Curated by Associate Artist, Emmie McLuskey, a series of commissions for public sites and online as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival Commissions Programme 2022
Channels Hannan Jones, Janice Parker, Maeve Redmond, Amanda Thomson and Background Noise
Our original invitation to Emmie was a relatively open brief to devise a programme of work by artists living and working in Scotland, including commissions, performance and events, reflecting in particular on the site, histories and present-day communities of the Union Canal. Emmie’s approach from the start has been informed by a deep interest in collaborative ways of working. While coming from a visual art background, her practice is committed to working with and across different artforms; she has a strong engagement with artists working with sound, performance, an interest in place and community, and with a shared questioning of how we live now, the systems that shape our ways of living, and opening up questions about alternative futures.
The process of working with Emmie and invited artists – Hannan Jones, Janice Parker, Maeve Redmond and Amanda Thomson – has been one of exploration and learning. The initial research has been enriched by many wonderful rambles along the Union Canal in the company of the artists, along with researchers, historians, community activists, botanists, individuals and organisations that live and work there. These walks and conversations have deepened our understanding and fascination with this site, which is a perhaps less well-known, but compelling part of the past and future story of our city. Through their works across performance, sound, design, archival research, print, and radio, the artists have created a series of works that we hope will be enjoyed by those walking, cycling, commuting or rambling on the canal this summer.
Jane Connarty, Programme Manager
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In the 18th century, Britain saw the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The development of the canal network, steam technology, and the building of factories, changed the economy of the UK forever – moving from a system based on agriculture, craft and localised production to large scale industry and mechanised manufacturing. The need to transport heavy goods and coal between cities in order to increase trade and maximise profit became integral to British industry.
The Union Canal, running for 31.5 miles between Edinburgh and Falkirk, opened in 1822 and was the last canal to be built in Scotland. The waterway was excavated by Navvies predominately from the Scottish Highlands and Ireland, living in temporary camps on the land where they worked. This was incredibly hard and dangerous work with some of the labourers losing their lives to the canal’s construction.
1842 saw the canal’s use change. The construction of the railway line between Glasgow and Edinburgh ran parallel to the waterway and this meant its use as a mode of transport became redundant. The canal fell into a slow commercial decline, closing to traffic in 1933, followed by its official closing in 1965. After this, the area descended into a state of disrepair, with risks to public health, crime and general negative feeling becoming widespread. A regeneration project in 2001 transformed the site into an area for leisure, appealing to joggers, cyclists, school children, water sports enthusiasts, and those out on a stroll. A location once devoted to industry being repurposed for wellbeing exemplifies the cycle of production, decline and regeneration. At present the canal is entering a new phase of rebuilding, becoming a site for student accommodation, cultural and educational organisations, and building projects for new housing developments. Opportunities for rapid financial growth and expansion often happen very quickly, and at the cost of existing residents.
In the making of this year’s festival and commissions programme we have had the great pleasure of collaborating with artist and producer Emmie McLuskey as the festival’s Associate Artist.
On behalf of the festival I offer warm thanks to Emmie and the invited artists for this year’s Associate Artist programme. It has been a pleasure and an inspiration to work with each of them. We also thank all those individuals we have met through our research and who have supported us in making the programme, including: Sorcha Carey, Director of Edinburgh Art Festival until the start of this year, who inspired us along this line of enquiry; Jim Slaven, Jean Bareham and Jane Jones, who guided us on early canal walks; and colleagues and collaborators at Scottish Canals; Edinburgh Canal Society; Polwarth Church and Re-Union boats who we look forward to spending more time with as part of the festival.
Emmie McLuskey, Associate Artist Channels
When running at a pace dictated by capitalism, I wonder about the needs of people and place; how are we being forced to articulate a system of value beholden to capitalism, and what kind of alternative system do we actually want? I wonder what is held in slower and quieter ways of being, thinking, and knowing? Can these ways provide navigation through some of these questions, and what is already happening within communities to confront this change?
The artists I have chosen to work with as part of this programme all think deeply about the importance of being situated in a context—how we as people move within and according to the systems that surround us. They tune in, posing questions about how we can better listen to our environments and foreground what might be seen as the background. Each of these artists is led by process. Guided by research, they do not have predetermined outcomes, but attempt to run alongside a place; being always malleable to change, they dig into its history, being inside its present they contemplate its future. I see these works as exploring what it means to be connected, moving under, over, up and down, intertwined and entangled with the living systems and people who move and have moved through them.
Following an invitation from Edinburgh Art Festival in January this year to respond to the site of the Canal, I wondered about these systems of value, how can we respond to a site whose original use has become redundant, and how we can honour the space of the local in the context of an international festival programme?
Left: Maeve Redmond, Barrie Girls, 2013, The Briggait. Image courtesy of the artist.
Right: Maeve Redmond, Glasgow Women’s Library, Reading List T-shirts, 2017. Photo: Caro Weiss, courtesy of Panel.
When encountering the canal from Lochrin Basin, one of the first works you will come across is by designer Maeve Redmond and is titled The Mathematical River. Maeve began her research in the archive at Edinburgh’s Central Library. Fascinated by the canal’s history, the title of the work comes from its design. The architects needed to take into consideration 73 metres of contours between Edinburgh and Falkirk, the natural ones being impossible to work with at this scale. So, a number of tunnels and aqueducts were constructed to create a
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Maeve Redmond, Billboard, Bell Street Glasgow. Produced as part of The Persistence of Type exhibition, Tramway, Glasgow (2015). Photo: Keith Hunter, courtesy of Panel.
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constant and level plain. Maeve’s reference within her design to those who built the canal as well as those who designed it seems poignant within this context, the labour within the site is vast, our enjoyment of it now owed to their work.
For the commission, Maeve has worked with local sign writer Tatch Hatch-Robertson of Journeyman Signs. Drawn to traditional sign painting that exists on canal boats as well as vehicles that were used to transport materials along the canal, the pair have come up with two paintings that echo these lost trades and the canal’s turbulent history. Maeve puts forward newspaper headlines, old maps, and typefaces, to explore the medium of sign painting as a conveyer of history. Sign painting as a trade currently having its own resurgence in shop front design, the trade can only be learned by being taught by another signwriter, a knowledge passed informally between people. As part of the project Tatch taught Maeve to paint their design via traditional method, and the two signs they made will be found on Leamington Lift Bridge and under Bridge One at Viewforth.
Surface bounce and cycles exists between two bridges, with the speakers positioned underneath each bridge. Over the last few months, the artist has collected sounds from along the canal – both under and over the water – using hydrophones as if she were taking its pulse. A mirage of animals, objects and movement pull us through different states, reminding us of what we are enmeshed within. Hannan uses her recorder as a tuner to experiment and explore hybridity. We move into alcoves, float along the surface, hover on the riverbed, to listen to places and things we would not otherwise encounter. We are brought into a scene of many sensory activities, with feedback loops being directed back into the architecture of the bridges. Through Hannan’s work we are reminded that understanding takes time and that multiple positions for study are part of composition. Listening is a daily practice that needs continual care and attention.
listening as a means of exploring multiplicity. Hannan is interested in finding moments of togetherness, using sampling, electronics, musique concrete and analogue recording techniques. Reminding us of the many processes of the natural world that go unseen, Hannan examines how the environment under the water merges with that of the human one.
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Hannan Jones’ work Surface bounce and cycles deals with the underside of the canal, what exists at its edges, surface to surface, water to air, echo and reverb. Hannan’s work, primarily in sound, centres
Right: Hannan Jones, Union Canal, 2022, photograph. Image courtesy of the artist.
Above: Hannan Jones, Our Purview, 2022, print. Image courtesy of the artist.
Hannan Jones, Evolution of the Hum, 2022, print. Image courtesy of the artist.
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Key to Amanda’s work is an interest in the natural world, language and the relationship of past to present, change over time and how and what we value, as seen in her previous work around the Scots language and in her referencing of botany. To go alongside the pamphlet, the artist has created a series of five plaques placed at points of interest between Lochrin Basin and Wester Hailes. While the canal has maintained its course, so much else has changed in local as well as global terms. Audiences are asked to take a walk along the canal, encountering the plaques that detail sources including The New Statistical Account of Scotland (1845), Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882) and The Scotsman (1818), that speak to the geographies, architecture, bird life and etymology of the waterway.
12 13 Amanda Thomson’s work responds to notions of home, movement, migration, landscape and how places come to be made. In her commission Mainly in Sinuousities Amanda has created a folded print work that acts as a guide, with one side navigating the canal through its flowers and the other providing us with historical commentary in the form of thirty one and a half parts. Working with botanist Greg Kenicer, Amanda walked the canal identifying some of the present-day plant-life that might be seen. Additional information spans plant usage which has at times been medicinal, practical or folkloric; some plants have their alternative Scots language names, found in old 19th Century Scots language dictionaries. Taking us on a journey through what is in the here and now, we are given the tools to orientate ourselves to what has gone before.
2022. Image courtesy of the artist.
Dictionary of Nature,
Left, below: Amanda Thomson, Dragonflies,
Above: Thomson,Amanda A Scots
2019. Image courtesy of the artist.
Left, above: Amanda Thomson, Aar, video, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist.
Amanda Thomson, lightly, tendrils, CCA Glasgow 2022. Photo: Alan Dimmick. Image courtesy of the artist.
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Choreographer Janice Parker’s work deals with each person’s natural movement potential, creating work that deepens the possibilities of feeling, thinking and being. Her creation of spaces for difference, privilege a form of intelligence that resides in the body and tells us that it is through movement and the senses that we can come to understand the world and our relations to it. For Janice, a place is a series of invitations or inhibitors – a space for encounter and interaction that moves between air and surface, human and non-human, fixity and fluidity, past and present, land and body.
Janice’s work for Edinburgh Art Festival, titled Not Brittle, Not Rigid, Not Fixed, does not yet exist at the time of my writing. Janice’s work will take place between the 14th to 28th of August, during the last two weeks of the festival. She will move once a day at a time that responds to the different rhythms of her body, the day, and the person supporting her. Beginning at Lochrin Basin, journeying to Wester Hailes and back, Janice will respond to the push and pull of the tow path, coming to know something of this place and its potential through how she is able to move there, the people she encounters, its smells, sights, sounds, surfaces textures, its organic and its inorganic life. Each day will also be recorded through a log that will be accessible online via the festival website aiming to capture the day’s encounters, energies, conversations and thoughts.
This quiet contemplative work deals with what it means to be in public space, the ways we are allowed to move there, who and what
Left: Janice Parker, Small Acts of Hope and Lament 2022. Photo: Emmie McLuskey. Image courtesy of the artist.
Right: Janice Parker, 1973, 2017. Photo: Brian Hartley. Image courtesy of the artist.
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Finally to everyone who comes to see this programme, your input, feedback and attention means a lot. I really hope you all enjoy the festival.
Janice Parker, Small Acts of Hope and Lament 2021. Photo: Ryan Buchanan. Image courtesy of the artist.
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is present, and who and what is not. Not Brittle, Not Rigid, Not Fixed, begins in the body and asks us to imagine what a thriving public urban space might be.
It is our desire as artists to open up questions and ways of seeing that might provide another viewpoint of where we are and where we might be going. As part of the Associate Artist Programme, we have curated a sound project called Background Noise that brings together those interested in the context of the canal from different fields of expertise to talk, reflect and respond. Over the course of August, the artists, invited contributors, and myself will explore these topics through sound, interview, spoken word and music. We will be together to speculate on these themes and think about how they are impacting on Edinburgh, as well as geographies all over the world. You can access Background Noise via www.background-noise.com or through the Edinburgh Art Festival website and my plan for the project is that this element will continue to grow and evolve after the festival finishes.
My huge thanks to everyone involved in this programme and for bringing it into being, firstly to the artists for their thoughtful and engaged work and being so open to the challenges of working in public, everyone involved in the Background Noise radio programme of which there of many, the festival team, Jane, Luke, Holly, Lizzie, Laura, Graham and Rhona for your patience, resilience and humour, the makers/ advisors including Tatch, Greg, Elizabeth, Roisin, Calum, Gareth, Margherita, Simon, James and Murray, the amazing locals who have shared the canal with us and helped us know the value of community, the tech team for your technical wizardry, all the spaces we have worked in and with, the Front of House staff who so diligently welcome the public into the work, to all the fabrication partners without which the work wouldn’t exist, and to all the people who will have helped in the time between me writing this and you reading, there will be many.
Artists’ Biographies
Hannan Jones (b. 1990, Mandjoogoordap on Binjareb Noongar Boodja, Western Australia) is an artist, musician and programmer who lives and works in Glasgow. Previous group presentations and performances include: Counterflows, CCA, Glasgow (2022); Sonica 2022, Civic Room, Glasgow; DADAA, Fremantle, Australia (2020); NTS Tate Lates, Tate Modern, London (2017); REWIRE, The Hague (2017); Sound Thought, CCA, Glasgow (2017) and Gallery Unit, Glasgow International (2016). Hannan’s music projects have been released on Weaponise Your Sound and Optimo Music.
Hannan has programmed alongside Dardishi Film Festival, Glasgow (2021) and as an Associate at Open School East, Margate (2020-21). She has received awards and support from A/C Projects; Arts Council England; Sound and Music UK and the Ian Potter Cultural Trust. At present, Hannan is a Co-Director of Transmission Gallery.
Maeve Redmond
Emmie McLuskey
Janice Parker
Amanda Thomson
Amanda Thomson (b. 1965, Scotland) is a visual artist and writer who lives and works in Strathspey, Scottish Highlands, and Glasgow. Her most recent art exhibition was at the CCA in Glasgow (2022). Her writing has been published in journals such as The Willowherb Review, and books including Antlers of Water, Writing on the Nature and Environment of Scotland and The Wild Isles, an anthology of the best of British and Irish nature writing as well having been commissioned by BBC Radio 4. Her first book, A Scots Dictionary of Nature is published by Saraband Books. Belonging, natural histories of place, identity and home will be published by Canongate Books in August 2022.
Parker has co-created work with artists Luke Pell for Amateo Arts Network (2019); theatre director Wils Wilson for the Royal Lyceum (2018); artist Claire Barclay for Hospitalfield (2014) Awards include Saltire Society Outstanding Woman of Scotland (2018); Herald Angel (2010); Creative Scotland Award (2005)
Janice Parker (b. 1957 Dumfries) lives in Edinburgh. A dance artist and choreographer who works collaboratively with people, place and context she is known for her socially engaged practice and for working across art forms and media. Recent highlights include work for The Edinburgh International Festival (2021); Cove Park (2021); The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (2021); the social justice network Necessity (2020); The National Galleries of Scotland (2019); Luminate Creative Ageing Festival (2019 and 2017); Glasgow Women’s Library (2017); Glasgow Tramway (2014)
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Maeve Redmond (b. 1989, London) is an independent graphic designer based in Glasgow. Commissions and group exhibitions include; Scottish Design Gallery, V&A Dundee (20182022), Cubitt Gallery, London (2018), Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop (2016), Tramway, Glasgow (2015) Volksbühne, Berlin (2013). Redmond works primarily with artists, writers and cultural organisations to design publications, billboards, campaigns, visual identities and websites. She collaborates with curators and artists on commissions to exhibit work resulting from her design practice.
Hannan Jones
Emmie McLuskey is an artist based in Glasgow. Recent projects include: these were the things that made the step familiar at Collective, Edinburgh; Hanging Out Artist Moving Image Festival co-programmed with Ima-Abasi Okon and Kimberley O’Neill at Tramway Arts with LUX Scotland, Glasgow; Private Lives with Sarah Fastré at Sissi Club, Marseille; and Dogo Residenz für Neue Kunst, Switzerland. She recently published A Strange American Funeral with Freya Field-Donovan and in 2020/21 she was in residence at ARCUS project, Japan in partnership with Hospitalfield and Talbot Rice Residents Programme, Edinburgh. In 2021/22 she was the lead artist on the School of Plural Futures with ATLAS Arts, Skye and Lochalsh and produced Cauleen Smith’s show and performance H-E-L-L-O at Collective, Edinburgh. McLuskey regularly writes about other artists’ work, recent commissions include FVU, London, National Galleries of Scotland, and Collective, Edinburgh.
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Artists’ Commissions. Credits and Acknowledgements
Hannan Jones
Bridges 2 and 3, Union Canal, Edinburgh Commissioned by Edinburgh Art Festival. Supported by the Scottish Government’s Festivals Expo Fund and Event Scotland. The artist wishes to thank: Murray Collier, Roisin Rowe, Calum Stirling, Jen Sykes, Rachael Simpson, Scott Duff, Edinburgh Art Festival team, Emmie McLuskey for your beautiful invitation and continuous support. My Mum – Sharron Jones, Nans – Glad Jones and Gangs – Leonard Jones for across the waters that worldwide love.
Work presented between 14 – 28 August at various points throughout the day Locations along the Union Canal between Lochrin Basin and Wester Hailes. Commissioned by Edinburgh Art Festival.
Surface bounce and cycles, 2022 Audio work, sculpture and performance.
Supported by the Scottish Government’s Festivals Expo Fund and Event Scotland.
Physical presence and the moving body.
Sound online. Conceived by Emmie McLuskey With contributions from the artists and invited guests Supported by the Scottish Government’s Festivals Expo Fund and Event Scotland. Sound Technician: Murray Collier Design: Margherita Huntly and Gareth Lindsay Programming: Simon Rogers
Programme Manager: Jane Connarty Production Manager: Luke Collins Community Engagement Manager: Holly Yeoman Programme Assistants: Lizzie Day, Laura McSorley Marketing and Communications Manager: Graham Webster
Mainly in Sinuosities, 2022
Supported by the Scottish Government’s Festivals Expo Fund and Event Scotland. The artist wishes to thank: Emmie McLuskey and Edinburgh Art Festival.
Maeve Redmond
Audio and Radio www.background-noise.comProject
Not Brittle, Not Rigid, Not Fixed, 2022
Edinburgh Art Festival
With thanks to: all the artists and guests involved, Gareth, Margherita, Simon, Murray and everyone at Embassy Gallery. My thanks also to Rachael Simpson, Colm McGuire, Scott Rogers, Charlotte Prodger, Andy Black, James Oliver, Mairi McFayden, Raghnaid Sandilands, Iain McKinnon and Ruth Little.
The artist wishes to thank: Greg Kenicer, Royal Botanical Garden, Edinburgh, The Bothy Project, Creative Practitioner Residency, Jim Slaven, Jean Bareham, Emmie McLuskey, Laura McSorley, Jane Connarty, Luke Collins and Ben Fallon.
Background Noise
Supported by the Scottish Government’s Festivals Expo Fund and Event Scotland. The artist wishes to thank: Journeyman Signs, Tatch Hatch-Robertson, Jim Slaven, Sam Bellacosa, Emmie McLuskey, Jane Connarty, Luke Collins, Lizzie Day.
The Mathematical River, 2022 and A Canal’s Past Coming to Life, 2022 Paint on board.
Printed matter and aluminium plaques. Locations along the Canal between Lochrin Basin to Wester Hailes Commissioned by Edinburgh Art Festival.
Leamington Lift Bridge and Viewforth Bridge Commissioned by Edinburgh Art Festival.
Amanda Thomson
Janice Parker
Wednesday 17 August, 2–3pm
Harrison Park, Edinburgh eh 11 1sg
Programme of Events
Thursday 28 July, 4–5pm
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Background Noise Radio
Amanda Thomson in conversation with botanist Greg Kenicer Chaired by Emmie McLuskey Polwarth Parish Church, 36-38 Polwarth Terrace, eh 11 1lu
Janice Parker in conversation with Emmie McLuskey Polwarth Parish Church, 36-38 Polwarth Terrace, eh 11 1lu BSL
Wednesday 3 August 2–3pm
Harrison Park, Edinburgh eh 11 1sg
Amanda Thomson and Elizabeth Reeder Nature Writing Workshop Aboard the Lochrin Belle
Sunday 14 August, 11am–1pm
Departing from Leamington Lift Bridge, Leamington Rd, eh3 9 pd
Hannan Jones Surface bounce and cycles
BSL Tour, Associate Artist Programme
Background Noise Radio (Live Broadcast) CLOSING PARTY online and in www.edinburghartfestival.comwww.background-noise.comperson
AboardPerformancetheLochrin Belle
See edinburghartfestival.com for further details and to book
Saturday 27 August, 5–7pm
Please contact learning@edinburghartfestival.com if you have any specific access requirements or questions
Sunday 21 August, 11am–1pm
Departing from Leamington Lift Bridge, Leamington Rd, eh3 9 pd
Maeve Redmond in conversation with signwriter Tatch Hatch-Robertson, Journeyman Signs
Allie Ormston
Friday 26 August, 2–3pm
Dip Friso
Please contact learning@edinburghartfestival.com if you have any specific access requirements or questions
Wednesday 17 August 4–5pm
Pleaseinterpretedcontactlearning@edinburghartfestival.com if you have any specific access requirements or questions
Audio Description Tour, Associate Artist Programme
Wednesday 24 August, 2–3pm
Sunday 28 August 6–7.30pm
Chaired by Emmie McLuskey Polwarth Parish Church, 36-38 Polwarth Terrace, eh 11 1lu
Live AboardperformancetheLochrin Belle
Live AboardperformancetheLochrin Belle
Saturday 6, 13, 20 and 27 August 6–7.30pm (Live onlineBroadcasts)www.background-noise.comwww.edinburghartfestival.com
Wednesday 3 August, 7–8pm
Hannan Jones in conversation with Emmie McLuskey Institut français d’Ecosse, West Parliament Sq, eh 1 1rf
Departing from mooring behind Cars 4 You, Murrayburn Rd, eh 14 2sn This workshop is for residents local to the canal
Departing from Leamington Lift Bridge, Leamington Rd, eh3 9 pd
The City of Edinburgh Council Programme Funders
Creative Scotland
Front cover image: Hannan Jones, Union Canal, 2022, photograph. Image courtesy of the artist.
28 July to 28 August: Bridge 8 Hub and Paddle Café, Calder Crescent, eh 11 4ne
Community Wellbeing Collective: Watch this Space
The participating artists who work across performance, installation, sound, graphic-design, writing and choreography question the complexity of our histories and how we live today. Through ways of working which place value on community centred practice, on collaboration and collective learning, this year’s programme invites us to think about change across time, technologies, political and social structures, and our desires for the future of our city.
Supported by the Scottish Government’s Festivals EXPO Fund EventScotland
Our 2022 commissions programme invites artists and audiences to explore and respond to sites and situations beyond the city centre, unfolding westward along the Union Canal, which this year celebrates its 200th anniversary.
For full details of sites, opening hours and booking information, visit www.edinburghartfestival.com
Edinburgh Art Festival Core Funders
Nadia Myre: Tell Me of Your Boats and Your Waters –Where Do They Come From, Where Do They Go?
Pester and Rossi: Finding Buoyancy
The Wave of Translation
30 July to 28 August: Westside Plaza Shopping Centre, Wester Hailes Road, eh 14 2sw
Back cover image: Amanda Thomson, Meadow Vetch, 2022, photograph. Image courtesy of the artist.
Designed by James Brook, www.jamesbrook.net
Edinburgh Art Festival Commissions Programme 2022
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The 2022 Commissions Programme also includes:
28 July to 18 September: A co-commission with Edinburgh Printmakers; Union Canal at Fountainbridge and Edinburgh Printmakers, Gallery 2, Castle Mills, 1 Dundee Street, eh3 9 fp
Originally built to transport coal into the city, the canal today serves as an important ‘green lung’. As a focal point for leisure activities and new housing developments, the canal connects communities, and embodies the many transformations and translations that have shaped urban life in Scotland and further afield over the past two centuries.
