explore the stories of the 306 British soldiers executed during World War 1. Many of these 306 men, executed for cowardice, desertion and mutiny are not listed on any official memorials, even after they were conditionally pardoned by the British Government in 2006. This work gathered all of these names for the first time, listing them in song to complete the trilogy. As a part of 14-18 NOW (the UK-wide commemorative cultural program of work from 2016 – 2018) The 306 explored ideas of heroism and protest, by looking at this lesser known, deliberately forgotten, part of our national storyabout the cultural legacy of World War 1. Drawing on primary documents such as letters and telegrams from the front lines, protest songs and documents describing the women’s peace movement in Glasgow, music hall and classical repertoire, as well as contemporary interviews with family members of those executed for cowardice during WW1, the stories and songs were developed continuously from 2013 through to 2018, in residencies, workshops, and rehearsals. 306 Dawn and 306 Day were written for an ensemble of singing actors, and Red Note Ensemble (piano, violin and cello), while 306 Dusk was created for three singing actors, piano, string quartet, and community choir of 40 singers formed in Perth for the production. Throughcomposed across different productions in three consecutive seasons, the work challenges and progresses the role and status of live music in Scottish theatre. The music has been recorded as an album, funded by the Imperial War Museum, and was released by the National Theatre of Scotland in 2020.

Eidolon

Beverley Hood — 2024-05-30

Eidolon is a multi-component practice output comprised of live immersive performance, video, installation, virtual reality and a fully illustrated monograph with texts by Hood and Dame Marina Warner. The research explores the relationship between the human body and technology through a focus on the manikins used in medical training. Eidolon drew on a hybridity of artistic genres and techniques to explore elemental questions provoked by the act of simulating a human being. The output raised questions about the limits of human identity, the relations between natural and technological humanity and the role of machines in the construction of selfhood. Through its broad dissemination and engagement, the project brought the general public into spaces usually only accessible to medical professionals. It also prompted reflection amongst medical practitioners on the function of art within clinical settings. Eidolon was developed at the Scottish Centre for Simulation & Clinical Human Factors (SCSCHF), Forth Valley Royal Hospital, Larbert. Live performances were staged within NHS medical simulation centres around Scotland. It was integrated into a professional clinical learning module at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh and was well received amongst the medical community. The project has been presented in different iterations in national and international platforms and venues (Edinburgh International Festival 2016, The World Congress of Biomedical Ethics, 2016 and galleries in Stockholm and Madrid). Audiences for the live performance and installation were in excess of 3,000, and secondary audiences from social media were in excess of 64,000. The project was supported by a Wellcome Trust Arts Award (£29k), Creative Scotland (£5k) and the University of Edinburgh.

The Other Travel Agency - Inner Journey

Mike Inglis — 2024-05-30

The Other Travel Agency – Inner Journey is a body of mixed media installations and sculptural structures that was produced through collaborative art making and diverse forms of public engagement. Building on Inglis’ longstanding participatory- driven work with Outsider artists, the project explored equality in disability-focused arts studios and communities and involved disabled artist groups across the Nordic countries. The project was organized by the Nordic Outsider Art Network and commissioned by Inuti (a foundation in Stockholm that practices art therapy for people with intellectual disabilities) and the Kettuki Association, (Finland’s nationwide studio network for Outsider artists) for the annual European Outsider Art Association conference (May 2019). Many of the participants were autistic: the project encouraged new forms of communication and social interaction through the medium of art. The output was disseminated through a series of international exhibitions. It was first presented at Inuti Gallery, Stockholm (24–31 May 2019). It was subsequently invited to join a large touring show, The Other Travel Agency, which brought together Nordic Outsider Art Network contributions from the four Nordic countries. This was launched at the European Union Parliament Gallery, Brussels (24–26 September 2019) to an audience of over 5,000. The work then toured to Pertti’s Choice, Helsinki – a cultural production space for Outsider art and culture (11 October – 11 December 2019), where it was seen by over 500 people. The exhibition included a filmed documentary made by Inglis, recording this experience and featuring contributions from the artists involved (see Appendix, page 21). Inglis’ research was ‘highly commended’ by Building Better Healthcare Awards (2019).

An t-Eilean (The Island)

Lisa MacKenzie — 2024-05-30

An t-Eilean (The Island, Gaelic) is an open-air, multi-purpose space (16 metres square) that occupies a central position in Inverness Campus for the University of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.The space unites sculpture, building, and garden to form a distinctive landscape. Visitors experience An t’Eilean as a floating courtyard open to the sky and the surrounding landscape and connected to the land by a timber boardwalk. The project challenges scale and collapses normative design practices to unite architecture and landscape in ways that are subtle and sensitive to the rhythms of the days and seasons. An t-Eilean is a built ‘concept’ and an interstice – a constructed translation of the designer’s knowledge of theory and her landscape architectural practice. Mackenzie worked with leading expert David Bennett on the concrete specification for An t-Eilean. The concrete mix uses a by-product from coal-fired power stations called Pulverised Fuel Ash (PFA), to promote material re-use in construction. The mix allows a range of surface finishes to manifest through the structure, capturing and animating different qualities of light and shadow through the space. The project was presented and received input and approval from a wide range of stakeholders involved in the Campus development. The design was exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 2014 before its completion. Over 20,000 people viewed the designs of just ten architects, including MacKenzie, selected for the exhibition, which aimed to explore the relationship between architecture, art and landscape. The design was awarded the Landscape Institute Scotland, Public Vote Prize in 2015. Mackenzie has been invited to talk about this project internationally to professional and educational groups in Amsterdam (2013), Xiamen (2016) and Oslo (2019).

Limology

Peter Nelson — 2024-05-30

Limology is an original 20 minute work in three sections for percussion ensemble, composed by Peter Nelson between 2017–18 during a fellowship from the Bogliasco Foundation, as part of a theatrical work in five parts, Nómadas conceived by Caribbean-born choreographer Henry Daniel. It was commissioned by Cambridge Music Conference for the Canadian ensemble Fringe Percussion. Nómadas is a collaborative work with composers Nigel Osborne (UK) and Owen Underhill (Canada), on the subject of the contemporary migration crisis. Preliminary discussions based on existing work by Daniel took place between the four principal collaborators, and one conceptual area was agreed for each of the three composers. Limology deals specifically with Mediterranean migration, using structural concepts from border theory. It forms the third part of the work, using images reflecting contemporary media representations. Swell portrays the surge of the Mediterranean, or any stormy crossing seen from a rubber raft or overcrowded vessel, passing from crisis to loss. Flight presents the imagined border between hope and terror, crossed and re-crossed in the mind of the migrant. Limbo evokes the temporary stasis of the refugee camp or detention centre. Thematic elements composed by Nelson for Limology were taken by Underhill as the basis for the final part of the work. The decision to work collaboratively was a conscious attempt to share concepts and materials emblematic of the cultural divides and reconciliations at the heart of the project. The place of performance, Squamish land in the heart of the city of Vancouver, was implicated from the start as a site of critical importance in the imagination of the work, as a site settled by immigrants. The cross-cultural imperatives of the creative process led to a work that presents its diverse materials as imagined in the contexts and contrasts of settler culture, and as recognising the encounters arising from contemporary migration.

Strip Horizon

Miguel Paredes Maldonado — 2024-05-30

Strip Horizon is an architectural and urban design for a flexible, scalable residential neighbourhood in the municipality of Runavík in the Faroe Islands. The work was shortlisted in an open, two-stage international competition. The final entry was presented to the jury and Faroese stakeholders in June 2016. The project developed multi-dimensional perspectives on architectural sustainability. The design incorporated environmental, economic and place-making components. It provided a theoretical reflection, a method of enquiry, and a case study. Critically, the design proposal experimented with a customised linear building typology unprecedented in the regional context of the Faroe Islands and the Nordic Countries. The design enquiry was repeatable and scalable in the Faroese context, but also in the broader context of the Nordic Countries. The stage 1 competition submission was amongst the top 4 finalists and received international press coverage (see Appendix, page 26). Relevant stakeholders in the Nordic Countries contributed to stage 2 development via public presentations (see Appendix, page 26). The project contributed to design debate within the regional context in co-operation with the other 3 finalist teams via workshops (see Appendix, page 26). The reflective critique initiated in stage 2 was further extended and redeployed in academic debate through the development of peer-reviewed conference papers. The project constituted substantial research incorporating multi-dimensional sustainability indicators synthesised in the form of an Urban Strategies Diagram (see page 22) that provided a novel methodological analysis tool that was both reflective and projective. Peer-review assessment was carried out twice during the competition process through an international jury in stages 1 and 2, with feedback from the jury following both stages. Academic publication provided further peer-review assessment.

Headspace App

Keith Farquhar — 2024-05-30

Headspace App was an exhibition of seventeen works by Farquhar at Cabinet Gallery, London, from 1 September – 10 November 2018. It consisted of a collection of mixed media works and adapted found objects inspired by Farquhar’s daily life in Edinburgh, such as the commute on public transport, the use of meditation apps, visits to the municipial sauna, childcare, shopping and visits to the gym. Farquhar employs painterly, sculptural and moving-image processes, together with conceptual strategies, to advance the artistic potential of the readymade object. The works explore the impact of contemporary capitalist and consumerist culture on human experience and demonstrate ways in which forms of adaption and resistance can manifest. They combine this conceptual critique with an investigation into the technical and aesthetic conditions of image making in the digital age and attempt to further imagine the everchanging status of appropriation within contemporary culture. Following the exhibition at Cabinet, one of the works was selected for the 25th anniversary of the art fair Artissima at the Oval, Turin, Italy (1 – 4 November 2018). The fair attracted 50,000 visitors. The international fashion house, Symonds Pearmain, subsequently used Farquhar’s installation for their Spring/Summer 2019 collection. In place of hosting a runway show, they filmed their 2019 collection against the backdrop of Farquhar’s Cabinet exhibition.

The Book Tree Press

Lucy Roscoe — 2024-05-30

The output is a collection of fifteen creative book works which explore how the formal and sculptural properties of the book can be used to communicate narrative. The research is an iterative, cumulative, practice-based approach to making books, where repetition leads to extended insights. Illustrated books currently sit within several fields including fine art, illustration, and design. Roscoe’s research invests the spaces between these fields to interrogate the way the physical book acts as a form of visual communication through materials, binding, shape, and audience interaction. Individual books from the output have been selected for inclusion in The Liverpool & Knowsley Book Art Exhibition, Kirby Gallery, Knowsley (2019) and ICON 10 Gallery Show, Red Bull House of Art, Detroit (2018). The entire collection has been selected annually, in different iterations, for exhibition at Artists’ BookMarket at The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2016–2020).

Grounding Naples: Architectural Articulations for/of Uncertain Grounds

Chris French — 2024-05-30

Degree Show Catalogue documenting the second year of a two-year ESALA MArch (Integrated Pathway) studio, ‘Grounding Naples’. Studio Leaders: Chris French and Michael Lewis, with Neil Cunning and Victoria Clare Bernie. 2022-2024.

Seven Songs for a Long Life

Amy Hardie — 2024-05-30

Seven Songs for a Long Life is a documentary film that resulted from an interdisciplinary creative collaboration between the documentary film-maker Amy Hardie, medical and health care professionals and patients at the end of life. When the research project began in 2011, the UK health system was based on a medical model emphasising a disease-led approach to care. Challenging this model, and working with patients, families and staff, Hardie explored documentary interventions in palliative care in Strathcarron hospice in Scotland. Hardie worked with 15 families to make films in an iterative process that included reflective listening and screenings. These films were, variously: legacies, made for those facing bereavement; portraits taking stock of patient life stories; play spaces, expressing parts of themselves that get submerged in the problem-solving ethos of dealing with illness; and unspoken observations where families used the camera to communicate emotions hard to express in words. Between 2013 and 2018, demand by UK palliative care policy makers grew for these short films which screened, for instance, to an audience of 2,500 at ‘Building Bridges’ conference in London, at ‘Changing Capacities’ in Liverpool, and ‘World Congress of European association of Palliative Care’ in Prague. The participation of patients and staff continued as Hardie directed the final feature documentary, (supported by UK and international funding of £302k), and designed post-screening workshops. These deepened audience engagement with the themes of the film, i.e. values at end of life, capacity of carers, and fear of mortality, developing into seminars for health professionals and NHS policy makers. The cinema feature premiered in October 2015 in Scotland, and was then bought by 8 countries and distributed by Argot Pictures and Cargo in the USA.

Lichtsuchende

Dave Murray-Rust — 2024-05-30

Lichtsuchende is an interactive installation that investigates relations between humans and robots. It consists of a group of robotic sunflowers that use light as a form of communication. It was created by Murray-Rust in collaboration with the design researcher Dr Rocio von Jungenfeld. It has been exhibited at nine international venues, including Edinburgh’s Hidden Door Festival (2014), the New Technology Art Awards, Ghent (2014) and GLOBALE: ExoEvolution (2015), curated by media theorist Peter Weibel, at the Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany – an important international venue for technological art. The work has reached audiences in excess of 40,000.Lichtsuchende was awarded the 2019 Lumen Prize, the British Computing Society Award for Artificial Intelligence and Art, which celebrates the best work created annually using art and technology from across the globe.

The Southwark Memorial

Kenny Hunter — 2024-05-30

The output is a bronze sculpture of a youth and a fallen tree on a low base (dimensions: 6m x 3m x 2.13m). The base bears an inscription by the Scottish poet Hamish Henderson. The sculpture is installed in London, in Elephant and Castle’s recently constructed public space, Walworth Square. The sculpture involved the bronze casting of a fallen ash tree and a bronze f igure of a boy made through clay modelling and casting. Hunter was competitively selected and commissioned by Southwark Council to create a permanent public artwork that would both animate a new civic space and serve as a memorial to war and conflict in the year that marked the centenary of the end of the First World War. The commissioning committee included the Leader of the Southwark Borough Council, Imperial War Museum curators and members from the Royal Society of Arts. Hunter worked alongside the Contemporary Art Society Consultancy, Lendlease, and Southwark Borough Council to realise the piece. The output is part of Hunter’s longstanding investigation into the contemporary purpose of memorial sculptures, their function as collective sites of reflection and remembrance and their experience by diverse publics.

Forms of Inhabitation

Sophia Lycouris — 2024-05-30

Forms of Inhabitation is a three-monitor, site-specific video installation designed and produced by Sophia Lycouris for the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE). It was installed in the Lower Temperate Glasshouse foyer and presented in the exhibition After the Storm, May 2017, which Lycouris curated on the invitation of the RBGE team. The exhibition explored themes of resilience and recovery as part of a series of events organised by the RBGE in 2017–2018 in response to the impact of Cyclone Andrea that hit Scotland in 2012. It comprised site-specific works by Lycouris, Kevin Dagg, Susanne Ramsenthaler and Mike Windle. The video installation comprised three films of improvised dance, two of 19-minute duration and one of 9 minutes, featuring dancers Adam Hussain, Suzi Cunningham and Helga Schram. It was accompanied by a one-off live performance event which took place during the opening night of the exhibition. Performer Mariola Albinowska and sound artist Clive Powell joined the three dancers for this event, which was livestreamed by filmmaker Iguácel Cuiral.

Crossing Tangier

Ana Bonet Miro — 2024-05-29

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘Crossing Tangier’. Studio Leaders: Ana Bonet Miró and Samer Wanan. 2023-2024.

Architecture as Support Structure

Sepideh Karami — 2024-05-29

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘Architecture as Support Structure: How to Construct a Post-Petroleum World’. Studio Leaders: Sepideh Karami and Naomi De Barr. 2023-2024.

Tracing time -- Tracing threads

Susan Cross — 2024-05-28

Tracing time – Tracing threads is a collection of enamelled jewellery, comprised of three neckpieces and eight brooches. The output was inspired by Elizabethan blackwork, a 16th–17th century embroidery technique that used a black thread made from an iron-based dye. This work was produced for an exhibition, Heat Exchange II – Artists Exchanging Energy (September 2015 – July 2016) which toured four international venues in the UK and Germany. The output was subsequently exhibited at Schmuck –Munich Jewellery Week 2017, the annual International Trade Fair for the Skilled Trades at the International Handwerksmesse, Munich, Germany (8 – 14 March 2017). It was also exhibited in an internationally selected group exhibition, Nexus: Meetings at the Edge m(September – November 2018), which toured in Wales.

Silhouettes en Dentelle

Mal Burkinshaw — 2024-05-28

Silhouettes en Dentelle is a series of eight transparent tailored jackets, designed by Burkinshaw. The jackets were made in response to historic ideals of beauty presented in the collection of Renaissance portraits at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Burkinshaw’s research explores the ways in which contemporary fashion design can learn from changing historical perceptions of body-image and ideals of beauty. Challenging normative approaches to design by directly addressing questions of gender and body shape through design and production process, it invests fashion design to stimulate discussion around contemporary issues of diversity within the fashion industry – an industry that has historically been notoriously impervious to diversity.
The work was the centrepiece of the exhibition Beauty by Design; Fashioning the Renaissance at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (2014–15), the first exhibition of contemporary fashion design to be held there. The exhibition was initiated through The Diversity Network, a UK- wide research network addressing diversity in fashion practice, that was established in 2011 by Burkinshaw in collaboration with Professor Caryn Franklin, a renowned Fashion Commentator and co-founder of All Walks Beyond the Catwalk. The exhibition was a major public success, receiving over 146,000 visitors, and has initiated reassessment by the gallery of its curatorial and educational strategies. Silhouettes en Dentelle was expanded and invited for inclusion in several international exhibitions at prestigious venues: The International Centre for Lace and Fashion, Calais, France (September 2016 – March 2017); The Bonnington Gallery, Nottingham, England (February – April 2018); The Shanghai Museum of Textiles and Costume, Shanghai, China (April – July 2018); Venice Design 2019 as part of the Venice Biennale, Italy (May – December 2019).

ToDoJoyComplete

John Beagles — 2024-05-28

ToDoJoyComplete is a short 3D digital film (approximately 6 minutes) by the collaborative duo Beagles and Ramsay.A speculation about digital aesthetics, the film combines the experimental use of 3d animation software with insights from Beagles’ published research on the impact of digital culture. The film shows a number of disconnected figures moving and occupying an anonymous artificially-lit and disorientating interior that is reminiscent of a contemporary art installation. A dehumanised voiceover comprises the key feature of the soundtrack. Since its first presentation in 2016, at The Scottish Endarkenment: Art and Unreason 1945 to the Present, Dovecot Gallery, Edinburgh from 13 May – 29 August 2016, the film has been shown in different iterations in 5 national and international venues including London, Glasgow and Copenhagen. See Significance, page 17 for full list.

I don't know what I'm doing but I'm trying very hard

Juan Cruz — 2024-05-28

I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m trying very hard (IDKWIDBITVH) is the title of an ongoing series of short videos, between 30 seconds and 5 minutes in length, and commencing in June 2018. The videos are shot on the front-facing camera of an iPhone and each records a monologue spoken by the artist following the exertions of a run. The videos, which appear inverted and focus on the chest and neck area, are characterised by the breathlessness of the voice and the image of sweat-soaked t-shirts. There are to date approximately 100 videos in the series and they are designed to be exhibited as well as as to be made available through a digital repository.The work extends Cruz’s longstanding interest in the use of text within the context of visual art. It brings together an investigation of the place of the autobiographical and confessional within contemporary culture with inquiry into the existence of works of art within the digital ealm, as digital files with a contingent set of possibilities for their manifestation and exhibition. The videos reference a number of characteristics and approaches towards performance developed since the late 1960s, specifically by male artists (Acconci, Nauman, Jan Ader). The videos filter these approaches through the contemporary device of the front-facing smart phone camera, the construct of the selfie and attitudes towards physical fitness and self-improvement. Three of a series of 15 photographs, with which this project originated, were exhibited in Aarhus, Denmark, in a group exhibition, The Catalyst Experiment, 1–30 September 2017. The videos were subsequently exhibited in a solo exhibition at Matt’s Gallery, London (8–16 September 2018), a group exhibition, DataLoam, Vienna (26 February – 8 March 2019) and through an online exhibition at MattFlix, Matt’s Gallery, 2020.They have also been presented at guest lectures at the Royal College of Art, London, CAFA, Beijing and the West Bund Art & Design Fair in Shanghai.

Stolen Voices

Rebecca Collins — 2024-05-28

Stolen Voices is a multi-component output consisting of four performances, an album, a peer-reviewed journal article and a book publication. The output is a collaboration between Rebecca Collins (University of Edinburgh) and Johanna Linsley (University of Dundee). Stolen Voices forms part of their five-year (2014–2019) project which invests eavesdropping as a method, combining this with a semi-fictional detective story. An ‘event’ has taken place in 4 sites on the UK coast (Bournemouth, Felixstowe, Seaham in County Durham and Aberdeen) and Collins & Linsley have been tasked to investigate. Eavesdropping is both subject and methodology of the research. Fieldwork in the form of site explorations and the practise of eavesdropping is combined with research into social, political and economic dynamics at the borders and margins of the UK, such as immigration and the impact of climate change on coastal landscapes. Outputs: see Appendix, page 28.

1. Performance Stolen Voices Seaham, County Durham (2016).
2. Performance Stolen Voices Aberdeen (2017). 3. Performance Her Figure a Song (2019).
4. Performance Stolen Voices 001 album launch (2020).
5. Stolen Voices 001 album (2019). The album was also released as a digital version with liner notes, enabling open access.
6. Necessary Note, Independent Art Press, Copy Press (delayed due to Covid-19).
7. Rebecca Collins, and Johanna Linsley, ‘Stolen Voices is a Slowly Unfolding Eavesdrop on the East Coast of the UK’, Arts, Vol, 8, issue 4, 2019.

Stolen Voices received a total of £33.5k in funding from national and regional funders, including Arts Council England, Silver City Stories and the Live Art Development Agency and institutional support from 9 independent organisations. For a full list, see Appendix, page 28. The work has been presented at CCA Glasgow, Aberdeen Performing Arts, SoNADA Festival, Granite Noir Crime Fiction Festival and Union Docs, amongst a number of other venues. See Appendix, page 28. It has also been disseminated through conference presentations, research seminars and media appearances. See Appendix, page 28.

Phantom Limn

Stuart Bennett — 2024-05-28

The output was an exhibition at Dovecot Gallery, Edinburgh, 6 – 10 July 2017. It was the result of a one-week group residency at the gallery, conceived as an experimental, collaborative practice based research inquiry into drawing as a method of thinking. The residency brought together eight international, university-based artists: Stuart Bennett (University of Edinburgh), Dean Hughes (Northumbria University), David Mackintosh (University of Central Lancashire), Kelly Chorpening (University of the Arts London), Rebecca Fortnum (Royal College of Art), Chloe Briggs (Paris College of Art), Mark Nagtzaam (Sint Lucas, Antwerp) and Veronique Devoldere (Paris College of Art). The research interrogated the nature of drawing as a form of enquiry, observational tool and end in itself. It also explored the idea of a collective work. The artists – all teachers of drawing within different University settings – were particularly interested in exploring instructions for drawing as a means of prompting reflection on the often implicit values entailed in the pedagogy of drawing. The residency was presented as a live studio environment, structured to encourage public engagement, and this semi-public, collective and participatory nature of the research space sought in part to recreate the environment of the art school. The gallery was used as studio, a conference room, a social space and an exhibition space. The artists designed, and Bennett constructed, a large scale, flexible framework that received the collaborative work as it was made, and functioned as the focus for dialogue and public engagement.

Catalogue: It Will Seem a Dream

Juan Cruz — 2024-05-28

Catalogue: It will seem a dream is the title of an exhibition project at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC) Leon, Spain, 18 February – 4 June 2017. The exhibition consisted of an installation (FIG. 1) and a book (FIGs. 2–3). The installation comprised 10 video works, 1 slide work, 1 sculpture, 10 prints and 1 typed piece. The book was published by MUSAC and Occasional Papers in 2017.The project addressed questions about ways in which artists might reinterpret and curate their own work. Situated within the context of contemporary practices that are not object based, the research questions the extent to which works made through such practices might be able to generate and be understood through several forms, thus challenging expectations, based in object based practice and to some extent museology and conservation, around the singularity and stability of the artwork. The research was also an investigation into impact and practical implications of the digital within conceptual art. The exhibition was widely reviewed and the book was launched at an event at Matt’s Gallery 6 June 2017 and during the Artists’ Book Fair at Wiels, Brussels, 9 September 2017, in both cases with readings by Cruz.

Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS) and Hypermobile Spectrum Disorders (HSD) in Scotland

Kathryn Berg — 2024-05-07

This scrapbook was created by participants of the ‘Translating Research Into Change’ event at the Institute of Genetics and Cancer, University of Edinburgh, and offers the reader a look into the real lived experiences of people who live with a diagnosis of hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Hypermobile Spectrum Disorders in Scotland.

Translating Research into Change

Kathryn Berg — 2024-05-07

This report offers a comprehensive examination of the lived experiences of individuals with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS) and Hypermobile Spectrum Disorders (HSD) in Scotland. The findings presented are primarily drawn from the “hEDS-START” project, an initiative aimed at highlighting the challenges faced by individuals living with hEDS/HSD in the United Kingdom.

Through a combination of surveys and patient engagement events, this project has gathered invaluable insights into the experiences of patients navigating the healthcare landscape in Scotland and focuses on the urgent need for a pathway of care within the NHS. Currently, there is a glaring absence of such a pathway, resulting in prolonged diagnostic journeys and inadequate access to specialist care for patients.

While we report here the survey data from the Scottish respondents, and the experiences discussed by our Scottish patient engagement group, it is important to bear in mind that these experiences are relevant to all of the devolved nations.

Tombeau idéal de Ferdinand Cheval

Aurelien Froment — 2024-05-02

The output is an installation comprised of a group of 90 black and white photographs. The subject of the work was Postman Cheval’s Idéal Palace, a monument built by Ferdinand Cheval in Hauterives, France, between 1879 and 1912. Through a selection of natural, cultural, architectural and institutional motifs, the installation displayed the monument’s myriad of forms and translated its ‘architecture of images’ into an exhibition form. Cheval drew upon imagery assembled in world expositions and reproduced as printed matter. Froment’s method reversed Cheval’s process, reconverting sculptural forms into visual images, as though visually dismantling the building piece by piece. The vast ensemble of photographs in turn created an environment of its own, providing the viewer with a stage from which to re-imagine the monument. Conceived as a large photographic survey, production took place over two years. The research was supported, produced and shown internationally between 2014 and 2017. It has been presented in 4 international solo exhibitions and 2 group exhibitions. Total audience figures are in excess of 700,000.

Sonikebana

Martin Parker — 2024-05-02

Sonikebana is a long-form composition designed for nine loudspeakers inside wooden boxes on wheels. The audience is invited to move the speakers around the room in order to shape their experience of the piece itself. Sometimes the slightest touch of a speaker will cause the music to take on a completely new direction, leading to the emergence of new sonic forms. At other points, the speakers react less obviously and audiences are encouraged to listen instead. The formal idea for this piece is based on a model borrowed from the refined Japanese art form of flower arranging called Ikebana. This involves the careful arrangement of plant matter in order to reveal something already present (but hidden) in the materials being arranged. This approach has been applied to a sound piece where audiences take on the role of designer and listener. The compositional structure of the work allows for direct and un-rehearsed audience intervention, but without compromising the ultimate intent. Sonikebana was first realised as the public facing dimension of an interdisciplinary EU-funded research project with biologists, ecologists, computer scientists and artists called City Sounds. Version 1 used field recordings taken as part of the research project and focused on sample manipulation techniques. Version 2 developed from this experience. Having observed audience behavior around the boxes and tested the hardware and software systems, Version 2 focused on sound synthesis techniques, form and audience interaction. It was presented in August 2019 as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival. The sounds of Version 2 were synthesised from analysis of video shot at Little Sparta, the garden of Ian Hamilton Finlay. The movement of foliage shimmering in the wind was used to excite a range of novel synthesis and computer sound processes.

journeyMan

Martin Parker — 2024-05-02

journeyMan is a collection of three compositions for mobile phone and ambulant listener. The journeyMan system uses the sensors on contemporary smartphones to propel the piece forwards, turning the listener into an active performer of the piece. The first piece (journeyMan for galleries) was created for use in art galleries and was specifically composed to accompany an exhibition of paintings by Christopher Orr in January 2015, hosted at Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh. The piece mapped the listener’s heading to paths through the work and detected whether the listener was walking or not. As people moved to each painting, the piece would move along with them. It would then hover inplace when standing still and looking at images. The second piece (journeyMan for archives) was commissioned by the Conference on World Affairs and used segments of the conference’s extensive archive as source material. This important record of public and political opinion spans the entire history of the conference which began in 1948. Lectures and panel discussions that could have mobile-phone related themes were selected. Valerie Plame Wilson’s session on spying for the CIA finds itself juxtaposed against Tom Imboya talking about Africa’s nationhood. Questions about the future of art are pitted against panels where the role and responsibility of the media is challenged. Using these speeches makes a general reference to surveillance capitalism and may remind the listener how smartphones run free with our personal information. The final piece is called unsettled and oversensitive. This title helps explain a response to the potentially pernicious nature of some of the apps and operating systems that sustain our mobile phone economy. The piece was designed both as an application for solo listener but also works as a performance piece. It was first presented in Edinburgh in February 2018 at St Cecilia’s Hall.

Colour Design in Healthcare Environments

Fiona McLachlan — 2024-05-02

This portfolio documents two related pratice-led, colour research projects at the Royal Edinburgh Mental Health Hospital. This practice-led colour research employed architectural design knowledge and emerging on-site evidence to devise colour schemes and to make site-specific wall paintings within shared areas and circulation spaces. Project 1 took place in ‘Pentland’ dementia ward from February 2017 – February 2018, and Project 2 involved the main corridor and Andrew Duncan Clinic reception area from April – November 2019. Although guidance is available for care homes and hospitals, it appears to be applied often without professional design input that can take into account light conditions, views in and out, and the social and cultural setting. Observations included monitoring the sun path, light quality, and room usage. Hand sketches were effective in communicating the conceptual ideas with large test panels of candidate paint colours. Newsletters at regular intervals kept staff, visitors and carers informed of the project and invited questions. Two themes emerged, namely ‘destinations’ and ‘directions’. Carers emphasised a need for spaces that are more homely and sophisticated, and small places within the circulation areas where patients can sit with their relatives. Feedback from the users indicated that a strong red and patterned wall panel seemed to act as a beacon and be sufficiently memorable to direct the patients at the most confusing intersections. Incidents (conflicts and arguments) were substantially reduced since the installation. Patients would sit with relatives in the circulation areas, as well as within private rooms. Staff reported that the dispersal of the patients around the ward may have diffused tensions, and therefore reduced the number of incidents between patients and staff. The work has been disseminated through peer-reviewed written output while the colour design is experienced on a daily basis by the hospital community. The projects have been disseminated through academic outputs that challenge the prevailing ‘tick box’ approach to the use of colour in health care environments.

Fröbel Fröbeled

Aurelien Froment — 2024-05-02

The output consists of the installation of a group of 105 photographs and 11 sets of objects. The subject of the research was the Kindergarten as conceived and founded by German pedagogue Friedrich Fröbel (1782–1852). The output was developed through a co-production between 5 international institutions over four years. It has been presented in 8 international solo exhibitions and included in 2 international group exhibitions and viewed by audiences of over 90,000. See Appendix, page 46. The research focused on the educational material ‘gifts’ created by Fröbel. It is the first time that Fröbel’s ‘gifts’ and pedagogical system have featured in an exhibition format. Froment produced facsimiles of Fröbel’s educational ‘gifts’, toys based on the division of a cube into smaller increments.Froment exhibited these objects alongside photographs of the toys ‘in action’, staged according to instructions given in Fröbel-based early handbooks. Froment’s research departed from the often passive, archival display of historical functional artefacts, to actively explore the process of knowledge acquisition through play. Through this, the work provoked broader questions around the relationships between object, knowledge, body and institution. Taking a pedagogical system as its theme, the output reversed the usual positions of art and educational objects within the context of the contemporary art institution.

Scripts

Martin Parker — 2024-05-02

Scripts is a suite of four concert pieces that can work as a collection of short compositions in their own right or be played amongst other pieces in programmes of extreme and physically taxing music. At the heart of the piece is a real-time sound processing tool that applies sampling and DSP to each instrument individually and in highly varied ways. This tool responds to sound very directly; incoming audio pushes through a landscape of shifting parameters that reconfigure themselves with each note played. As such, the piece is very responsive. All sound spatialisation is ambisonic and can therefore be adapted to any sound system from headphones (for individual rehearsal) up to 16 channels. Scores for the pieces are very simply structured with minimal detail pertaining to what exactly should be played. The scores give scope for the players to adapt their performance to the context of the concert. It is this openness to adaptation that gives the piece its name. Players are asked to interpret their instructions and adjust their playing to the sonic context created by the computer processing, rather like the way actors use a script as the starting point for a performance (Cook, 2014). This means that a very deliberate and carefully formed concept for a piece can exhibit different qualities, colours and player response each time it is performed. The examples submitted show three Scripts alternating between parts of Michael Edwards’s piece for saxophone quartet called Hyperboles 3. Edwards’ piece is long and slow, and Parker identified moments in the piece where the Scripts could be used to change pace, position and concentration. They were configured to work seamlessly between parts of Edwards’s work, yet are distinctly different in approach and concept.

Colour Strategies in Architecture

Fiona McLachlan — 2024-05-02

This practice-led research portfolio includes the book Colour Strategies in Architecture, original artworks and the design of nine installations of an exhibition that toured 10 venues. The research offers new insights into the strategic use of colour in architecture through field investigation of a series of buildings designed between the 1920s and the present day, by six architectural practices. New research methods have been established to make ‘close readings’ through observation of the colours used in the buildings, followed by an interdisciplinary discursive analysis of the palettes, location and extents of the colour. The fieldwork observations and documented palettes were synthesised with research from texts and photographic records. The proposed strategies are intended to be transferable into architectural design practice to promote a greater integration of colour within the design process. The use of hand-paintings and collage as part of a visual research methodology is suggested as a technique that embeds the development of new knowledge through making and designerly analysis. The method of production of these images became an inherent part of the research. The images are therefore both the research, and one of the means through which the research findings are communicated to the audience. Colour Strategies in Architecture has been published as a second edition in German, Farbstrategien in der Architektur.

We Have Great Women in STEM

Ally Mckay — 2023-10-10

Welcome to the third edition of the “We Have Great Stuff” colouring book series!

In this edition, we have set out to celebrate and showcase the inspiring women in STEM at the University of Edinburgh. You might recognize their names from University buildings, rooms, and plaques, but now it’s time to put faces to these names. Their lives, work, and legacies are a testament to the remarkable achievements taking place at our University, past and present.

The illustrations in this edition were brought to life through a series of collaborative workshops, where members of the Edinburgh community came together to learn new skills and indulge in creative pursuits. Students, interns, staff members, and professors all joined forces to highlight the extraordinary accomplishments of these women and create these wonderful drawings.

I hope this colouring book will provide you with a mindful and enjoyable break from your busy day and give you a chance to appreciate the brilliant women in STEM here at the University of Edinburgh.

Happy colouring!

Ally McKay (B.A. Illustration Student)

With help from:

Cait MacPhee
Estifa’a Zaid
Frances B low
Hannah Shuttleworth
Holly Bridge
JC Denis
Jenny Gracie
Lothian Health Services Archive
Maria Fanourgiaki
Marialuisa Aliotta
Mylaine Holin
Nisha Grewal
Orianna Ball
Rosa Santomartino
Sally Shaw
Sarah Ressel

Birds of Midlothian

Radina Atanasova — 2023-10-09

The idea of this booklet is to inform the reader about the food and habitat requirements of the most common bird species in the Midlothian area. Not only does the book help you to identify some common birds, but also it gives you ideas about how those birds live in the area in relation to its wider ecology.

Advancing Racial Equality in Higher Education

Ashlee Christoffersen — 2023-07-31

This collection of essays follows on from the 2021 RACE.ED event “Racial Equity Work in the University and Beyond: The Race Equality Charter in Context”, which explored what racial equality means in higher education and was organized following publication of the report of a largescale review of the Race Equality Charter. Advance HE’s Race Equality Charter (REC) is a UK wide programme that began in 2016 aiming to improve the representation, progression and success of Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff and students within higher education. REC is one tool for addressing racial injustice in higher education institutions.

Sender Berlin: Data, Nature, and Collective Life in the Urban Milieu

Miguel Paredes Maldonado — 2023-06-01

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘Sender Berlin’. Studio Leaders: Miguel Paredes Maldonado, Andrew Brooks and Andrea Faed. 2022-2023.

Grounding Naples: Settings, Zones, Grounds, and Groundings

Chris French — 2023-06-01

Degree Show Catalogue documenting the first year of a two-year ESALA MArch (Integrated Pathway) studio, ‘Grounding Naples. Studio Leaders: Chris French and Michael Lewis. 2022-2024.

Brno: Building Belvederes

Kevin Adams — 2023-06-01

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio 'Building Belvederes’. Studio Leaders: Kevin Adams and Louisa Butler. 2022-2023.

Edge Effects: Derry/Londonderry

Iain Scott — 2023-05-24

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘Edge Effects: Derry/Londonderry’. Studio Leaders: Iain Scott and Mark Bingham. 2022-2023.

The Panamá Projects

Ana Bonet Miro — 2023-05-24

Degree Show Catalogue documenting the second year of a two-year ESALA MArch (Integrated Pathway) studio, ‘Crossing Panamá’. Studio Leaders: Ana Bonet Miró, Mark Dorrian and Paddi Alice Benson. 2021-2023.

island territories viii: Scapeland Ávila

Adrian Hawker — 2023-05-24

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘island territories viii: Scapeland Ávila’. Studio Leaders: Adrian Hawker and Victoria Clare Bernie. 2022-2023.

Shame, Stigma and Colorectal Health for Bottoms

Richard Vytniorgu — 2022-11-18

This working paper explores the intersections of shame and stigma among GBMSM (gay, bisexual, and men who have sex with men) bottoms seeking colorectal healthcare. Situating these experiences in the context of complex gender performances and anxieties, the paper discusses key factors shaping bottoms’ experience of shame and stigma when seeking care for colorectal conditions. The paper highlights the perspectives of community stakeholders interested in identifying and tackling barriers to colorectal healthcare. It also identifies strategic areas for further research and collaboration, including pursuing arts-based approaches to educating healthcare providers in GBMSM sexual wellbeing.

Stories of HIV activists during COVID-19 in the UK

Chase Ledin — 2022-10-20

Stories of HIV Activists during COVID-19 in the UK examines and interprets the experiences of HIV activists during the COVID-19 pandemic. It relies on qualitative data obtained through a UK-ICN BBSRC funded grant. We draw from these stories to start a conversation about how activism translates from one health crisis (HIV/AIDS) to another (COVID-19). These activist stories tell us about how activist individuals and organisations responded to COVID-19, but they also provide insight for future pandemic contexts. The UK and many other countries across the world face a variety of new pandemic threats, including monkeypox and Ebola, which demand new forms of health intervention and strategies to mobilise individuals and communities. We use these stories to illuminate the resilience of some activists in the face of crisis and to articulate ways in which health activism can be adapted and remobilised to respond to new health crises.

Conversations through Making [PLZEŇ]

Kevin Adams — 2022-05-20

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘Conversations Through Making [PLZEŇ]’. Studio Leaders: Kevin Adams and Louisa Butler. 2021-2022.

Crossing Panamá

Ana Bonet Miro — 2022-05-20

Degree Show Catalogue documenting the first year of a two-year ESALA MArch (Integrated Pathway) studio, ‘Crossing Panamá’. Studio Leaders: Ana Bonet Miró and Mark Dorrian. 2021-2023.

Soundings: Spaces/Architectures of Reassurance

Suzanne Ewing — 2022-05-20

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘Soundings: Spaces/Architectures of Reassurance’. Studio Leaders: Suzanne Ewing and Andrew Brooks. 2021-2022.

Countryside [INSIDE] Architecture

Chris French — 2022-05-20

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘Countryside [INSIDE] Architecture’. Studio Leaders: Chris French and Michael Lewis. 2021-2022.

island territories VII: Mont-St-Michel Island Temporalities

Adrian Hawker — 2022-05-20

Degree Show Catalogue documenting the second year of a two-year ESALA MArch (Integrated Pathway) studio and an associated one-year MArch (Modular Pathway) studio, ‘island territories VII: Island Temporalities’. Studio Leaders: Adrian Hawker and Victoria Clare Bernie. 2020-2022.

Unlock & Revive

Barbora Skarabela — 2022-01-01

For people living with dementia, life can become increasingly isolating. Yet, being engaged in regular activities that offer a sense of purpose and connection with the world is a key to their wellbeing.

The aim of the Unlock & Revive pilot project was to bring together an online programme for these communities to test whether and how we can use this technology to provide a sense of connection into the world around us through online cultural engagement activities.

We Have Great Stuff

Stewart Lamb Cromar — 2021-11-01

Welcome to the World of Edinburgh and Colouring.

This edition of the ‘We have great stuff’ colouring book is centred around the theme of a Treasure Map, in that it explores treasures found around the University of Edinburgh. It combines three things I love: first, the enchanting, beautiful city of Edinburgh, second, walking and exploring the beauty surrounding us, and third, creative pursuits, i.e. colouring. All three have been present in making this book; in finding, photographing and creating the drawings you will hopefully enjoy colouring and exploring.

To walk and explore and being creative to me offer mindful breaks in a busy life, where thoughts and worries are put on hold for a minute, creating a space where I just am. Sometimes taking these breaks and doing something with my hands or my body will lead to solutions for, new ideas or realisations about what occupies my mind.

The aim of this book is to encourage taking mindful breaks from the busy life of a student either in the form of colouring or walking and perhaps experience some of the peace these activities give me. We have therefore included maps at the back that show the locations of the inspiration sources, hence the name Treasure Map.

Images 1-12 and 15-18 are of architectural details found around the University of Edinburgh and are meant to encourage you to explore and appreciate the beauty and possibilities of the University and the city surrounding it. Images 13-14 and 19-25 are based on photos of items found at the Centre for Research Collections housed in the University of Edinburgh’s Main Library, and home to books, art, archives, manuscripts and musical instruments.

I hope you enjoy colouring and exploring.

Written by Marta Bloch Christiansen.

Fundamentals of Music Theory

Michael Edwards — 2021-10-26

This open e-book is the result of a project funded by a University of Edinburgh Student Experience Grant, Open e-Textbooks for access to music education. The project was a collaboration between Open Educational Resources Service, and staff and student interns from the Reid School of Music. As a proof-of-concept endeavour, the project aimed to explore how effectively we could convert existing course content into convenient and reusable open formats suitable for use by staff and students both within and beyond the University. The resulting e-book presents open licensed educational materials that deal with the building blocks of musical stave (sometimes known as staff) notation, a language designed to communicate about musical ideas which is in use around the world. The resources in this e-book include video lectures and their transcripts, as well as supporting text explanations, examples and illustrations. The materials introduce topics such as the organisation of discrete pitches into scales and intervals, and temporal organisation of musical sounds as duration, in rhythm and metre. These rudiments are presented through an introduction to the elements of five-line stave notation, and through critical discussion of the advantages and limitations served by notational systems in the representation and analysis of musical sounds. This serves as the basis of further explanations, to illustrate musical concepts including key, time signature, harmonisation, cadence and modulation. We anticipate that subsequent versions of this e-book will update and develop the contents and presentation of the materials, following the success of this student-led collaboration.

Cooking Without A Cooker

Stuart Chalmers — 2021-08-06

The recipe book is different to many of the other books that you might find online as it provides recipes based on what cooking appliances the user has available to them. This may be especially helpful for people who are living in a hostel, or temporary accommodation which doesn’t have a wide range of cooking facilities.

The book is intended to be helpful, with straightforward and easy to make recipes that everyone can manage with the equipment they have available. It is split into four sections including a seasonal vegetable guide, kettle recipes, toastie maker recipes and microwave recipes.

Every recipe has a full breakdown of the cost of the ingredients, tells the user how long it will take to make the recipe, and gives an idea of where you can buy the ingredients for the recipe. All recipes have a picture to show what the final product looks like.

Animate Matter

Mark Dorrian — 2021-06-11

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘Animate Matter’. Studio Leaders: Mark Dorrian, Ana Bonet Miró and Paddi Alice Benson. 2020-2021.

island territories VII: Island Temporalities

Adrian Hawker — 2021-06-10

Degree Show Catalogue documenting the first year of a two-year ESALA MArch (Integrated Pathway) studio and an associated one-year MArch (Modular Pathway) studio, ‘island territories VII: Island Temporalities’. Studio Leaders: Adrian Hawker and Victoria Clare Bernie. 2020-2022.

Countryside [OUTSIDE] Architecture

Chris French — 2021-06-10

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘Countryside [OUTSIDE] Architecture’. Studio Leaders: Chris French and Michael Lewis. 2020-2021.

PARASITUATION [AHMEDABAD]: “Past, Present and Possible”

Dorian Wiszniewski — 2021-06-09

Degree Show Catalogue documenting a two-year ESALA MArch (Integrated Pathway) studio ‘PARASituation [Ahmedabad]’. Studio Leader: Dorian Wiszniewski. Tutor: Kevin Adams. 2019-2021.

At Home: Where I am is Here

Suzanne Ewing — 2021-06-09

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘At Home: Where I am is Here’. Studio Leaders: Suzanne Ewing and Andrew Brooks. 2020-2021.

island territories VI: Manhattan Scapeland

Adrian Hawker — 2020-06-26

Degree Show Catalogue from the second year of an ESALA MArch (Integrated Pathway) studio 'Island Territories VI: Manhattan scapeland', working in collaboration with a student from an associated ESALA MSc Landscape Architecture programme. Studio Leaders: Adrian Hawker and Victoria Clare Bernie, with Lisa MacKenzie. 2018-2020.

City Fragments: Neapolitan Porosities

Chris French — 2020-06-26

Degree Show Catalogue from an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio 'City Fragments: Neapolitan Porosities'. Studio Leaders: Chris French and Maria Mitsoula. 2019-2020.

Ecstatic Objects: Santiago de Compostela

Mark Dorrian — 2020-06-25

Degree Show Catalogue from an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘Ecstatic Objects: Santiago de Compostela’. Studio Leaders: Mark Dorrian and Ana Bonet Miro. 2019-2020.

Fire Space: London

Liam Ross — 2020-06-25

Degree Show Catalogue from an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘Fire Space: London’. Studio Leader: Liam Ross. Tutor: Tolulope Onabolu. 2019-2020.

Superinfrastructures. Supercities. Superdutch.

Christina Nan — 2020-06-25

Degree Show Catalogue from an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘SuperInfrastructures. SuperCities. SuperDutch. [Dutch] Territorial [Machine] Fictions’. Studio Leader: Cristina Nan. Tutors: Michael Lewis and Jonathan Lynn. 2019-2020.

City Fragments: Palermo Institutions

Chris French — 2019-05-29

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘City Fragments: Palermo Institutions’. Studio Leaders: Chris French and Maria Mitsoula. 2018-2019.

The Streamlines, Vortices and Plumes of the Blue Lagoon and Bath

Lisa Moffitt — 2019-05-29

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘The Streamlines, Vortices and Plumes of the Blue Lagoon and Bath’. Studio Leaders: Lisa Moffitt and Simone Ferracina. 2018-2019.

Parasituation [Calcutta/Kolkata]

Dorian Wiszniewski — 2019-05-29

Degree Show Catalogue documenting the second year of a two-year ESALA MArch (Integrated Pathway) studio ‘PARA-Situation [Calcutta/Kolkata]’. Studio Leader: Dorian Wiszniewski. 2017-2019.

The Other Paris

Giorgio Ponzo — 2019-05-29

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘The Other Paris’. Studio Leaders: Giorgio Ponzo and Ana Miret Garcia. 2018-2019.

island territories vi: MANHATTAN scapeland eSTRANGEment / disPLACEment

Adrian Hawker — 2019-05-29

Degree Show Catalogue documenting the first year of a two-year ESALA MArch (Integrated Pathway) studio ‘island territories vi: MANHATTAN Scapeland. Studio Leaders: Adrian Hawker, Victoria Clare Bernie and Tiago Torres Campos. 2018-2020.

We Have Great Stuff

Stewart Lamb Cromar — 2019-04-01

The University of Edinburgh as well as having great students and staff, has great stuff. Since its very beginnings, the University has collected books, art, archives, manuscripts, musical instruments and objects to inspire its community in learning, teaching and research.

One of the world’s great collections has been built up over hundreds of years and constantly surprises those who come to view and enjoy the items.

The illustrations in this book are inspired by items and images within the collections and were collated by students during the Festival of Creative Learning Week 2019, and by staff in the Information Services Group.

We hope you enjoy and become curious to find out more.

Transforming Tuscan Towns: Re-Imagining Communities for a Rural Ageing Population

Iain Scott — 2018-05-30

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘Transforming Tuscan Towns: Re-Imagining Communities for a Rural Ageing Population’. Studio Leaders: Iain Scott and Mark Bingham. 2017-2018.

The Revanchist City and the Urbanisation of Suburbia

Tahl Kaminer — 2018-05-30

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘The Revanchist City and the Urbanisation of Suburbia’. Studio Leaders: Tahl Kaminer and Alex MacLaren. 2017-2018.

PARA-Situation[Calcutta/Kolkata]

Dorian Wiszniewski — 2018-05-30

Degree Show Catalogue documenting the first year of a two-year ESALA MArch (Integrated Pathway) studio ‘PARA-Situation [Calcutta/Kolkata]’. Studio Leader: Dorian Wiszniewski. 2017-2019.

Hotel Paris

Giorgio Ponzo — 2018-05-30

Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘Hotel Paris’. Studio Leaders: Giorgio Ponzo, Sophia Banou, and Cristina Nan. 2017-2018.

island territories v: Havana, Re-Making Islands, Dismantling Insularity

Adrian Hawker — 2018-05-30

Degree Show Catalogue documenting a two-year ESALA MArch (Integrated Pathway) studio ‘island territories v: Havana, Re-Making Islands, Dismantling Insularity’. Studio Leaders: Adrian Hawker and Victoria Clare Bernie. 2016-2018.

The Carrying Stream Flows On

Bob Chambers — 2013-01-01

The School of Scottish Studies came into being at the University of Edinburgh in 1951 as a research unit dedicated to ‘the study and conservation of the folk culture of Scotland’ when Professor Angus McIntosh was enabled to turn a vision which he and others had long held into reality. In that year Calum Iain Maclean was seconded from the Irish Folklore Commission to continue his collecting in Scotland, while other pioneers such as Hamish Henderson and Alan Lomax were also beginning the monumental task of systematically recording the rich oral culture of Scotland in Scots and Gaelic. The School of Scottish Studies Archives, now located in Celtic and Scottish Studies at Edinburgh University, continue as a dynamic and inspiring resource for all with an interest in Scotland and her cultural heritage, a treasure-house of sound recordings and photographs from Shetland to the Borders, from the Western Isles to Buchan, supported by an outstanding research library and other materials. The contributions brought together in this volume are based on talks given at a conference organised by the Islands Book Trust in association with the University of Edinburgh in August 2011 to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the School.