Edinburgh’s Telford College is looking for 2 individuals to contribute to one of the most successful and dynamic Creative Industries Depts in UK Further Education Sector.
The Art & Design Team are delighted to announce a call for applications for our 2012-13 Artist in Residence (AIRetc) programme.
Now in its 2nd year the highly successful Artist in Residence programme at Edinburgh’s Telford College (AIRetc…) is an innovative scheme which provides recently graduated / professional artist and designers who have previously studied at Edinburgh’s Telford College with the opportunity to develop their knowledge, skills and experience in Art & Design education while developing their creative practice in a dedicated studio space.
For more details and an application form please click on the links below:
Five years ago this month ContemporaryArtETC.com was launched! The initial intention of our blog was to draw attention to the new Contemporary Art Practice course which would be launched in the autumn of 2007.
During that time we have made 217 posts and had over 20o,000 hits. Regular readers will have enjoyed a number of innovative developments over the years including Art e-Facts, Art e-Maps, Student Gallery, Staff and Alumni pages to name just a few.
To mark this milestone in our digital journey together ContemporaryArtETC.com is being ‘occupied’ by course participants both past and present.
The first of our occupiers are Claire Briegel and Kirsty Leonard currently in their 1st year of the course. Claire and Kirsty recently interviewed former HND student and current guest lecturer Benjamin Fallon after his lecture/presentation of Artists moving image work. The interview will be published very soon and followed by content exclusively written, developed or commissioned by Claire and Kirsty.
In the meantime, thank you to all our readers and contributors of the last 5 years!
Note: Future content and the views expressed are those of the individual author/s, interview/s, contributors concerned and are not neccesarily reflective of the blogs owners or its partners. If you have any concerns regarding content then please leave comments in the appropriate comments box.
I discovered Mike Kelley only a few months ago; I was working with teddy bears and was naturally drawn to his work, where he arranged stuffed toys into childlike, “teddy bear’s picnic” formations and created sculptures by fusing various toys together. I was attracted to the way he seemed to mess around with the objects, creating a sense of curios and play, yet the final result would often have a dark or serious meaning. With the stuffed bears in particular, he questioned the toys’ emotional value, which was the idea I was developing in my own work.
The next project I worked on saw me yet again looking to Kelley for inspiration. In October 2011, I visited the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead with my classmates to see the Turner Prize exhibition. However, most, if not all, of my peers were more awe-inspired by a work being shown on the floor above the Turner Prize show. Created by Mike Kelley and Michael Smith it was “The Voyage of Growth and Discovery”.
As we approached the room, I could hear the dull thuds of rave music. The doorway into the room was dark. I clocked a sign that read, “This exhibition may be unsuitable for young children”. I knew we were in for something good. As soon as I walked in, I was greeted with a whirlwind of lights, music and activity. A number of screens leered into the middle of the room, each one showing a video of Smith dressed in a baby outfit – his character, Baby IKKI – partaking in the Burning Man festival in Nevadaa. There was even a huge metal effigy of IKKI as the centerpiece of the exhibition. Kelley had built structures that reminded me of playground climbing frames and had attached various stuffed toys to them, the element that makes his work so distinctive. One of these structures was accessible, where visitors could roll around on a bed of teddies (the kids in the room had spent no time working this out). I could have spent hours in there, where all I felt was pure excitement.
I carried the experience I had into my next project, where my focus was carnival aesthetics and the link these rituals have with modern festivals. Throughout the project, I thought about how Kelley created an atmosphere – his use of lighting, music, imagery and decoration – to evoke emotions in an audience. I considered all of the things I had seen and heard and integrated them into my own work, as I shared an interest in combining Pagan celebration with modern culture. For that reason, I would say that the installation was my main artistic influence for the project, but it was also the most interesting and exciting installation I have ever seen. I enjoyed it so much, that I even bought the CD of the tracks played in the video shown.
No doubt I will continue to use my experience of being around Kelley’s work to influence the art I create. He inspired something fresh and exciting to be brought to contemporary art, a contribution that will be greatly missed. Personally, I have never felt so sad about someone I did not know personally passing away, because his work had a huge impact on me and will continue to for as long as I am making art.
Charlotte Wilkie-Sullivan is a Year 2 HND Contemporary Art Practice Student at Edinburgh’s Telford College
London born artist Jeremy Deller makes installation, video and performance art. He is particularly interested in the notion of art as communication. One of his best known works is a re-creation of a violent conflict between miners and police which took place during the 1984 miners strike titled The Battle of Orgreave (2001). The re-creation which was something akin to that of a battle re-enactment societies involved ex-miners and police officers who had participated in the original strike. Unlike the original battle the re-enactment was a much more congenial encounter.
Deller went on to win the Turner Prize in 2004 for his installation Memory Bucket (2003) a documentary about Crawford, Texas the hometown of George W Bush and the siege in nearby Waco.
Contemporary Art Practice etc... 
