Contemporary Art – Contemporary Art Practice etc…

hubCAP Gallery Presents: ‘FIRMAMENT’ an exhibition by Edward Cawood.

Published October 13, 2025

Firmament: Exploring the Industrial Echoes of Prestongrange.

SETT Studios will soon host Firmament, a striking new exhibition by artist Edward Cawood presented by HubCAP Gallery.

Textured blue background with bold white text "FIRMAMENT" in the center. Below: "Edward Cawood," "Sett Studios," and dates "16-20 Oct. 2025."

Opening at SETT Studios on Thursday, 16th October 2025 Cawood’s latest presentation draws on several years of research and creative experimentation to produce work that delves into the layered industrial history of Prestongrange — once one of Scotland’s most significant brick and tile works, and home to early coal mining operations dating back to the 12th century.

The exhibition takes its title from the Latin firmamentum, meaning “a firm object” or “celestial barrier.” This dual sense of strength and mystery resonates through Cawood’s practice, which merges meticulous, archival study with deeply material processes. His works — ranging from “textual objects” to experimental photographic pieces on tile — embody a physical and conceptual dialogue with the site’s past. Each piece is the result of labour-intensive techniques that mirror the endurance and transformation embedded in the landscape itself.

Firmament represents the culmination of Cawood’s investigations into site, value, and industrial heritage, revealing a body of work that is both contemplative and tactile. Visitors will encounter a collection of pieces that evoke the textures of history, reimagined through the lens of contemporary art. Notably, the exhibition also introduces new, never-before-seen works, offering a first glimpse into the artist’s latest explorations.

The opening event takes place on Thursday, 16th October, with two sessions: a bookable Quiet Opening from 3pm to 5.30pm, designed to provide a relaxed, accessible experience, and the Main Opening from 6pm to 8pm.

Following the launch, the exhibition will be open for public viewing on:

17th October: 3pm – 8pm
18th – 20th October: 12pm – 5pm

A special event on 19th October (2.30pm – 4pm) will feature a bookable Writing Workshop with Beth Cockerline, inviting participants to creatively respond to the themes and atmosphere of Firmament.

Through Firmament, Edward Cawood transforms the remnants of Scotland’s industrial past into meditative reflections on endurance, decay, and the stories embedded in place — bridging history, art, and material memory in one evocative exhibition.

hubCAP Gallery is an Artist Run Exhibitions and Events organisation run by a rotating committee of participants of the HND Contemporary Art Practice (CAP) course at Edinburgh College Granton Campus. ‘Frimament’ is the first off campus exhibition by hubCAP.

SETT Studios is an artist-run studio with dedicated gallery space in Leith, Edinburgh.

Further information including accessibility information is available via the hubCAP Gallery website:

https://hubcapgallery.com/2025/09/11/hubcap-presents-firmament/

Mike Nelson Constructs A Eulogy to Entropy

Published August 18, 2025

By Beth Cockerline CAPetc YR2. 1st publised by FAD magazine 14th Aug 2025

Entropy

/ˈɛntrəpi/

Noun

1. a measurement of the energy in a system or process that is not available to do work ¹

2. lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.

“The crucial thing about entropy- it always increases over time. It is the natural tendency of things to lose order. Left to its own devices, life will always become less structured. Sandcastles get washed away. Weeds overtake gardens” ²

In this unprecedented time of change and turmoil perhaps we need to embrace entropy? Perhaps we need to pause and let things be washed away, slow down and let the weeds take over? Synonymous with immersive installations, Mike Nelson recently spent two months in homage to this decay; in an act of service and love to the entropy of a block of South London flats. In a “reverse DIY”³ feat, Nelson has created a hauntingly familiar work, Humpty Dumpty, a transient history of Mardin earthworks, low rise, at Fruitmarket gallery in Edinburgh. The exhibit, which coincides with Edinburgh Arts Festival, then comes full circle and counters with the inquisitive exploration of the rebirth of a South-Eastern Turkish city, Mardin.

If you grew up in the 70s-90s, in a British council house, Low Tide is akin to attending the funeral of a former life. I’d suggest you start your journey here, in the upper gallery and Warehouse, where Nelson sensitively captures the gritty detail with nostalgic reminiscence, of the now extinct, Heygate Estate, through photography, sculpture and installation.

Life-size documentation, come sculptures, dominate the upper gallery. Interior and exterior scenes ubiquitous to run-down, concrete housing estates around the country are showcased and transformed into 3D works with Nelson’s scavenged and reused materials- providing a rich textural language of his own work alongside patinaed architectural features. Incongruous 80s arcade machines also form parts of these sculptures, the technology and aesthetic of these pieces not quite matching the decaying beauty of the wooden beams or the flaking deterioration of salvaged metal but a genre marker of an era none-the-less.

The scale of these works (printed on a machine, specifically sourced from the same era as the building) give them transportive powers. I feel like I could walk up the well-worn stairs, I almost feel the threadbare carpet underfoot, the invasive presence of beige- the tiles, the carpets, the wallpaper, the curtains- feels so recognisable I can almost hear the hiss of the open grill in my mum’s kitchen. I smell and could reach out to her infamous chip pan entombed in grease. Stepping into Nelson’s work is like inhabiting a memory and I am flooded with flashbacks of pink velour pyjamas and anaglypta wallpaper.

There is also a distinct evocation of wistfulness in this work. Stairs are embellished with festoons of work lights and torn lanterns from bygone celebrations. They are littered with evidence of lives lived: crisp packets, frayed t-shirts, chipped paintwork, fag-ends and mould. The guts have been ripped out and homes have been left to slowly die.

Continuing this mournful trip through Nelson’s exterior photos, the audience are invited to trespass through scrapyards of rusting hubcaps and abandoned garages. Ironic graffiti claiming this failed utopia as ‘Home Sweet Home’ jostles with the palpable coldness of the giant textured slabs used to hastily construct the tower blocks. We see behind the scenes of the concrete- in excavations of pipes and clipped electrical cables and the monstrous claw of a digger making way for ‘progress’.

If these photos don’t help you inhabit council houses of the 70s, just make your way down to the warehouse where you can physically enter a scale replica of one of the flats Nelson visited. Despite it being a replica in shape and size Nelson has cobbled together this building and it’s contents from all corners of the earth. Suggesting perhaps that decay and entropy are a universal experience? Or just embracing the beauty and texture of found materials?

Apprehensively, I enter through an ominous metal security door (from New York), scrawled with graffiti tags, which creaks and then slams behind me. Instantly, I leave the gallery, and I am consumed by contrary feelings of both home and anxiety. The bones of the place creak as I explore the crumbling façade and damp innards of this building steeped in an melancholic fragility- it feels as if it could disintegrate at any moment. An unfettered harsh light from a bare-bulb and the flicker of a strip light highlight the Matrix-type glitch of this construction, of a construction, within a construction and expose a bookshelf cleared of life but layered in grime.

The shuffle of my feet on barren floorboards is the only sound in this seemingly deserted place which only serves to underline the feeling that I shouldn’t be here. I am witnessing something I shouldn’t, and it is both thrilling and terrifying.

The chipboard walls and chipped doors are laced with roses of mould, and the proverbial stench of damp concrete is pervasive as I try to readjust my vision to the darkness lingering through the kitchen window (from Nelson’s own house I’m told). An expansive building site of rubble and abandoned builder’s buckets surrounds the

About the author: Beth Cockerline is about to start the 2nd year of the HND Contemporary Art Practice at Edinburgh College. Edinburgh based writer, artist and teacher with a penchant for gender equality, feminism and promoting the rights of marginalised groups. Beth is also a member of the amazing hubCAP gallery in Granton.

Skinny Review CAP @ESW

Published November 9, 2014

Extract from FEATURE BY ROSAMUND WEST.

PUBLISHED 04 JULY 2014

“The Contemporary Art Practice course has a fine art focus, offering students the environment to experiment, to investigate processes and challenge themselves. Says lecturer Alan Holligan, “We offer a very broad range of contemporary practices so people can specialise in sculpture, 2D practices, 3D practices or mixed practice. Usually they make decisions based on the courses they specifically want to go to, wherever that might be. They’re encouraged to work into areas that we as lecturers don’t necessarily have expertise in. I think in some courses they’re supposed to stay within the knowledge of their lecturer, which is why there’s often an emphasis on painting, an emphasis on sculpture, whereas we’re very clear that the students’ ambition shouldn’t be set by our skillset. They need to outreach that and often we have to keep up with them, which is good for everybody concerned.”

This year’s class first exhibited in the working professional environment that is the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, before transferring a pared-down version of the show to Summerhall. They’re a mixed bunch, exploring a wide variety of disciplines with varying degrees of success. Still at an experimental stage in their practice, this is to be expected. However, some students display a striking level of ambition, notably Jay Easton, who delves into the realms of technology to present work which aims to pose challenging questions. In ESW, two iPhones communicate with one another, displaying the mundane chatter between a couple. With the human protagonists removed from the equation, the relationship is reduced to two screens interacting eerily.

In Summerhall, Easton displays two QR codes, one on a slate (redolent of history, sculpture, early man) and one on a box afixed to the wall. A hasty download of a QR scanner (the technology seems a bit retro already, ironically) reveals the works to link to texts on his blog meditating on the dangers of an unconsidered embrace of technology, and the parallels of Pandora’s box, respectively.

He’s now off to GSA to delve further into his research. Like many in the Let’s Glow showcase, Easton is at an interesting point in his development. The bright prospects each has before them suggests this will not be the last we hear of them.”

Read the full article here: http://www.theskinny.co.uk/art/features/308272-edinburgh_college_lets_glow

Annuale Open Call 2014:

Published April 20, 2014

4th May Deadline

Annuale 2014 / 20 June – 6 July

Annuale 2014 / 20 June – 6 July
open call submit by 4 May to participate in annuale 2014.
Annuale is an annual festival of independent and grassroots activity co-ordinated by Embassy in Edinburgh.

Embassy provides a promotional platform for events that take place as part of annuale. We also offer what help we can to make it possible for your project to take place, although we cannot provide financial support for projects.

Past annuale events have included exhibitions, one night events, screenings, workshops and trips out of the city,
Please get in touch at annuale@embassygallery.org if you have any queries or would like more information.

Annuale welcome proposals from artists based out of town as well as local groups

http://www.annuale.org

To the reader.

Published October 18, 2013

New exhibition curated by CAP guest lecturer Benjamin Fallon opens at IMPAKT Festival in Utrecht.

To the reader is a new exhibition curated by #CAPetc guest lecturer and ex-student Benjamin Fallon. Forming part of the 2013 IMPAKT Festival the exhibition deals with issues around capital and the lack of cohesive responses since the crisis that emerged in 2008. IMPAKT is a major European media art festival, which has taken place annually in Utrect, Netherlands since 1988. Each year IMPAKT deals with a single theme, which is examined through various media, including an extensive film programme, talks, events and exhibition. The theme of this year’s festival is CAPITALISM CATCH-22 posing the question of how to solve the dilemma, which exists between capitalisms place as the dominant and seemingly most workable economic system and its failures and the apparent inevitability of it being a dead end.

“The work in the show understands the limits of a moral critique that suggests that capital should just act nicely. Curator Benjamin Fallon points out that asking an inhuman system that is fundamentally interested in its own progress and growth, to behave in the interest of humans, is ultimately futile.”

http://impakt.nl/festival/2013-festival/program-2013-festival/capitalism-catch-22-programme/curators-capitalism-catch-22-programme/meet-the-curators-benjamin-fallon/

To The Reader emerges from the understanding that capitalism is, first and foremost, a social relation that defines our behaviour. The exhibition is grounded in our current historical period. The basis for capitalism as a mode of organization has never been weaker, but paradoxically has seen almost no credible articulations of dissent. Perhaps there have been some fairly weak moral pleas for it to behave more pleasantly, and vague ideas that a return to Fordism and Keynesianism might be a good idea.

The exhibition itself is a tightly packed constellation of existing, newly commissioned and extended works, thinking through some of the contradictions we find ourselves entangled within. Whilst some of the information and ideas dealt with are necessarily complex, the exhibition will maintains a level of humour, understanding the importance for a certain lightness of touch when dealing with complexity.

The exhibition includes works by: Daniel Andújar; Bureau d’études; Liam Gillick; Goldin+Senneby; Hiwa K; Mierle Laderman Ukeles; Learning Site; Huw Lemmey and Ben Vickers; The Bureau of Melodramatic Research; Capital Drawing Group (Andrew Cooper, Enda Deburka, Dean Kenning, and John Russell); Paul Sullivan; and Marika Troili.

http://impakt.nl/headquarters/news/festival-exhibition-to-the-reader/

Opening on Friday 18 October from 17.00 to 20.00 hrs at BAK, with a performance by The Bureau of Melodramatic Research titled Lovegold – Contemporary Alchemy at 18.30 hrs.

On Saturday 2 November 2013 at 15.00 hrs, Fallon and participating artists will introduce the project through a guided tour.

The Impakt Festival takes place from 30 October to 3 November 2013 at various locations throughout Utrecht. For more information on the Impakt Festival exhibition To The Reader, please visit www.impakt.nl.

Benjamin Fallon is an independent curator, writer and designer currently based in Brussels. Since leaving the HND Public Art (now Contemporary Art Practice) at Edinburgh College Granton (formally Edinburgh’s Telford College) he has participated in Curatorlab, Konstfack Stockholm 2012/13, served as co-director of Embassy Gallery between 2008 and 2010 and prior to this he worked in various capacities at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and ONEZERO. Benjamin is visiting lecturer at both Edinburgh College of Art and Edinburgh College.

Recent projects include You are just in the middle of the beginning various locations around Stockholm, 2013-ongoing; The Exhibition and its Histories the University of Edinburgh, 2013; Banal Inferno CCA Glasgow, 2010; Hello World Embassy Gallery, 2010; Warehouse of Horrors +44 141/ Studio Warehouse, Glasgow, 2009.

Benjamin is instigator of the working group Let’s get together and call ourselves an institute. researching the possibilities for new forms of institutional practice.

AH 18-10-13

PARADISE: Found.

Published October 16, 2013

‘PARADISE’ is an exhibition of new work by #exCAPer Sofie Fischer-Rasmussen. The exhibition is a presentation of bold, botanically themed, photographic works, fragile sculptures and intricate instillations. These are the result of the artist’s struggle to maintain the necessary balance between economic self sufficiency, and becoming a professional working artist in her first year out of art school.

Sofie graduated from HND Contemporary Art Course at Edinburgh College Granton in 2009 before going directly into year 2 of the highly respected Sculpture and Environmental Art Course at Glasgow School of Art. Since graduating from GSA in summer 2012 Sofie has continued to develop her practice while dealing with the economic realities of life after art school.

Sofie is prolific in her use of social media and internet based research. Some which readers can see from the links below which include an interview on Glasgow based artists collective 2-1-4-1 website.

PARADISE: Opens tonight at 6pm at A.Gallery, 87 Saltmarket Glasgow.

SFR on tumblr:

http://sofiefischerrasmussen.tumblr.com

Full exhibition text:

http://sofiefischerrasmussen.tumblr.com/image/64408284423

Interview with SFR on 2-1-4-1 website:

http://2-1-4-1.com/exhibition-preview-and-artist-interview-sofie-fischer-rasmussen

AH:16-10-13

LOCAL: Exhibition launch event video.

Published March 17, 2013

[youtube=http://youtu.be/bhnD6S3MRxY]

Video produced by the Edinburgh College Granton Learning Resources Video Production Unit.

Thanks to David McLachlan & Mike Chalmers

Lectures and Chats with Benjamin Fallon: By Claire Briegel & Kirsty Leonard

Published February 17, 2012

CAP students have had the chance to spend a day with Benjamin Fallon who led us on an excellent curatorial tour of artist moving image work from very early movements to contemporary interventions in digital time-based practice. The first half of the day provided an excellent overview (could have lasted a week if we had had Ben with us for long enough) of video work, situated in its historical and cultural context. We watched snippets of a wide range of video from the anxiety-inducing repetition and conceptual minimalism of Bruce Nauman’s Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square to the sensual aesthetics of Pipilotti Rist’s work and Bill Viola’s ‘high definition’ video interventions, exploring juxtaposed celebratory / dystopian visions of past / future realities.

The second half of the day led us towards a set of video works influenced by Ben’s curatorial practice featuring work responding to network culture and digital interaction, exploring ways in which the contemporary artist re-appropriates new spaces of culture brought about by the virtual and digital world, regaining agency with which to speak about the new subjectivities emerging within it. More information available here: http://curatorial.theopenseas.org/

This latter part of the day also included works by CAP’s very own Alan Holligan from Ben’s curatorial project The Warehouse of Horrors: http://curatorial.theopenseas.org/?portfolio=warehouse-of-horrors

We caught up with Ben after the lectures to have a wee chat with him about his (career) so far, his curatorial practice, and what he’s up to at the moment:

So, how did it all start for you?

How did it all start? Well, at Telford College – yes I came here! Well, I mean I suppose I left school at 16, failed my highers. I ended up doing art as default because… I’m lazy. And then, I gradually realised that I was properly interested in it, so I did what was the equivalent of prep and then the HND Public Art. It took three years instead of two.

Was that just the time it took then?

Well no – I failed in my second year! (laughs)

But Public Art wasn’t a particularly inspiring course was it, from what Alan said…?

No – it’s very, very different now to how it was then – now the course has been re-written, Contemporary Art Practice allows for a lot more development.

Yes, we’re lucky to have such energetic and engaged lecturers… and you didn’t go to art school after?

No. I applied a number of times after Telford. I think for two years I applied and then I got to the point where I was active in the Sculpture Workshop and other places and I realised I didn’t necessarily need to go to art school, so I didn’t apply that year and the years progressed and I just went oh well, that’s not happening.

That’s sort of encouraging. You know that you feel maybe you didn’t really miss out on anything, and that you can make your own way – especially with looming fee rises etc.

No I mean I think, obviously it’s quite nice to go to art school. A lot of my friends were there – I got the nice side without the bad side!

So was there something that sparked your career?

Um…Career is quite a grand word for it. Yeah, um, I don’t know I guess it’s just an interest. I mean, like I said I failed the second year of the HND because I just didn’t care at the time, I wasn’t interested. But I readjusted. I thought: ok now I need to do this properly. I became interested in the theoretical side a lot more. It was just because of an interest in that which led me to organise shows myself and then –

So you did your first shows independently? Did you apply for funding…?

Oh, it’s only very recently that I’ve had funding for anything. It’s always come out of my own pocket. But working with, you know, young local artists and art students, which… is cheap. It’s not something that pays a lot of money but…

So your first curatorial project… how did you initiate it?

Um, well I guess it was kind of working with a group of people who I knew about the arts… Yeah so it was just about finding people around me and I was very fortunate in that I was living in a house that had a spare room: gut that out, paint it white and you have a gallery. I think that, we could look back at it at that time and there was an emerging active artist-led scene in Edinburgh up to that point but it was never that visible. The Collective was there but it had been institutionalised years ago so I guess all that sparked me off a bit.

There are a lot more artist-led happenings now in Edinburgh aren’t here…

Yeah – there seems to be more and more, which can only be a good thing.

We were wondering about Alan: we want to know what influence he had on you…

Me and Alan didn’t get on for a long time because I wasn’t that committed for a while, but now we’re very good friends! Yeah it was kind of in my final year here that we found that we had lots of the same interests and yeah I think he’s very useful… in a grumpy way.

He’s very um, non-committal you don’t get a straight answer, it’s good…

Yeah it’s good because he makes you do the work – makes you answer your own question effectively.

Yeah, he’s good at that… I like to think of him as like a philosopher’s touchstone or something… So what are you doing at the moment?

At the moment I’m working on a project which is a non- public based, theoretical project. There are seven of us who are meeting once a month for the next six month to discuss institutional practice within Scotland which is, which sounds like a dry topic but… It’s through people who have worked within institutions of differing levels and we’ve tried to bring the group on one plane. So that’s the main one. I might be on another exhibition but there’s not really space for it. This is the big thing that you come up against. You get a certain position within the contemporary art world but that doesn’t necessarily equate to being able to do anything. I think that maybe it’s specific to Scotland. My friends in Europe have a bit more opportunity to get things going. I think Scotland is a very artist-centred country which is good, in a sense, but –

Do you think it’s more difficult to self-organise here?

Yeah, like actually getting a space to do a show, getting funding together, as a curatorial project, rather than as an artist. It’s still not easy to be an artist but there’s a lot more opportunity. If you look at exhibitions across Edinburgh, you know, it’s always generally solo exhibitions. You don’t see very many group exhibitions… I’m interested in doing group exhibitions, and pulling in wider ideas.

That’s interesting… this might be a bit of an annoying question but, we were wondering what you feel the ‘contemporary artist’ needs to be doing just now?

I think that… That’s a very difficult question. I think if you want to go down one route and do the commercial artist thing you need to be chatty or produce work that looks like every other work you see. Um… I don’t like the question because it makes it seems like there is such a thing as the correct artist- which I don’t think there is.

That’s a good answer. Why do you do what you do?

Um… God knows! I think because probably I’m curious. I think of art as a source of knowledge production, rather than entertainment or any other conceived views of art. And I think it’s about building my own knowledge and trying to share that knowledge and work with things that interest me.

(another equally difficult question we had noted down, but…) What about the role of a curator?

Well for me it’s about knowledge production and… just trying to work things through. Yeah…well I don’t like the idea of a job. At a recent show I did I was described as an early career curator; I hate the idea of a career because it comes with the idea of a hierarchy and climbing the ladder and I’m not interested in that. I want to be doing what I’m doing. I understand the pragmatics that I have to earn some money at some point but at the moment I’m doing that through web design.

That seems like quite an interesting point: making artwork, curating and doing something quite different to that on the side to make money, so as not to have to give up part of your practice to do that. Whereas if you were trying to make your living as an artist through funding or commissions or in the arts in general…

You have to do a commercial kind of thing. Most of the artists I know just take up a job and don’t even think about trying to sell their work I do know a few people who sell work, but…

(pause)

Any regrets?

Um… Oh, am I going to say the really trite thing? I probably am, yeah. Not really, no, because you learn from everything you do, and I try not to think back and regret things because, you know, it got me somewhere.

That’s good to know. Thanks Ben, and thanks for a very interesting day!

Ben Fallon, Kirsty Leonard and Claire Briegel

For more information on some of the artists mentioned above see links below:

Bruce Nauman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qml505hxp_c

Pipilotti Rist: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/video/2011/oct/05/artist-pipilotti-rist-eyeball-massage-video

Bill Viola: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-V7in9LObI | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szc8dWQf3zc

As well as a wealth of artist video and sound work here: http://www.ubu.com

Telford College Partner in The Big Arts Give Christmas Challenge 2010

Published December 8, 2010

Telford College and Contemporary Art Practice partner Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop (ESW) is one of only six Scottish charities selected to participate in the Big Arts Give Christmas Challenge, UK-wide campaign supported by the Scottish Government and Arts & Business which aims to raise £3m in total by increasing the incentives for supporting the arts.

Until Friday 31 December, all donations made through the Big Arts Give website will help ESW raise funds for the New Sculpture Centre

The Big Idea

To create a purpose-built sculpture centre in Edinburgh providing the facilities and services needed by artists to support them at all stages in their careers and to provide a valuable public resource which will enable people of all ages and ability to learn about contemporary sculpture.

ContemporaryArtETC.. has a long standing and highly productive partnership with ESW allowing our learners to produce and exhibit work in a professional, supportive and highly respected organisation. The new purpose built sculpture centre, the only one of its kind in the UK, will allow us to take the partnership to to a new level and we need your help to make it happen and secure this exciting future.

A limited number of donations and match funded and all money raised will go towards the cost of building the new sculpture centre.

If you would like to support Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop please make your donation through the Big Arts Give website by following the link below:

Big Arts Give Christmas Challenge

Telford’s Partners, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop Receives £3m Arts Investment

Published October 27, 2010

Edinburgh’s Telford College’s are delighted to hear that its partners at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop have heard yesterday, 26 October 2010, that they have won a £3M Arts Funding Prize from the Scottish Community Foundation.

The anonymous donor funding the prize has given the Scottish Community Foundation – a charity that specialises in supporting philanthropic giving – the green light to award £3M to the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop to create a world class research and production facility at its Newhaven site.

Telford’s Fine Art Curriculum Leader and Board Member of Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Alan Holligan said:

“Edinburgh’s Telford College has had a long relationship with the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop so we are therefore delighted to hear of this generous investment to develop in north Edinburgh a state-of-the-art sculpture centre. There is nothing like this currently anywhere else in the UK and it will give our learners the opportunity to continue to develop their industry knowledge and skills in a creative environment alongside professional artists and creative and cultural entrepreneurs.”

The Creative Laboratories will provide a mix of indoor and open-air workspaces around a central courtyard. Together with the sculpture centre, the Laboratories will create a vibrant cultural hub of benefit to the whole city. The addition of viewing areas and a café will open up the space to visitors. The primary purpose of the competition was to fund a building of exceptional architectural and cultural merit within the City of Edinburgh, which will enable residents and visitors to the city to experience or participate in the arts.

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop’s Creative Laboratories beat off stiff competition for the prize from the Scottish Book Trust and Edinburgh College of Art. Designed by Sutherland Hussey Architects, the Creative Laboratories will be a unique new building situated alongside Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop’s new £5m sculpture centre.

Director of Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Irene Kernan, said:

“This is an amazing opportunity for Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop which will enable us to fulfill our ambitions to create a world class sculpture centre in the city. The Arts Funding Prize represents a major investment in future generations of artists and will be a major resource for our local community in Newhaven as well as the city as a whole.

“The partnerships Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop has with Telford has been hugely successful and the Creative Laboratories will now allow us to expand our partnership and to further develop interdisciplinary practices and provide graduates with the stepping stones to a career in the arts.”

Professor Bill Scott Chair of the Board of Directors at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop said:

“The working partnership with Telford and Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop demonstrates collaboration at its best – Edinburgh’s Telford College was the first college to really connect with Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and the development now of the Creative Laboratories will offer huge learning experiences to students.”

Chair of the Judging Panel, Bob Benson said:

“The panel felt Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop’s proposal offered the most inspiring combination of exciting architecture and cultural impact. Its Newhaven location will expand the artistic geography of the city, and create a unique cultural venue in this part of Edinburgh.

“Along with offering our wholehearted congratulations to the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, the panel would also like to commend the Scottish Community Foundation for the smooth running of this award. It ensured the best projects were put forward for this prize and enabled the donor to make a high profile contribution to Edinburgh’s cultural landscape while preserving their anonymity.”

The Centre is expected to open in 2013.

www.edinburghsculpture.org

www.scottishcf.org

www.ed-coll.ac.uk

ContemporaryArtETC… Diploma Show at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop.

Published June 2, 2009

ContemporaryArtETC… are delighted to present images from the current HN Diploma Show, XX – Collective.

XX – Collective, the first ever Contemporary Art Higher National Diploma Exhibition is on now at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and features drawing, painting, sculpture, video, photography and performance.

ContemporaryArtETC.. greet new staff to the team.

Published February 25, 2009

ContemporaryArtETC are delighted to announce the arrival of 2 new members of the staff team. Heather Craig and Jen Outhwaite.

Heather who has been a prominent of the FineArtETC team at Edinburgh’s Telford College for 5 years will replace Neil Manning as a Lecturer during his time as Acting Curriculum Manager. Heather who graduated from the Intermedia course at Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is a practicing artist with an impressive CV including being lead singer of underground electro/punk/pop/art outfit The Gussets.

Jen is new to both the college and the course and has an equally impressive back ground, graduating in 2008 form the Sculpture School at ECA. Jen joins us as our very 1st Learning Assistant.

Some of our regular readers might remember that both Heather and Jen have featured on this site before as both have joined us on separate trips to Germany. Jen joined us in Muster and Kassel in the summer of 2007 and Heather helped maintain order at 5th Berlin Biennale.

Jen and Heather will bring new perspectives, thinking, skills, vibrancy and enthusiasm to the team and we are very much looking forward to working with them.

For further information on all the course team please visit the Staff Page

ContemporaryArtETC… student exhibits in City Art Centre

Published January 31, 2009

An artwork by HND Contemporary Art Practice Year 2 participant Sarah Wilson has been selected for the annual exhibition of Visual Arts Scotland which opened at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh last night. The exhibition offers a rare chance to see some of the best painting, sculpture, printmaking, jewellery, ceramics, glass, textiles, furniture and photography in Scotland all under one roof.

This is a great honour for Sarah who’s work was selected from among 750 submissions many of which were made by professional artists and degree graduates. It is testimony to the quality of the work produced by participants on the ground breaking course at Edinburgh’s Telford College that Sarah is exhibiting in such illustrious company.

The work, which was produced in response to a course brief, is brass plaque mounted on wood with an engraving of the definition of the Lex Sumptuaria an ancient Roman law outlawing the public display of wealth during times of economic hardship.

The exhibition is open daily until 19th March

City Art Centre
2 Market Street. Tel: 0131 529 3993

ContemporaryArtETC Graduates show opens in Carlilse

Published January 27, 2009

Congratulations to ContemporaryArtETC graduates Jennifer Ferns, Lynn Mouat & Daine Cornwall who’s latest works featured in “Therfore I am” an exhibition of new work at Cumbria University’s Fine Art Campus in Carlisle. The exhibition which is of a very professional standard was developed, organised and promoted by the students themselves giving them invaluable experience in organisation and co-operation.

The opening of the show coincided with a visit to the campus of our current HN students all of whom have applied to the Fine Art course at Cumbria University.

During the visit we were kindly invited to take part in the gallery walk through which involved all the exhibitors giving a short presentation providing valuable insight into their work.

The exhibition “Therefore I am” is open daily from 10am – 4pm until Friday the 30th January

University of Cumbria, Caldewgate Campus, Newcastle Street, Carlilse



City/Town:

New Studios for HND Contemporary Art students.

Published January 8, 2009

localhost:10076/ is delighted to announce our recent move to brand new studio accommodation in Edinburgh's Telford College. The new studio has allowed us to allocate individual spaces to all of our current students in years 1 & 2 of the HND Contemporary Art Practice course.

As well as individual spaces the studio is also equipped with networked iMac computers and personal lockable storage. Having their own spaces means that students can take ownership of the studio allowing them to carry out sustained research, development and production.

As well as the new studio students continue to have access to specialist studios and workshops including; flexible and well lit life drawing and drawing & painting studio and specialist workshops for wood and metal production.

Visiting Artists: Dean Hughes

Published December 4, 2008

Students and staff at localhost:10076/ would like to thank Dean Hughes for providing an insight into his practice as a contemporary artist. Dean presented and discussed a range of work dating from his early years at Chelsea College of Art & Design in 1993 right up to his most recent body of work which was recently acquired by the Saatchi Gallery.

Dean utalises the language and media of the every day to bring fresh perspective to our often unnoticed daily routines. From the re-embroidery of London bus seats through the re-hydration of waterless puddles to the re-interpretation of the fundamentals of the pre-paperless office using A4 paper, hole punch and staplers he quietly and skillfully intervenes into pre-existing givens.

Dean will be returning to Edinburgh’s Telford College in the new year in his capacity as head of the Intermedia dept at Edinburgh College of Art to talk to HN CAP students about the Intermedia degree programme.

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/artpages/dean_hughes_shelves1.htm

http://www.dicksmithgallery.co.uk/ga/bio/bio_dh.html

http://www.doggerfisher.com/artists_ex/artistdetail.php?id=85

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop @ WASPs presents: Lyndsay Mann and Ewan Robertson

Published November 12, 2008

TBG&S Installation, Dublin 2008 Casimir in Monoceros, 2007

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop presents a two person exhibition featuring new work by Edinburgh based artists Lyndsey Mann & Ewan Robertson will open tomorrow night 13th Novemebr at Patriothall Gallery, Stockbridge.

Lyndsay Mann and Ewan Robertson share a sensibility in their approach to materials, each following diverse areas of research which leads to both multi-disciplinary processes and practice.

This new recent work by Ewan Robertson further explores interests in physicality: it’s material nature; constituents; fabric and status lying somewhere between the experiential and the physical, between object and installation. Drawn together from individual strands as diverse as mechanical music, the LA coastline, vehicles and props in non-violent action, linear systems / events / narratives, the work has a slow-burn feel and has almost self-formed into a singular sense or entity speaking about presence, silence and shadow. Like a newly uttered visual sentence it seems caught perpetually in the moment before thought condenses and meaning is fixed. It feels like a momentary clearing in fog that quietly subsumes but shows light traces of its tangential origins.

Lyndsay Mann’s work explores the most fundamental aspects of our experience: desire and dread, faith and futility. She follows simultaneously intuitive and pragmatic routes within her enquiries, often employing labour intensive processes in her work; using simple and inexpensive materials to suggest an environment of appropriation and a submission to process, manipulating familiar materials removed from their common context simulates a ritual. Mann’s writing, which is integral to her practice, falls somewhere between a manifesto and a self-help text, taking the form of suggested hypotheses or personal statements, neither definitive nor absolute. Abstracted from larger texts, she creates mantra-style sound bites within the works. Most recently she has developed this through sound recording during her residency at Stills gallery.
For Mann, combining multi-dimensional elements of her practice creates a dialogue which the viewer interrupts and becomes party to, assigned a role within the created dynamic to produce event, experience, and witness.

Opening: Thursday 13th November 6-8pm

Dates: 14th-30th November
Exhibition open: Thursdays to Sundays only
Opening times: Thursdays & Fridays 12-6pm, Saturdays and Sundays 12-5pm

There will be an artists’ talk on Sunday 23rd November from 2-3pm at WASPS, Patriothall.

Entry to the exhibition and talk is free.

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop at WASPS, Patriothall in Stockbridge.
WASPS, 1D Patriothall, Off Hamilton Place
Stockbridge, Edinburgh EH3 5AY

Caravan of Horrors to premier new work.

Published October 29, 2008

ContemporaryArtETC are pleased to announce that a new video work by staff member Alan Holligan will be premiered in the Caravan of Horrors at the Collective Gallery Edinburgh.

ONEZERO projects returns after an extended break to bring you ‘Caravan of Horrors’ the first outcome of a research project looking at the influence of Horror on Contemporary Art.

Caravan of Horrors will take place on Thursday the 30th of October in the Mobile Picture Salon which will be parked outside the Collective Gallery on Cockburn Street.

Onezero will be screening 5 works by:

Beagles and Ramsay
Alex Hetherington
Alan Holligan
Juri Ojaver
Catherine Street

Caravan of Horrors is running in conjunction with the launch of issue two of Fools in Print ‘AKA Tomfoolery’ as part of New Work Scotland 2008

ContemporaryArtETC.. graduate, Ruth Barry, to work at Guggenheim NY

Published September 2, 2008

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Despite early set backs to her artistic career Telford Fine Art graduate Ruth Barry has been awarded the kind of opportunity she once only dreamed of. Ruth has beaten off international competition and will move to New York this month to take up post at one of the most iconic modern / contemporary art museums in the world. Ruth who is originally from Inverness, graduated form the Fine Art dept at Edinburgh’s Telford College in 2005 will move to New York next month to take up post in the museums Education Dept. Galleries and museum play a significant part in Ruths own artwork and she is hopeful that she can bring new thoughts and ideas to the Guggenheim program as well as influencing her own practise and taking her work to new levels.

This will not be Ruth’s first encounter with Gallery Education,

“I’ve been working in the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh for a couple of years now and I was given the opportunity to assist on an educational workshop for young people I was able to apply both my critical and creative knowledge to the program, allowing participants to develop & explore alternative viewpoints on contemporary art.”

Fragments of Demeter/Recalling Poseidon (2008)Degree Show Installation

Ruth has been passionate about art since an early age and was determined to study at Art College. After a couple of unsuccessful degree applications she spent a very successful period on the Fine Art Foundation and HND courses at ETC and gained direct entry to the 2nd year at Edinburgh College of Art from where she graduated this year with 1st class honours.

“The tutors at Telford were incredibly supportive I found them to be energetic and highly influential encouraging me to keep going and not give up on my goals. Being taught by a team of practising artists in an environment which is as close to any art college as possible gave me a solid platform from which I could progress. I gained entry to Art College most certainly as a result of completing the HND in the Fine Art Dept”

RSA president Bill Scott with Ruth Barry — Ruth with Prof. Bill Scott (President of the Royal Scottish Academy)

As well as her appointment at the Guggenheim Ruth has also been selected for inaugural Royal Scottish Academy New Contemporaries exhibition, which will take place in February.

The Guggenheim Museum New York was designed by iconic American Architect Frank Lloyd-Wrightt to house the modern art collection of wealthy New York industrialist Solomon R. Guggenheim. The museum opened to the public in 1959 and has been followed by two further museums in Berlin and Bilboa, the later designed by another superstar of the architectural world; Frank Gehry and which is hailed as reviving the reputation and fortunes of the Basque region.

http://ruthbarry.blogspot.com/

Edinburgh Art Festival is no damp squib.

Published August 1, 2008

Rain couldn’t stop play last night as the Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF) officially launched with a decidedly damp street party in the heart of the capital. Among the beer, burgers, ice cream vans and a rather wonderful reincarnation of Karen Carpenter; the great, the good and the nicht so gut, of the Edinburgh art scene took turn in shaking off their umbrellas in the doorways of the Collective, Stills and Fruitmarket Galleries before re-deploying them for the journey through Advocates Close.

Now in its 5th year the festival offers another ambitious programme of more than 130 contemporary visual art exhibitions and events throughout the cities museums, galleries and temporary spaces. This years festival features established artists including Tracy Emin and Richard Hamilton as well as emerging talents from around the world.

Throughout the coming month contemporaryartetc… will bring you news and views from the festival. We would also welcome your contributions written or visual. If you would like to submit images or text please send them to:

contemporaryartetc@googlemail.com

you can also leave comments on any of our posts.

Regards

ED.