October Residency 2022

Audrey Grant

17/10/22 - MONDAY 

I arrived, accompanied by my partner to Arcadia Sculpture Centre, near Drymen, the old Drumbeg Farm.  Unloaded, unpacked and settled into our cabin in the woods. 

I have come here with some ideas - the poems about autumn by Rainer Maria Rilke and inspired by lines from the poem Autumn Day - to build a woodland shelter.  Something I have never done before but I want to leave something here in this golden landscape from nature, and that would return to nature.

My thoughts:  autumn; history and objects; How to build a shelter; the woodland - oak, birch, ash and sycamore; and fallen branches 

Falling beauty.. 

What is a shelter?  Protection from the elements; a protective layer; a shelter for our vulnerability. 

We walked the Sculpture Trail and found a spot in the new woodland and began to build a shelter amongst the trees, a solitary shelter, a small intimate shelter for protection, for reflection, for contemplation. 

We gathered branches of all lengths from the forest floor, we found a  tree with a good ‘V’ shape to place the backbone branch, from which others would be wedged against to make the ribcage for the structure

The ground was wet, everything was wet, the rain and wind bellowing around us but we continued until the light began to fade. 

A good start, a good beginning of my shelter in the woodland in Arcadia.

It sounds like a contradiction to say we need such a shelter in Arcadia, but even in Arcadia we are mortal.  

ET IN ARCADIA EGO 

18/10/22 -TUESDAY

A new day, bright sunlight through the trees, the golden light is incredible. Thinking of Thoreau at Walden Pond, I have much more luxury but that sense of being deep in nature, somewhere else removed from the rest of the world.

10am A walk around to see if what we started yesterday still stood? Intact and beautiful in the golden light.

Then a walk to explore the area, to find the old sand quarry. Along the path and into the fields where the sheep grazed. An undulating surface, post extractive, the ground wet and pools filled with bullrushes.

After lunch I went to explore the old barn and stables - what a wonderful place, so much history here:

old stables, horses names still on the doors,

metallic basin

metal pot

rusty horseshoes

11 school chairs

3 blankets

fire wood pile

old lamp and saw

old machinery

Thinking about a Plan for an Installation

Poor Objects; Everyday objects; Discarded objects; Object with history; multiples

Traces of the past; left behind, the previous life of an object when it was of use, now forgotten, discarded. There is a sort of melancholy about this old barn.

Then back to the woods to gather more big and long branches for the shelter, dragging huge branches up from the lower woodland.

Exhausted at 5.45pm

19/10/22 - WEDNESDAY

Plan for today:

Continue to work with found objects in the barn

Continue to build the shelter

Print some images using new Instax wide printer

The shelter has a structure now, feels like it has some substance to withstand the next layer - fern leaves to be woven into structure.

I set up a little indoor studio space that Rob said I could use. Shown around his studio workshop and the other buildings - what a treasure trove!

Thinking more about Rilke and a sequence of poems from the Book of Images, First book part two:

Lament

Solitude

Autumn Day

Autumn

Memory

End of Autumn

Rilke ‘ the poet of memory; of childhood; of leave-taking and looking; of night and its vastness; of human separation; of thresholds and silences; of landscape charged with remoteness and expectancy; the poet especially of solitude in its endless inflections’ (Edward Snow)

How much the place suits Rilke …

After lunch, pottering in the studio space with some found small pieces of wood, layering them with lithium grease then gauze bandages. Little sculptural objects.

20/10/22 - THURSDAY

Dark and very damp today and worried about the shelter as there were very strong winds last night so I walked around first thing to check - and it is still standing tall and proud!

After reading more from Gaston Bachelard’s ‘Poetic of Space’ I’ve been thinking about the immensity of the forest and the solitariness of the shelter. A shelter for the solitary dreamer for the day dream.

Raining all day

Working in the dry studio space after lunch, and continuing to work on the little sculptural objects, layering more and more lithium grease and more layers of gauze, plus a special beeswax paste I made. Back in the barn, leaves had been blown in and had landed on the school chairs. This got me thinking and experimenting, so collected handfuls of leaves from outside and let them fall onto the seat of one chair. I piled them up until they began to fall onto the floor and created a ring of leaves. The leaves are falling, we are all falling

The metallic basin somehow relates to this.

I’d been printing photographs to get a better look at what was emerging - three basic groups:

1. The Shelter and its progress

2. Objects and surfaces in the barn

3. The Arcadian Landscape

4. Small sculptural objects

21/10/22 FRIDAY

NOT raining today so collected the strimmer from Rob to cut down the fern. Again with Mary’s help we collected piles and piles of fern leaves.

We began to weave the leaves into the structure.

Several rounds of exhausting activity required to have enough ferns.

Flocks and flocks of geese flying north as they have all week. I find their sound so moving

The shelter as a place for daydreams but also for shelter from the rain and the wind. Maybe not so watertight!

Amazing to spend most of the day working outside, physical labour, building my own shelter.

I reflect upon our relationship with nature, and how out of kilter it can be. What so many of us can take for granted yet everything is so fragile and transient.

Only one full day left!

22/10/22 SATURDAY

Started the day with more work on the shelter to complete it today. Collected handfuls of fern leaves to finish. Started to put handfuls of fallen leaves on top of ferns but this didn’t work so we stopped but they were useful for the roof of the shelter which was hard to reach. Mary raked the ground around the shelter, and I sat inside the shelter to contemplate. I need more time for contemplation and reflection - what it took to build it; the physical effort required; we were fortunate as there was plenty of materials in the forest - what if there weren’t?

The rain was pouring now so spent the rest of the afternoon in the barn creating a series of ‘still life’ set ups, photographed them using Iphone and analogue film camera.

Still to photograph shelter, Sunday’s job before leaving.

23/10/22 SUNDAY

All packed up, vacated cabin by 10am. Car packed and time for a walk to the shelter for a final look and to photograph using Nikon camera.

The week flew by, and I built a shelter in the woods for the Arcadia Sculpture Centre, build from nature and it will return to nature as it decays over the coming months.

An incredibly wonderful and creative week with so much to take away and work on back in my Edinburgh studio. Thank you very much Susan and Rob Mulholland for having me!

Audrey Grant 2022

Artist’s Residency September 2022

This is Deniz Uster. I’m an interdisciplinary artist whose collaborative approach is rooted in anthropological, ethnographic and scientific research, interwoven with speculative fiction. A fictional shift in nature in my narratives forms the foundation for alternative social structures, collectivities, cultures, economic systems, futures and histories. 

During my week-long residency at Arcadia, I laid the groundwork for my utopian fiction film ‘Drymen Phenomenon,’ through community workshops, discussions and bryological research at Arcadia’s ancient woodland - the environmental trail. Below paragraphs will explain the conceptual framework of this collaborative project, and the nature of my social-engagement with Drymen Primary and local musicians.

Covid-19, in the narrative of 'Drymen Phenomenon', has completely diminished from human bodies and has become absorbed by Thuidium tamariscinum moss found in Drymen and its vicinity. When the residents get exposed to the spores of this Covid-19 infused moss, it becomes apparent that these spores induce ‘synesthesia’ in human beings.  Nature transforms us through this new ability and this is acknowledged as an evolutionary shift. For the narrative of the film, I will be working with author Gurcim Yilmaz, who will pen a fictional text; field-notes from the mouth of a botanist, informed by the words generated at the synesthesia workshops with P4/5 pupils from Drymen Primary. 

During my initial visit to Arcadia, I collected bryophyte specimens. Bryophytes are non-vascular plant species such as moss, liverwort and hornworts that reproduce via spores rather than flowers or seeds. I have identified nine species with support from the British Bryological Society and eventually chose Thuidium tamariscinum moss (aka Common Tamarisk Moss) as my protagonist due to its population in this particular woodland, and its attractive and sensual properties.

Considering ‘synesthesia’ as the convergence of two senses has provided a fertile ground for community workshops, prior to my filming. On the first day of my residency, I harvested Common Tamarisk Moss from the environmental trail, and nurtured them in their tray for the duration of my residency, to return them back to their original locations at the end of the week. I conducted an olfactory-tactile synesthesia experiment at my cabin, as I possess a powerful smelling ability and I love making objects.

On Tuesday, I met with Dave Lang at his incredible studio in rural Gartmore. Dave was immediately very open to experimenting with anything, as long as he could use his music as his tool. He is very powerful at it, and the most enthusiastic! As soon as he interacted with Common Tamarisk Moss, Dave began thinking about organic rhythms , with a certain darkness added to them, when you least expect to hear them. We chatted about the vibrations and the fluctuations that its fern-like pleurocarp structure evoked. The recollection and an edited version of all music and sounds created, will be embodied as the sound or “the call” emitted from “Drymen Tamarisk”; the Covid-19 infused Thuidium Tamariscinum.

The core of my residency project; my workshops with pupils from year P4/5, at Drymen Primary were taking place  on Wednesday. There were two moss workshops back to back, then my artist presentation on “Interdisciplinarity” in art practice and “collaborative working” to P5/6 students. 

The moss workshops with 8 and 9 year-olds turned out exactly the opposite of what I presumed. I prepared countless prompts for answers to my tricky questions, in the probable case of prolonged silences, but they had loads to tell! I had such a positive experience with the different dynamics and mood of both groups and their unexpected creative answers.

“The moss smells like… marshmallows… fish tank… colour green.. cold water… raspberries…”

“The moss sounds like… waterfall…. loud humming… wind howling… washing machine…. “

“The moss feels like… wet feather… twigs… my mum’s hair… and most popularly; a hedgehog with soft spikes.”

On Thursday, marvellous Di Blackmore visited Arcadia with her tin whistle. She was instantly engaged with the moss, following my presentation on Synesthesia at the old stables.

Her eyes focused on the smallest surface naked eye can see, and said “It’s fractal!” Each little branch was a replica of the one that it originates from. She then took her whistle, and began imitating the fractal growth or fractal shrinkage of Tamarisk moss. She said, "You’d need an orchestra to mimic its fractal becomings."

When I came to my cabin and imported the recorded sound into my editing program, I noticed that the graphic for the levels of the sound on the track was mimicking the form of a tamarisk moss branch. I had the tapering tip, and I had the same fluctuations of the minuscule moss leaf.

I have learned so much from my workshops and it very straightforwardly influenced the script of the film, and what I want to achieve with the filming. I am very grateful to all participants and Arcadia for enabling me to reach out to those people.

On Friday, I returned all borrowed moss back to their original locations. No moss was harmed in the making of this project. 

Welcome to our Artist’s Blog page.

We are delighted to have had Deniz Uster as our first Artist in Residence here at Arcadia Sculpture Centre this week and we look forward to reading all about her fascinating project ‘ Drymen Phenomenon’ The Sculpture centre is now fully operational and we have had several artists visit with plans to undertake new work. This Blog page will give you an insight into their art practises and links to their own websites to gain more information on their work. We look forward to hosting a wide and varied representation of contemporary art undertaken at Arcadia.

Deniz Uster Artist in Residence September 2022