Praktika Artists Profiles

PRAKTIKA – 16/17/18 MARCH 2008 Deveron Arts, HUNTLY Artists’ profiles and presentations

NAME Deborah Beeson BA(hons) Fine Art Sculpture PROFILE Please provide a 200 word profile. We are happy to extract information from existing sources (subject to consent) so please do signpost us to existing information.

In 2001 I decided to go back to further education and chose a BA Fine Art course offered at Moray College in Elgin. In 2003 I was offered a place in the sculpture department at Grays’ School of Art in Aberdeen and graduated with a BA(Hons) in 2005 having won the inaugural BP fine art award and a purchase prize from Robert Gordons University.

From there I went directly to work with Deveron Arts in Huntly on a two year residency funded by the Scottish Arts Council Partners scheme working closely with the local high school and community groups and developing my own practice. Works produced were mainly collaborative or interactive projects, interventions and installations synonymous with Deveron Arts directive of ‘the town is the venue’.

Transformation by process is how my work is developing these days. Using homely techniques of cooking or growing or brewing or sewing, everyday ubiquitous items become art object or art experience: a celebration of the art of our mothers whilst at the same time critiquing the personal, social and economical implications of such ‘transformations’.

PRESENTATION TITLE pot(AT)o HOM(E)age PRESENTATION OVERVIEW First thoughts are to the recounting of potato project produced with Deveron arts in 2007. Going through the thought processes that were led by and led to the interaction with teachers and general public who may generally be reluctant to be involved in or attend art projects. Bringing art in through the kitchen door!

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NAME Sylvia Grace Borda, MFA Research Associate, Emily Carr Institute Art, Design and Media (Vancouver, Canada) Lecturer, Queen's University Belfast Guest lecturer, Krems University, Austria PROFILE Sylvia Grace Borda is an artist, curator and educator. Her media installations and photographic art work have been presented internationally in group and solo exhibitions. She is also engaged in producing public art ranging from community-based art projects to curatorial initiatives to promote emerging artists. Recent curatorial projects (Scripted, 2005; Graduate Contours Scotland 2006; EastKilbride-Surrey, 2007; Glocal 200809) have profiled younger participants and have crossed national boundaries, encompassing diverse artistic, cultural and scholarly practices.

In 2008 she was awarded Canadian Cultural Capital Artist status which supports her collaborative work with artists, youth, community members, nationally and internationally, to promote interactive digital arts in Canada, and Scotland. In 2006, she was the recipient of the Innovation Award from The Lighthouse, Scotland's Centre for Architecture, Design and the City for youth community development in the Visual Arts. This complemented an earlier award through South Lanarkshire Council and the Millennium Commission to develop a full public artwork about East Kilbride. Currently she manages the MA Photography and Visual Studies programme at Queen's University Belfast.

PRESENTATION TITLE Becoming a Public Art Ambassador (– the development of EK Modernism) PRESENTATION OVERVIEW The legacy of any public art project is complex, reflecting not only the artist's work but the voices, knowledge and input of participants, co-ordinators, funders, and the intended audience. While these variables inspire a project and can shape its direction, there is another factor related to time which can equally play a role in the resulting outcomes.

In my presentation, I will speak about the development of 'EK Modernism' and how through time I became an ambassador for Scotland's first New Town. While the project initially started as a public artwork for East Kilbride, it grew to encompass local, national and international resources and audiences. In co-opting audiences from beyond Scotland, the role of the city and the community's own efforts in the evolution of the artwork became more legitimised and enriched. And by promoting both the city and participants, all became stakeholders and ambassadors for East Kilbride.

In explaining the delivery processes adopted in EK Modernism, I am hoping others may find their own strategies in how to optimise the footprint or legacy of joint artist and community led projects through extended audience development.

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NAME Jacques Coetzer, BA Fine Art, University of Pretoria, South Africa 1990, Communication Technology and Development Processes, Media GN, Groningen, The Netherlands, 1997 PROFILE 1968: Born in Kimberley, South Africa, lives and works in Pretoria, South Africa Educational Qualifications 1990: BA Fine Art, University of Pretoria Netherlands 1997: New Media and Development Processes at Media-GN, Groningen, Solo Exhibitions 2007: Alt Pop Bell-Roberts Contemporary, Cape Town, Johannesburg Art Gallery Platform on 18th, Pretoria 2002: Tydsgees Klein Karoo National Arts Festival (KKNK), Oudtshoorn Aardklop Arts Festival, Potchefstroom 1995: Jacques Coetzer at Bob's Bar Fringe show on 1st Johannesburg Biennial Group Exhibitions/Events 2005: Aardklop Aartvark trophy commission 2004: Brett Kebble Art Awards 2004: The 2nd Spier Outdoor Sculpture Biennial Spier estate, Stellenbosch 2003: 24/7 Johannesburg Art Gallery Space Repurposed Red Bull International Music Academy, Cape Town Big Brother 2 Art project in Big Brother house, Johannesburg 2002: Gauteng brand Multimedia Rock show with Karen Zoid, Aardklop, Potchefstroom Teken Art on Paper, Johannesburg 2001: Soft Serve IZIKO South African National Gallery, Cape Town 2000: Unplugged V group exhibition, Market Theatre Gallery, Johannesburg 1997 - 1999: Infotoons informative cartoons for Agricultural Research Council 1996: Groundswell Mermaid Theatre Gallery, London Group show, Hanel Gallery, Cape Town Brown and Green Pretoria Art Museum Radio South Africa Kunsthal, Rotterdam 1994: Real Art Johannesburg Institute of Contemporary Art 1992: Blood Fountain Strijdom Square, Pretoria Publications At Home with Art Rowan, Tiddy - Quadrille Publishers, London, 2006 Art in South Africa, The Future Present Williamson, Sue and Jamal, Ashraf, 1996 Broadcast Quality, The Art of Big Brother 2 Smith, Kathryn, 2003 Collections IZIKO South African National Gallery I Johannesburg Art Gallery I Royal Netherlands Embassy Sanlam I Sasol I Old Mutual I ABI I RECM I Saronsberg PRESENTATION TITLE Room to Roam – New branding for Huntly PRESENTATION OVERVIEW This project, called Science of Place, is currently unfolding and looks at historical and contemporary elements that inform the town’s makeup. The aim is to be representative and honest about who the people of Huntly are, but also to be creative and even somewhat idealistic in reinventing this identity.

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NAME Will Foster Artist and Curator PROFILE The projects and events I organise are often temporal and site specific they revolve around the construction and investigation of a particular context. The work is defined by its connection to place and community, involving active participation and communication between artists and public.

I am the founder and a co-curator of Cabin Exchange. A project where Modular 10ft by 8ft x 8ft storage containers are delivered to and installed on carefully selected sites within a given city to create a platform for a week long public art event. During this time the temporary spaces are accommodated and transformed by local and international artists. Since it’s beginning in 2002 Cabin Exchange has involved over 800 artists and has taken place at different times throughout Glasgow, Edinburgh and Melbourne.

Following graduation from the Environmental Art Department at GSA in 2004 I have taken residency’s thought out Scotland at Cove Park, Scottish Sculpture Workshop and Functionsuite.

On the 1st of September 2007 l left the UK and cycled through Western Europe to arrive in Fykse- rural Hardanger on the West coast of Norway on the 3rd of October. I am now taking part in Barselgrad a year long project that is situated in a former school in the village of Fykse.

PRESENTATION TITLE Shelf Life PRESENTATION OVERVIEW I will present a series of projects developed at Functionsuite* at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in the summer of 2006. I will primarily concentrate on Skills Bank a research project that attempted to set up exchanges between staff and patients, as an alternative means of exchanging services without the need for money in a way that is flexible enough for anyone to take part.

*Functionsuite is an arts and disability charity situated in a Victorian residential psychiatric hospital with outpatient departments. The program sees the hospital as a Community and is committed to providing spaces for the exchange between members of this community and artists.

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NAME Alhena Katsof B.A. (Hons), M.F.A PROFILE Alhena Katsof was born in 1978, in Montreal, Canada. In 2003 Alhena earned an undergraduate degree at the experimental Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. The emphasis of her Liberal Arts degree is on cultural theory and applied social practice. In 2007, Alhena graduated from the Master of Fine Arts course at the Glasgow School of Art. Alhena continues to live and work in Glasgow where she maintains a committed studio practice and runs the A.Vermin project. Alhena has exhibited work in Montreal, Amherst, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Berlin and Amsterdam. Her zine, ‘Nourishing Endometriosis’ is distributed through out North America. Recent exhibitions include, “Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World”, Low Salt, Glasgow, “Further More”, ArtNews Projects, Berlin and “At Our Hands” (with Stina Wirfelt), The Project Room, Glasgow. The next instalment of the A.Vermin project is a commissioned exhibition by Glasgow International – Festival of Contemporary Visual Art 2008.

PRESENTATION TITLE A.Vermin PRESENTATION OVERVIEW The presentation will begin with an overview of the A.Vermin project. The overview will look at the structure of the project, the premise of the exhibitions and the documentation of the process during which the exhibitions are developed. The presentation will then focus on a few main questions regarding A.Vermin as an artwork. I am interested in discussing the act of hospitality as a creative process, the use of the ‘everyday’ in this context and the role of Ms. Vermin as artist, curator and host.

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NAME Ms Shauna McMullan PROFILE Shauna McMullan (b. 1971, Northern Ireland) studied Fine Art sculpture in Cheltenham followed by a MFA at Glasgow School of Art where she now works as a part time lecturer in the Dept. of Sculpture and Environmental Art. In 1998 she was awarded the Scottish Arts Council Scholarship at the British School at Rome. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally including Crossovers at the Toyota Museum of Art, Toyota, Japan; Strolling at The Museum of Art, Heide, Melbourne; You Could Be Anywhere, Galerie Le Gaillard, Paris and Travelling the Distance, a permanent commission for The Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.

PRESENTATION TITLE Travelling the Distance a journey through the history, culture, politics and geography of Scotland made under the direction and through the words of 100 Scottish women.�

PRESENTATION OVERVIEW Using slides, the presentation will take the form of a visual narrative through this yearlong project documenting its choreography and development as a sculpture and as an event.

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NAME Eva Merz PROFILE Most of my work I make within the concept of New Social Art School, which is a small group of collaborators with diverse cultural and professional backgrounds. With individual skills, knowledge and ideas people contribute on various levels, and the collaborations are strengthened through the relationships which develop in the process. Projects are inspired and informed by local politics, often social issues,that we have something to say about. The work progresses naturally through research, discussion and dialogue with people, rather than being preconceived by artistic notions or job arrangements.

New Social Art School should be seen as a ‘movement’, striving against the standardisation of the art world and its restrictive models for understanding, producing, circulating and consuming art. We intend to communicate issues of common interest directly to the public, and through collective creativity we hope we can encourage others to take part in the social and political debate and thus renew participation in and understanding of the arts. The specialised arts audience can always see the work later, and theorists enclose it in a contemporary art context - or not. New Social Art School should, in time, be defined by the work through which it manifests itself.

Merz, Rodriguez-Remedi, Vykoukal, Aberdeen 2007

PRESENTATION TITLE GET A FUCKING JOB PRESENTATION OVERVIEW The publication Get A Fucking Job: about street begging, homelessness and council politics. I will present the project and talk about what I learned and what kind of problems I experienced in the process.

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NAME Mark Neville PROFILE My lens-based work investigates the way in which society disseminates and filters images, often according to political and 'artistic' frameworks, or other expectations. Works to date have employed various forms and been disseminated in different arenas, including the coffee-table book, multiple projected film installations in art and 'non-art' spaces, performances, slide shows, and scientific and biomedical investigation. These works have looked at the role of film and photography in contemporary art, and been visible in recent years in venues including Tate Britain, Tramway, Modern Art Oxford, and Kunsthalle Bern, as well as in socially engaged public artworks. Later this year my work will be shown at Mount Stuart on the Isle of Bute, and I was nominated for the Deutsche Borse Photography Award 2008.

PRESENTATION TITLE How Images Are Consumed PRESENTATION OVERVIEW As indicated by the application demands, I will talk about one project, 'The Port Glasgow Book Project': how it came to be, what the motivation was, the reality of realising it, and the response to it.

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NAME Janie Nicoll, BA (Ist Class) Edinburgh College of Art, Master of Fine Art, Glasgow School of Art. Alex Hetheringon BA Hons (Ist Class), MA, PROFILE. Janie Nicoll and Alex Hetherington are currently Artists in Residence at Callendar House, Callendar Park, Falkirk, a year-long SAC Partners residency for Falkirk Council.

Alex Hetherington is a visual artist and writer who works between Scotland and the US (San Francisco). He works with film, performance and video. He writes on visual arts for MAP, Stretcher and Shotgun Magazines and recently for Site Gallery, Sheffield. He has recently made work for EIF, SSW, ESW and Channel 4. His work has been presented across US, Europe and the UK. Janie Nicoll is a Glasgow based visual artist, who originally trained in Painting at Edinburgh College of Art, and graduated from the Master of Fine Art course at Glasgow School of Art in 1997. She has exhibited regularly in Scotland and internationally, most recently in Magazine 07 at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop; the Deviant Art Festival, Trollhattan, Sweden; the Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh; Intermedia Gallery, CCA, Glasgow; Red Wire Gallery, Liverpool Biennale Independents; Generator Projects, Dundee; Chapter Gallery, Cardiff; Low Salt Gallery and EmergeD VSF Gallery Glasgow; The Waygood Gallery, Newcastle; The Changing Room, Stirling; and the Kunstlerhaus Dortmund, Germany.

She was formerly a part time lecturer at Edinburgh College of Art, Gallery Manager of Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow and has worked in a freelance capacity sine 2001.

She has worked on a wide range of artist led projects for a for a variety of organisations including National Galleries of Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage, Art In Partnership, The Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow and for various local authorities.

PRESENTATION TITLE “Meddle With The Devil” PRESENTATION OVERVIEW Please provide an overview of your presentation. This can range from a sentence to a maximum of 500 words.

Our presentation will cover an overview of our approach to the residency we are currently undertaking at Callendar House, Falkirk, which is 50% to create our own work and 50% to interact with the residents of the High Flats, located on the edge of Callendar Park. This is seen as an area of regeneration and consists of a predominantly elderly population.

This will be seen in the context of our previous collaborative projects which include the exhibition “The Consequence” at Intermedia Gallery, CCA, May 2007; a re-enactment performance of House/Lights by The Wooster Group at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and curated video screenings, presented at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and Lowsalt Gallery, Glasgow featuring an international line-up of video artists.

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NAME Anthony Schrag PROFILE I was born in Zimbabwe and grew up in the Middle East, the UK and Canada. I originally obtained a BFA in Creative Writing from U.B.C., Vancouver. During my last year of study, the award winning GreenBoatHouse Books published my poetry book Moving Pictures, and my novel was a semi-finalist in the Robertson Davis/Chapters First Novel Competition.

I later dropped my writerly façade for my true passion and studied photography and sculpture at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver. This eventually led to me obtaining an MFA from the Glasgow School of Art, and now currently reside in that dark & angry city. I have exhibited/performed in Vancouver, Budapest, New York, Mexico City, Beijing, Norway, Germany, and Iceland as well as across the UK and Ireland. I will have, on reading this, have recently completed a 6 months residency at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow, with their Blind Faith: Human Rights and Contemporary Art programme, looking at issues of Sectarianism within Glasgow and its surrounding area. An exhibition exploring this will run at GoMA until February. www.anthonyschrag.com contains some more information, which might be of interest, too PRESENTATION TITLE Working title PRESENTATION OVERVIEW I plan to discuss the recent project that was the outcome of my residency at the Gallery of Modern Art (Glasgow) and will look at my previous works, and how I ended up doing the work I did‌

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NAME Pamela So M.A. Glasgow University B.A.( Hons) Fine Art, Glasgow School of Art PROFILE Since graduating from the GSA’s Environmental Art Dept in 1998, Pamela So has worked as a freelance artist based in Glasgow and North Ayrshire.

Her work is based on extensive research into domestic and cultural histories in museums, country houses, and domestic homes. Her works are often made for specific locations and their histories, the intuitive response to these sites being an important part of her art practice.

Pamela So uses the manipulative qualities of digital photography to re-interpret and re-present history based on her Scottish/Chinese heritage both in her own artwork and in socially engaged art projects (most recently in the ‘Cherish: Chinese Families in Britain’ project for the National Portrait Gallery, London 2006).

In 2003, she was selected for the autograph Residency at Syracuse University, NY and in 2005 she undertook the Breathe Residency at Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester.

Solo shows at the Crawford Arts Centre, St Andrews and the Collins Gallery, Glasgow in 2005/2006, resulted in a publication about her work.

‘Re-Collections’ Pamela so, published by the Crawford Arts Centre and the Collins Gallery, April 2006.

Available from FCA&C, Town Hall, Queens Gardens, St Andrews, KY16 9TA t. 01334 474610 and from the artist so_pamela@hotmail.com PRESENTATION TITLE: ‘DE-CODING CULTURES’ Working title PRESENTATION OVERVIEW Please provide an overview of your presentation. This can range from a sentence to a maximum of 500 words.

De-coding cultures examines the strategies for engaging with communities through a case study of the Ricochet project at Stills Gallery, Edinburgh in partnership with the Chinese Elderly Support Centre, Edinburgh.

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NAME Kirsty Stansfield BA(Hons), MSc PROFILE Kirsty Stansfield is an artist currently undertaking a practice-based PhD entitled, “Sound As Interface A Performative Genotype” at the University of Dundee. Her interactive sound installations and sculptures provide situations and props in which sound mediates peoples’ relationships to each other and to their physical environment. These situations create opportunities for deeper engagement between the artist and an audience, such as musicians and dancers, and with people who don’t necessarily attend art galleries, such as a group of frail elderly women who live in a nursing home.

After completing a BA(Hons) in Sculpture from Glasgow School of Art (1993) and an MSc in Electronic Imaging at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (2000), Kirsty has developed her own art practice in parallel to working within socially-engaged contexts. Recently her art work was developed as Scottish Arts Council Partners artist-in-residence with Art in Hospital culminating with a solo exhibition at the Project Room, Tramway, Glasgow. Recent exhibitions, commissions and residencies include: Triskel Arts, Cork; Heyri, South Korea; NOW Performance Festival; VIVID, and Sonic Arts Network.

She has collaborated with choreographer, Colette Sadler; Speckled Computing Research Group, University of Edinburgh; Smart-its Computing, University of Lancaster; Dept of Applied Computing, University of Dundee; and Stills Gallery with Learning & Teaching Scotland.

Please feel free to edit the above and refer to www.rufa.net and my initial application to Praktika if these offer any additional information.

PRESENTATION TITLE Object Scores – a score for engagement PRESENTATION OVERVIEW Please provide an overview of your presentation. This can range from a sentence to a maximum of 500 words.

In 2006 I was awarded a Scottish Arts Council Partners Award to undertake a 5-month residency with Art in Hospital. This involved working with individual frail elderly people living in a continuing care ward in the Mansionhouse Unit, Victoria Infirmary, Glasgow to develop my own artistic practice while introducing participants to some of the mediums and ideas I explore within my own work. This centred on how sound can mediate people’s relationships to each other and to their physical environment, which in the case of a continuing care ward, fluctuates between institutional and domestic space. A combination of directive and non-directive processes were explored to introduce ideas through sound, sculpture, movement and interactivity, alongside photography and video. A balance of these directive and non-directive approaches to working with people became a benchmark throughout the residency.

The experience challenged my own creative process and encouraged me to acknowledge and examine my role as an artist as being central to the situations I created. It also gave me a deeper understanding of the nuances of collaboration with people who may not necessarily visit an art gallery.

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NAME Iseult Timmermans PROFILE

Information extracted from artist’s CV. As an artist I am committed to the ideals of social documentary whilst being attracted to more abstract and layered forms of representation generated though a collaborative and skills sharing arts process.

Education: 2006 – 2007 The Writers Factory Introduction to Screenwriting, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Glasgow. 22 week evening course.

1990 – 1995 BA.Hons in Fine Art Photography, Glasgow School of Art. 1988 – 1990 B.TEC Diploma in General Art&Design, Exeter College of Art & Design.

Employment: 1996 –present Project Co-ordinator and arts worker at Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow.

Selected project developments and delivery: 2006 - present SOBS: multi-media workshops and newsletter production with young people attending Yorkhill Sick Children’s’ Hospital.

2004 – present Multi Story: project co-ordinator and lead arts worker.

PRESENTATION TITLE Multi Story PRESENTATION OVERVIEW Giving an over view of the progression of my collaborative arts projects with refugees and asylum seekers in Glasgow since 2001.

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