Magnetic Residencies 2
Cove Park Residency Announced

Cove Park is delighted to be the Scottish residency participating in the second year of Magnetic Residencies, a joint Franco-UK initiative bringing together eight institutions to create a new programme of residencies: four in France - CAPC in Bordeaux, Frac Bretagne in Rennes, Frac Grand Large in Dunkirk, Villa Arson in Nice- and four in the United Kingdom – Wysing Arts Centre in England, Flax Art Studios in Northern Ireland, Aberystwyth Arts Centre in Wales, and Cove Park. 

After a call for applications from artists based in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region of France, we are delighted to announce that the residency in Scotland has been awarded to the practice-based researcher and visual artist Laure Vigna.

Based in Marseille, Laure is currently participating in the second Dunkirk Triennial and has exhibited her work at: CIAP Vassivière, Beaumont-du-Lac; MO.CO Panacée, Montpellier; DOC, Paris; Pneuma, Lisbon; Centre d'art du Parc Saint Léger, Pougues-les-Eaux; Rogaland Kunstsenter, Stavanger; Mon Chéri, Brussels. Laure begins her eight-week residency in December 2023 and will return again in the spring of 2024.

Magnetic Residencies are supported by the Institut français du Royaume-Uni, the Institut français, French Ministry of Culture, French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, Arts Council England, Creative Scotland, Arts Council of Wales/Wales Arts International, Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the British Council.

Image: Installation view of 'Chaleur Humaine', Laure Vigna, curated by Anna Colin and Camille Richert, triennial Art & Industry, LAAC, Dunkerque, 2023, CNAP collection, sculptures realised with the support of Fondation des Artistes (photography, Martin Argyroglo).

Food Ecologies 2024

We are excited to announce the second Food Ecologies Residency at Cove Park. This programme was launched in 2022 and is aimed at practitioners and researchers based in the UK and Sweden working around the politics and economics of food, with a focus upon design to develop and implement just, circular and sustainable practices. Information on the first Food Ecologies programme is available here.

The recipient of the 2024 Food Ecologies Residency at Cove Park is Josefin Vargö. Based in Stockholm, Josefin is a food artist, designer and an independent curator. She works mainly with food as material and meals as a tool, to stimulate conversation and reflections on various themes and behaviours linked to time, food, and craft. Her work involves ephemeral and performative installations and she frequently collaborates with other artists, designers, chefs, food ecologists, and composers. 

Food Ecologies was developed as a pilot residency exchange programme between Scotland and Sweden in 2022. The programme in 2024 and is a partnership between Cove Park and IASPIS, the Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s international Programme for Visual and Applied Arts.

Images: above, Josefin Vargö (photography, Stephanie Wiegner); below, 'Högar av bröd', Josefin Vargö, installation at Verkstad Konsthall, Norrköping, Sweden (photography, Filip Adamsson).

The Bowmaker Residency 2024

The Bowmaker Residency is a new opportunity for a visual artist based in Scotland and in the earlier stages of their career.

The recipient of the 2024 residency is Morwenna Kearsley, a Glasgow-based artist working predominantly with photography, text and moving-image. Her practice is shaped by two main areas of activity: studio-based solo work and workshop-centred participatory projects, which overlap and inform each other. These works, shown in galleries & museums, local shops, on screens and in publications, excavate the influence of photography (as a technology and as a culture of seeing) on us as individuals and communities. 

This residency is made possible with generous support from a Patron of Cove Park.

Image: Morwenna Kearsley photographed by Sareh Abasi. 

RSA Residencies for Scotland 2024
Call for Applications

RSA Residencies for Scotland is an artist-led scheme which provides valuable research and residency opportunities for artists. It forges important networks with centres of artistic excellence across Scotland, ranging from traditional residency venues to specialised production facilities. Cove Park is delighted to be one of the partner venues again in 2024.

Open to visual artists at all stages of their careers, the emphasis is on enabling a period of research, development and production, as well as on the acquisition and exchange of new skills and experiences. Artists can apply for funds of up to £5,000 and are responsible for managing their own residency, in discussion with the partner venue.

The partner venues all have a long history of offering quality development to, and presentation opportunities for, contemporary artists. For many their expertise and longevity has formed the backbone of artist practice in Scotland for decades. 

More information is available here and the deadline for applications to this programme is 14 January 2024.

Images: above, Cove Park's Jacobs Building Studios; below, Pierrot, Performance, Grace Exhibition Space, NYC, by former RSA Residencies for Scotland Cove Park resident Madeleine V Brown, 2018 (photography, Miao Jiaxin).

The Bridge Awards Residencies 2024
Programme Announcement &
Call for Applications 

We are delighted to announce a new group residency taking place in May 2024. In collaboration with The Bridge Awards, and building upon the first Bridge Awards Residency for an individual artist in 2023, Cove Park is pleased to offer a further 5 fully funded residencies in 2024 for artists based in Scotland whose careers have been impacted by a breast cancer diagnosis and who have undergone successful treatment and are up to five years in remission.

The Bridge Award Residencies in 2024 are for one week and will run in parallel from Monday 20 May to Sunday 27 May. They are open to people based in Scotland, at any stage of their creative career, and working in any art form or creative discipline. The aim is to provide the artist, writer, creative practitioner, or researcher with time and space to reconnect with their practice, and to do this within the peaceful, supportive, and inspiring context of Cove Park and its national and international residency programme.

Further information on this programme and details of how to apply is available here. Applications should be submitted by Friday 1 March 2024.

We are very grateful to The Bridge Awards and to Maggie's for their ongoing support and help with this programme.

Image: The Bridge at Cove Park (photography, Alan Dimmick)

Cove Park / Varuna International Writers' Fellowships 2024-2025

The Cove Park/Varuna International Writers' Fellowships was launched in 2022. This residency exchange programme offers four-week funded residencies for writers and former residents of Cove Park and Varuna, the National Writers' House of Australia. We are pleased to confirm the Fellowships will continue again in 2024 and 2025 with generous support from The Bridge Awards.

In 2024, this mutual exchange will be altered slightly to take place over two years, with recipients travelling in alternating years: the Varuna writer will travel to Cove Park in the autumn of 2024, and the Cove Park writer will travel to Australia in the the autumn of 2025.

We are also pleased to be working for the first time on this programme with Wigtown Book Festival, connecting the participating writers with this acclaimed Scottish book festival.

The call for applications from Varuna's former residents is now live and further information is available here. The deadline for applications is 4 January 2024. The call for applications for the Cove Park residency will be announced in the next edition of our Newsletter.

Image: Varuna, the National Writers' House of Australia.

The New Mothers' Writing Circle
Micro-Residency, 2024

We are delighted to host a new group micro-residency taking place in February 2024.

The New Mothers’ Writing Circle is a radical and unique project which centres the experience of the mother and her transformation in motherhood. Drawing on diverse narratives from Rachel Cusk to Toni Morrison, the project empowers women, builds community and elevates voices. In late February 2024, graduates from The New Mothers' Writing Circle will take over Cove Park for a two-night tutored and catered micro-residency, led by Founder & Director Catrin Kemp.

This residency is open to those who have completed the New Mother's Writing Circle course. Further information on this programme is available here.

Image: The view from Cove Park's Cubes across to Loch Long.

Cove Park's Library
New Acquisitions, Donations & Partnerships

Cove Park's reference library is a wonderful and growing resource for residents and visitors. It consists of approximately 1,800 books, pamphlets, and journals - brought together entirely through kind donations from residents and other arts and cultural organisations - and includes signed first editions and limited edition publications.

The library plays an important role in our programme. To ensure it continues to be a vital and growing resource, Cove Park has launched a new annual acquisition programme and this year invited summer residents bare minimum collective to select books that have been important to them and their own work. These titles are now on our shelves and the full list is available here. We are grateful to Aye Aye Books at CCA Glasgow for supporting this project.

We were delighted in November to receive as a donation 19 titles connected to Publishing Scotland's Translation Fund, and we are also grateful to writer and former resident Maria Fusco for the copy of her new book 'Who does not envy with us is against us.'

Finally, we are proud to  have a new partnership with Cove Community Library. This volunteer-run library now includes shelves with a changing selection of books by former Cove Park residents and we are delighted to reciprocate with a selection of local history and natural history titles at Cove Park on loan from our local library.

Image: Lola Olufemi (bare minimum) at Cove Park, 2023 (photography, Alex Marrs). 

The NAARCA Sustainability Toolkit
for Artists’ Residencies

The Nordic Alliance of Artists’ Residencies on Climate Action (NAARCA) brings together Cove Park (Scotland) and Saari Residence (Finland), Artica Svalbard (Norway), Art Hub Copenhagen (Denmark), Baltic Art Center (Sweden), Narsaq International Research Station (Greenland), and Skaftfell Art Center (Iceland) to collaborate on research, institutional change and public education around climate action.

In 2022 NAARCA Eco-coordinator Jaana Eskola met in-person and digitally with each of the NAARCA partners. During these visits, Jaana conducted workshops and gathered research from the staff and residents to learn more about each organisation’s approach to sustainability. The aim was to find solutions to the shared issues residencies face in relation to the environmental crisis.

As a result of this work, NAARCA has developed its Sustainability Toolkit for Artists’ Residencies with resources and practical examples that can be used to help other residencies or arts organisations to develop their own environmental policies and action plans. Visit naarca.art to download the toolkit. 

Image: Longyearbyen, Artica Svalbard. 

Testing Grounds Podcast Series
Episode 8: Repairing the City

How might a philosophy of repair change our approach to planning and architecture? This question is the focus of episode 8 of the NAARCA podcast series Testing Grounds.

Art Hub Copenhagen is NAARCA’s Danish partner and the only member residency located in a city. It opened in 2019 as a place for artists, curators, and creative professionals to gather, network and collaborate.

Episode 8 is introduced by Jacob Fabricius, Director of Art Hub Copenhagen. He introduces the organisation's development, including its upcoming move to a new (old!) building currently being refurbished with an emphasis on recycling and sustainability. Jacob also introduces the episode's contributors, Søren Nørkjær Bang and Emmy Laura Pérez Fjalland. Søren is a curator with a background in art history and philosophy – and a passion for architecture – who now works for Copenhagen Architecture Festival. Emmy is a Danish-Colombian cultural geographer, writer, researcher and teacher with a deep interest in human-landscape relationships.

Søren and Emmy explore the potential for more collaborative, humble and regenerative approaches to architecture and planning, the idea of 'repair', and the power of author Ursula K. Le Guin’s 'carrier bag theory of fiction'.

You can find Testing Grounds on your favourite podcast app or listen to this episode here. A captioned version of this episode is available on YouTube.

Image: Architecture and Extreme Environments, Art Hub Copenhagen (photography, Francesco Martello). 

Project Studio 
Edible Art with Sean Wai Keung
Tuesday 12 December, 4-6pm

Our next Project Studio at the Park Pavilion in Hermitage Park, Helensburgh, takes place on Tuesday 12 December from 4-6pm. Led by Glasgow-based interdisciplinary artist and community chef Sean Wai Keung, this workshop will focus on food and its importance as a form of self expression, a way to express our culture and identity, a celebration, and a way to deepen relationships. Food can also spark issues around equality, justice and the environment, and is in all of the things that makes us human. Join Sean to make food and edible art together while exploring these ideas. 

Project Studio is a Cove Park programme for teenagers in our local area made possible with a generous award from the National Lottery Community Fund. Launched in June, Project Studio offers free monthly creative activity - including workshops, trips, and events - centred around self-expression and creating community for teenagers interested in the arts, activism, environmentalism, and wellbeing.

This programme is supportive of young people experiencing ADHD, dyslexia, and autism. Please let us know how we can support you best.

We are pleased to share some good news: an award from The Stafford Trust will allow us to extend Project Studio and offer more events, building on the work enjoyed so far.

Find out more and book your free place here. For further information please contact Cove Park's Curator of Engagement, Emma Henderson.

Image,  Sean Wai Keung, courtesy of the artist.

Saturday Studios 
Talk Show with Duncan Marquiss
Saturday 28 January 2024

Glasgow based artist and former resident Duncan Marquiss will lead a new workshop filming interviews for documentary video. This is an opportunity to use cameras, sound recorders and microphones to record conversations while playing informal games to get everyone talking!

Duncan works across a variety of media, from video and music to drawing and print. His films often feature interviews and conversations, exploring relationships between biology and culture.

Two workshops will take place on Saturday 28 January. For more information and to reserve your free place, please visit Cove Park's Eventbrite page. For further information please contact Cove Park's Curator of Engagement, Emma Henderson.

Our Saturday Studio Workshops are made possible this year with support from Argyll & Bute Council.

Image,  courtesy of Duncan Marquiss.