June 2021
June is a particularly busy month and we are delighted to welcome many more artists from across the UK to Cove Park. Those taking part in our awarded Craft & Design, Experimental Film & Moving Image, Literature & Translation, and Visual Arts residencies are: Jane Alexander, Jen Calleja, Juliana Capes, Josey Rebelle, Ellen Renton, Jenny Steele, and Attua Aparicio Torinos.
Our independently funded programme welcomes Leverhulme Early Career Fellow (City, University of London) Sarah Burton, visual artist Beth Dynowski, comedian and writer Josie Long, artist and coder Tim Murray-Browne, artist and curator Lorna Ough, artist and collaborator Nima Séne, and printed textile designer and former resident Laura Spring.
This month also sees the continuation of our Crisis Residency Programme, supported by Freelands Foundation. This series of residencies, initiated during the first lockdown in 2020, supports early-career Scotland-based visual artists at a particularly challenging time, enabling them to focus on new work and projects. In June we welcome Saoirse Anis and Caitlin Dick, based in Dundee and Aberdeen respectively.
We are very pleased to resume our collaboration with Glasgow's The Lighthouse, Scotland's Centre for Design & Architecture, and to host letterpress printer Ruth Kirkby at Cove Park. This residency will enable Ruth to develop new work for a solo exhibition in 2022 at The Lighthouse.
Cove Park is again partnering with The Work Room - an artist-led membership organisation supporting artists who work in dance, movement and choreography - to offer collaborative residencies for its members. This month sees the arrival of Suzi Cunningham, collaborating with Jen Cunningham, Dylan Read and Anders Rigg.
Throughout the year Cove Park is hosting a series of micro-residencies for visual artists taking part in the Talbot Rice Residents programme. We are delighted to welcome artist Rosie O'Grady to Cove Park in June and to work with Edinburgh's Talbot Rice Gallery.
We are always very happy to welcome our alumni. This month visual artist Winnie Herbstein returns for a short residency supported by CCA, allowing her to develop new work for a solo exhibition at CCA in the late summer of 2021.
Finally, we are pleased to announce that the Crerar Trust Residency, for an early career artist based here in Argyll, will take place in June and has been awarded to visual artist Cal Mac.
We have some very exciting news to share, so please scroll down for more on Climate Beacons, Green Art Lab Alliance, Connections Through Culture, Cove Park Associates and our programme of engagement activity for June 2021.
Image: The Jacobs Building, June 2021
Cove Park Announced as a Climate Beacon
We are thrilled to announce that Cove Park in partnership with Argyll & the Isles Coast and Countryside Trust (ACT) has been named as one of seven Climate Beacons that are taking shape across Scotland in the run-up to and beyond the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow this November.
We have joined forces with ACT to bring our collective cultural and environmental knowledge to bear on the climate change challenges our Argyll communities face. We will focus upon Scotland's rainforest as most of this unique temperate habitat sits within Argyll. Our Beacon will raise awareness of the importance of biodiversity in effective and inclusive conservation and regeneration, and will hopefully drive long-lasting behavioural change.
Across Scotland more than 30 environmental, cultural and heritage organisations are coming together with similar goals, and we are incredibly excited to be involved as the Argyll Beacon.
Climate Beacons for COP26 is an initiative of Creative Carbon Scotland, a charitable organisation that works with individuals, organisations and strategic bodies across the cultural and sustainability sectors to harness culture’s vital role in achieving a more environmentally sustainable Scotland.
Read more here and watch this space and our website for further information on the Argyll Beacon's programme for 2021 and 2022.
Image: The Argyll Beacon.
Cove Park joins Green Art Lab Alliance
We are delighted to join the Green Art Lab Alliance, a mycelium-like network of art organisations contributing to environmental sustainability through their creative practice. gala connects and empowers art centres, museums, residencies, art collectives, activists and grassroots initiatives that are strongly embedded in their local communities and we are pleased to join alongside Jan Van Eyck Academie, Helsinki International Artist Programme, and Goethe Institut, amongst many others.
Image: The Bridge at Cove Park (photography, Ruth Clark)
Connections Through Culture:
Cove Park / Luminate / Taipei Artist Village
Cove Park and Taipei Artist Village are working in association with Luminate, Scotland’s creative ageing organisation, to develop new ways to support older artists with residency opportunities.
We are now seeking three visual artists aged 50+ to participate in a series of online discussions aimed at understanding perceptions, barriers and needs of older artists who wish to apply for residency opportunities. Discussions will take place in tandem between participants in the UK and Taiwan, building up to a joint meeting between the two groups. This paid opportunity will be a fantastic way to help shape future residency opportunities for artists aged 50+. It will also be an invaluable occasion for cultural exchange and the exploration of new, possible collaborations between the UK and Taiwan.
Further details on the opportunity and how to apply are available here.
This project is supported by the British Council and National Culture and Arts Foundation in Taiwan through the Connections through Culture programme.
Image: Taipei Artist Village, Taiwan.
Cove Park Associates
The first Cove Park Associates Meeting took place online on 8 June. This was an opportunity to brainstorm ideas, needs and desires for this new membership programme, specifically designed to support our alumni through a range of new opportunities and events.
We would like to thank everyone involved for their time and for all the suggestions shared with us. These ideas will inform and shape the final programme, and we look forward to sharing our plans with everyone next month.
If you are a former or current resident and interested in this programme please get in touch via associates@covepark.org
Image: Heiba Lamara, Early Career Resident, 2019 (photography, Alan Dimmick)
Hands-On Cove Park:
Exploring Scotland's Rainforest Through the Process of the Cyanotype
Our next Saturday Studios takes place on 26 June 2021 with a new workshop led by visual artist and former resident Anne-Marie Copestake. These free, outdoor workshops will explore the diversity of Scotland's rainforest by using the analogue photographic process of the cyanotype to produce exquisite cyan-blue prints.
To book your place on one of three workshops taking place on 26 June (for either Primary 3-4, Primary 5-6 or Primary 7-Secondary School-age young people) please visit our Eventbrite page here.
Image: Anne Marie Copestake, 2021
