Jennie Temple |

Local is an exhibition by HND Contemporary Art Practice (CAP) students from the Granton Campus of the Edinburgh College. The artworks that can be seen in the exhibition at North Edinburgh Arts until February the 23^rd are the culmination of a project which was instigated in September 2012 by ourselves, Alan Holligan & Jennie Temple, course lecturers on HND CAP, with priceless support from Lynn McCabe and the North Edinburgh Social History Group.

The Contemporary Art Practice course has been running very successfully since 2007. The course provides a range of excellent opportunities for students to develop a broad understanding of artistic practice. Alan and I had for some time been discussing how to develop a strong working connection between the CAP Course, the local community and surrounding areas of North Edinburgh. Beyond the college location, and the students who came to us who lived locally, we recognised that although we were part of a Community College (then Edinburgh’s Telford College: a stalwart of North Edinburgh for many years) we felt professional connection to our immediate surroundings could be stronger. We acknowledged that we bussed in and out of work every day, passing through the community in which our workplace was rooted, and also acknowledged that this was something we did not feel entirely comfortable about. As a result we started to discuss the possibility of a project for our HND 2^nd year students that we hoped would, at the very least, begin a dialogue with some our neighbours.

We initially approached a couple of local groups to see if they would be interested in meeting with us, and subsequently our students. We couldn’t have anticipated the warmth with which we were greeted and quite quickly we were able to establish links and visits with (the amazing) North Edinburgh Social History Group and North Edinburgh Arts (with whom we already had some links). These visits were incredibly informative and allowed us to immediately understand the local area more fully, and in a way that we had never before: An area steeped in history; an area that had once been rich farmland; an area that had been home to a post-war camp; an area that the Duke of Buccleuch had happily called home, and much, much more. The students were instantly engaged and brought a range of rich contributions to the discussions: amongst the group of 11 students the majority was similar to us; they did not know the area very well. However, there is one current student (and we have had several prior) who grew up in the area and who has been able to give a very subjective insight into his relationship with North Edinburgh, alongside a few other students with friends and relatives in the area.

After these initial meetings and an amazing guided mini-bus tour of the area, generously facilitated by members of the Social History Group, we set the students the project. They were to spend two weeks responding to the local area and draw on the information that they had received from the experts. We would then present the resulting artworks to the Social History Group at the College.

At this point, we were all very excited, but could not have anticipated just how successful and stimulating the project would be. The students worked exceptionally hard from the moment the project started and responded in meaningful, thoughtful and sensitive ways. In retrospect, we realised that the students’ sense of responsibility to the Social History Group and the residents of North Edinburgh meant that they approached the project with a strong sense of integrity and a determination to make artworks that did not patronise or misrepresent the (sometimes sensitive and personal) issues that had been discussed within the meetings. The provision of a very unambiguous context for the artwork allowed the students to work in a way that was fundamentally different to normal project work: they had an audience that they did not know very well, and they were making work which they would themselves present to their audience.

As the initial stage of the project drew to a conclusion, we arranged a date for some members of the Social History Group to come and lunch with us and to view the works. The students were understandably nervous and worried: What if they didn’t like what we had done? Quickly it became clear that there was no need for nerves and all of the artworks were exceptionally well received and prompted lively, important and some emotional discussion amongst everyone present. The success and positive reception of the artworks went far, far beyond our expectations and we all knew immediately that we had to take the project to its next logical step: to exhibit the works, beyond the walls of the college and within the local community. And that is where we are now. The exhibition is an exciting opportunity for the staff and students to continue to engage with our local area and we are privileged to be taking part in what we hope to be the first stage of a long and prosperous collaboration between the students and staff of the HND Contemporary Art Practice course and the local residents and communities of North Edinburgh.

Jennie Temple.

The exhibition will run until the 23^rd of February at North Edinburgh Arts, Tuesday-Friday 10am-8pm Sat 10am – 1pm, with a day of discussion and art-workshops to take place on Wednesday the 20^th February from 10am until 3pm. Places are free but limited and booking is essential. Please book a place by emailing admin@northedinburgharts.co.uk or call 0131 315 2515

Recruitment is currently taking place for HND Contemporary Art Practice Course at the Edinburgh College, Granton Campus. If you are interested please visit the College website for further information and online application.

www.edinburghcollege.ac.uk

North Edinburgh News Article 1

Malcolm Chisholm MSP opens LOCAL Exhibition

Guest blogger Alex Hetherington presents: Modern Edinburgh Film School

Images Courtesy of Alex Hetherington: Modern Edinburgh Film School

Modern Edinburgh Film School – a temporary participatory film school, combining themes of the sculptural screen, film and poetry, narrative and space, event as image, and acoustics and noise as form – is curated by the visual artist Alex Hetherington in association with Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop.

It acts as a kind of prism, reflecting, connected and transparent surfaces – where one thing can be seen through another – on the activities, functions and architecture of the Sculpture Workshop’s

new building and outward to contexts, processes and activities externally, as satellite disparate engagements. It is informed by propositions and practices by a range of national and international artists demonstrating concerns between improvisational, meticulous and sensitively drawn associations in poetry, film, moving image, space and sculpture. It hopes to work as a season of projects, appearing and disappearing, being seen discreetly, at spaces and venues across the city in 2013.

Its propositions, which are elusive and allusive include a series of essays, of indicators of historical and contemporary activity, a slight curriculum: Edgar Schmitz, Anne Colvin, AA Bronson, Tom Marioni, Trisha Donnelly, Samantha Donnelly, Rachel Harrison, Martin Kippenberger, Harry Everett Smith, Marcel Broodthaers & Aurélien Froment and traits found in contributors, influencers and cameos such as Stephen Sutcliffe, Anthony Schrag, Anne Colvin, Lyndsay Mann, Hazel France, Sarah Forrest, Ute Aurand, Sarah Neely, Lauren Gault, Debi Banerjee, Benjamin Fallon, Zoë Fothergill, Raydale Dower, and others.

The project, meanwhile is informed by the free school, and alternative learning approaches, inhabiting an arc of combined themes of the sculptural screen, film and poetry, narrative and space, event as image, and acoustics and noise as form. Education here becomes an obstacle, articulating thoughts on commitment, graduation, qualification and drifting attention, and the possibilities of promiscuous coincidences, synchronicity. Meanwhile it contains two considerations of time, Modern and School, and the meanings of those in abrasion to a city with faint film vocabularies, traditions, establishment and authority and museums. In turn it contains thoughts on exhibitions, fictions and contrivances: outputs, alongside the essays are, transparent letter texts on black glass (solid film credits), zines and print, and a series of events and talks: Green Screen, Group Show, A Party for Young Artists, Edinburgh Homosexual, The Hand that Holds The Desert Down, A Library.

From the outset the School sought practitioners from different stages of their careers, including students in formal education, as well as those working at a professional level in contemporary art. After an open discussion on the work, and its ambitions, at Contemporary Art Practice at Edinburgh College and an open call, that followed the conventions of applying for work in that professional setting: 4 images, statement and moving image samples, two practitioners were identified to become part of the project, to attend works, and respond finally with a time-based submission for a portmanteau film for a screening at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop’s appearance at the Edinburgh Art Festival in August 2013.

All the applicants in this process responded to different aspects of the shaping of Modern Edinburgh Film School, some revealing questions on the political status of such an undertaking, others looking at the subject of the poetic and the sublime, how literature and words give potent expression to filmmaking, how the digital might inform the sculptural.

The two successful candidates are Shareen Sorour and Kaitlyn Walker-Stewart whose applications both alluded to the symmetries, echoes and architectures of film, poetry and sculpture, while containing experimental and diverse approaches to the screen, the performative, time, the object, surface and representation. While still very early stage visual art practitioners their portfolios contain intriguing enquiries.

Sharren Sarour: Outside: Inside; Still from Video. Kaitlyn Walker-Stewart: Barriers; Still from video

Modern Edinburgh Film School commences 15 March with a screening at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and a group show, Green Screen, co-curated with Embassy, followed there by performances and talks during March, and later a discussion on this collaboration at Edinburgh College of Art.

I would like to thank Alan Holligan, Jennie Temple and Colette Woods at Edinburgh College for their continued generous support of my practice in general and the work to be carried out for Modern Edinburgh Film School in particular.

Alex Hetherington, Edinburgh, February 2013.

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