30 May 2024
This month we will be heading to Mote 102 for the first time to see an exhibition of new work by artist, maker and designer Gail Turpin. We will be joined by the artist and gallery-founder Alice Bain.
A not-for-profit, changing space in Leith, Mote 102 hosts local artists, makers and gardeners with an eye to the wider world. Exhibitions, events, residencies, shop pop-ups take place throughout the year.
Gail’s new exhibition Clearing, features new textile works made from unravelling and using some of the precious pieces of fabric, paper and objects, accumulated by her family and in her own life. She says of her work:
‘Something happens to us when we clear out parents’ house after they’ve gone. The responsibility of dismantling a life or lives, to the person who says what stays and what goes, what is precious, what should be retained, loved and appreciated.’
Gail studied graphic design at Edinburgh College of Art and her career in design has taken her to London, Amsterdam and back to Edinburgh. In all areas of her practice, she’s come to work intuitively – whether making a monoprint collage, designing a textile, making a functional object, working with type or creating an image.
30 October 2014
For our October Spin event, we will meet at artist Kevin Harman’s studio. Kevin’s work crosses definitions of sculpture, installation and performance. In his most recent work, The Absinthe Bar (2014) he created an immersive environment in his studio. This was the backdrop for a series of ‘happenings’ which included a resident tattoo artist, butchery demonstrations, poetry readings, musical performances as part of this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival.
Previous works include the Skip series (2007–) where the artist has ‘tidied up’ the contents of skips around Edinburgh making unique sculptural artworks from the detritus of the cycle of renovation and repair in the city. In his 2009 work, Brick, the artist smashed the window of the former Collective Gallery space on Cockburn Street. The subsequent police statements, cautions and lawyers letters now form the body of the remaining artwork.
Many of his works begin with found objects and existing scenarios which are then adapted and transformed in to unique artworks. He said of his though process: ‘When viewing the sculpture of Saddam Hussein being pulled down, I was witnessing an object, which had been built to be permanent, transforming, advancing how futile an idea of permanence became.’
His piece 24/7 (2012) began as a 24-hour visit to an Asda Supercentre. Everything in the subsequent installation in a disused city centre shop was created from purchases during this 24-hour period culminating in a live auction where the entire installation was auctioned off.
Kevin has previously exhibited at Ingleby Gallery, Summerhall, Talbot Rice Gallery and Collective.
23 June 2010 at 6pm
This month we will be revisiting the Collective Gallery to view Patchwork Cinema, a new body of work by Torsten Lauschmann which deconstructs the experience of time and cinema through the projected image.
As an artist, filmmaker and live performer, Lauschmann celebrates glitches and out-takes, bits in between and images that might be easy to ignore. Born in Germany and based in Glasgow, Lauschmann’s work has evolved beyond straight photography and film works to investigate the mechanics of digital processes, software creation, experimental editing, approaches to performance and the sculptural potential of video installation.
In Patchwork Cinema, Compilation 1, Lauschmann questions the formalised cinema experience and highlights the pivotal point in early cinema when film presentation was not prescribed in the same way. This work is an alternative cinema experience with an assemblage of found film footage with the addition of sound and lighting effects which have been programmed to trigger a further reimagining of how we view film.
Prior to entering Patchwork Cinema, visitors can view Digital Clock (Growing Zeros) 2010 consisting of a looped 24-hour projection of a digital clock with the red numerals changed manually by visible hands. This less formal digital time matches correct time local time. We will also be able to see Lauschmanns experiment with pre-cinema optics which transforms one of Collectives gallery spaces into a camera obscura.
