March 2021

Spring has arrived and with it some positive news from the Scottish Government around the gradual lifting of Covid-19 restrictions.

We are so happy to be able to reopen Cove Park on Monday 3 May 2021 and to resume both our residency and engagement programmes from this date. Although restrictions to international travel mean we can host only UK-based artists during the summer, we hope to welcome those based overseas from the autumn onwards. We will provide further information on the reopening of Cove Park and our 2021 programme in the April Newsletter.

In the meantime, we have been developing several new projects and we are pleased to share details of a number of awards received over the past month that enable us to offer more opportunities for local, national and international artists and communities. Scroll down for details about Future by Design, Connections Through Culture and the Crerar Trust.

We hope this finds you and yours safe and well. We look forward to welcoming everyone back to Cove Park as soon as possible!

Image: Cove Park's Cubes (photography, Alan Dimmick)

British Council Future by Design
Cove Park / Mae-ling Lokko / Tom Morton

We are delighted to be the winners of the British Council Architecture Design Fashion's Future by Design open call and to be able to realise an ambitious collaboration between Scotland and Ghana in the lead up to COP26.

The project brings together Ghanaian-Filipino agrowaste designer Mae-ling Lokko and Scottish architect Tom Morton of Arc Architects to collaboratively design and build a hybrid, eco-sustainable and accessible 'open landscape classroom' on our 50-acre site. They will work in collaboration with a multidisciplinary cohort of young people from across Scotland - including students from the Mackintosh School of Architecture in Glasgow - and the interdisciplinary Ashesi Entrepreneurship Center in Ghana, where a prototyping workshop will take place in Accra's Klottey Korle Constituency. Together they will co-design and co-programme spaces that are conducive to knowledge exchange around the impacts of climate change on water - an urgent issue in both countries.

Further details on this award are available here. We will share more information on the project - the co-design, participatory build and public programme - as it develops.

Image: Mae-ling Lokko, Agrocologies Housing the Human Radialsystem Berlin 2019 (photography Mae-ling Lokko)

British Council Connections Through Culture
Cove Park / Taipei Artist Village / Luminate 

Cove Park is thrilled to be one of four organisations awarded a grant in round five of Connections Through Culture, a mobility grants programme run by the British Council in the UK and East Asia. The programme aims to develop cultural exchanges and collaborations between artists, arts professionals and arts organisations, and to support long-lasting relationships between people from East Asia and the UK. 

Cove Park, Taipei Artist Village, Taiwan and Luminate, Scotland's creative ageing organisation, will collaborate on a project focused on senior artists in Scotland and Taiwan. In recognition of a gap in the representation of older artists both at Cove Park and Taipei Artist Village, this collaboration will create opportunities for practitioners in their 50s, 60s, 70s and older. Some artists will be established within their chosen field, others may be emerging: we look forward to listening, to understanding their aspirations and providing the artists with the support required to achieve their ambitions. The project will take place online and we hope it will be followed by a residency exchange, when it is possible to do so.

Image: Taipei Artist Village, Taiwan

The Crerar Trust Residency for an Artist based in Argyll & Bute

With thanks to the Crerar Trust, we are pleased to announce a new residency opportunity for an emerging artist who has returned to Argyll & Bute after graduating from college or art school. This ten day residency is open to those who graduated in 2019 or 2020 and provides accommodation, studio, a fee and networking opportunities within the context of Cove Park's multidisciplinary programme during May or June this year. The deadline for applications is Thursday 15 April 2021. Further information and application guidelines are available here.

Image: Cove Park's Studios (photography, Ruth Clark)

Hands-On Cove Park at Home
Pattern, Rhythm and Beauty in Nature:
An Experimental Drawing Workshop with Laura Merz

This month's HOCP at Home event is a workshop by illustrator Laura Merz. Laura created one of our activity sheets last summer and we are delighted to have her back this month to run this very special workshop online.

The workshop will look at themes around the natural world and climate change to brainstorm ideas that participants can put towards an entry for the Creative Earth Competition run by COP26 Climate Change Conference in collaboration with the World Wildlife Foundation.  

The workshops will take place online on Saturday 27 March. For more information please visit our Eventbrite page or get in touch with Emma Henderson. STOP PRESS! This workshop is now fully booked: future workshops will be announced via our Newsletter soon.

Support Cove Park and become a Supporter, Friend or Patron in 2021

We launched a new Supporter, Friend and Patron programme last year, coinciding with our 20th anniversary, and we are extremely grateful to all those that have joined us so far.

This year is proving to be an equally challenging year for artists, organisations and communities working in the cultural sector. With your help we can continue to develop and deliver programmes for artists and for our local communities, and we can plan for the future of Cove Park.

We hope that you will join us as a Supporter, Friend or Patron in 2021 and get in touch to discuss the many ways in which you may take part in our programmes and spend time with us at Cove Park. To find out more, please visit our Support Us page or contact Alexia Holt directly.

As a registered charity Cove Park welcomes all donations, small or large. Gifts of any amount will make an enormous difference to our work. Please donate today if you can. Thank you!

Image: Cove Park's Artists Centre, June 2019 (photography, Alan Dimmick)