February 2023
As the first signs of spring appear on site, we are very pleased to welcome the Glasgow-based artist and director Mele Broomes to Cove Park, here for a four week residency and to work during this time with visiting collaborators.
Travelling to us from across Scotland, the UK and Europe are artist and writer Caroline Bagenal, writer Anna Bambridge, artist and educator Darly Benneker, artist and writer Grace Denton, research practitioner and tutor Susannah Haslam, ceramic artist Kerry Hastings, author and illustrator Helen Kellock, pianist and composer James Ross, visual artist Ella Thumim, and visual artist Scott Robertson.
We are always very pleased to host former residents and in February we welcome artist, researcher, producer and Cove Park Associate Annie Crabtree with artist Seth Hannah.
Cove Park works in partnership with national and international organisations to create residencies for groups and individuals working in all art forms. This month, through a collaboration with Talbot Rice Gallery, we welcome artists Jenny Hogarth and Emmie McLuskey. Coming to us via a Playwrights' Studio Scotland Play Development Bursary is the performance maker Mamoru Iriguchi.
We are excited to announce three new residencies launching this year. Read on for news of The Bridge Awards Residency, a residency offered in partnership with Mophradat, and a residency at Cove Park for a former resident of Varuna, the International Writers' House, Australia. We can also share details of the open call for applications for Making Tracks 2023, and a new writing commission offered as part of the NAARCA collaboration. Finally, our next Saturday Studio Workshops take place on 25 February, more information on this event is given below.
Image: The Studios at Cove Park (photography, Alan Dimmick).
The Bridge Awards Residency
This new two-week residency is for an artist based in Scotland whose career has been impacted by a breast cancer diagnosis, and has undergone successful treatment in the last two years and is in remission.
In its first year the residency will take place during the late spring or summer of 2023 (dates negotiable). It is open to a person based in Scotland, at any stage of their career and working in any creative discipline. The aim is to provide the artist 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. Full details and the link to the online application form is available here.
We are grateful to The Bridge Awards for making this residency possible and to Maggie's Centres for their advice and support.
Image: The Bridge at Cove Park, by Richard La Trobe Bateman (photography, Alan Dimmick)
Art Time Residency for a Visual Artist
Cove Park is excited to work in partnership with Mophradat on its programme of Art Time Residencies for visual artists from the Arab world. This year we will offer a one-month funded residency taking place in October 2023. The residency will allow the artist to spend focused time working on a project or researching new ideas, and is for those interested in being in a rural location as part of a community of resident artists at Cove Park.
Mophradat creates opportunities for artists from the Arab world through an inventive approach to funding, commissioning, collaborating, and gathering. For more information on Mophradat, this opportunity, and details of how to apply, please visit Mophradat's website. The deadline for applications is 15 March 2023.
Image: 'Accomplices' gathering in Evia, 2022. (image courtesy of Mophradat).
Cove Park / Varuna
Residency Exchange Programme
We are delighted to announce the continuation in 2023 of the residency exchange programme with Varuna, the National Writers' House, Australia.
The Belfast-based writer and former Cove Park resident Jan Carson will travel to Varuna later this year. We are thrilled this one-month residency is taking place and know it will be valuable research and writing time. You can read about Jan's Cove Park residency and the impact it had upon her work here.
Varuna has issued a call to its own alumni for applications for a one-month residency in August 2023 at Cove Park. More information is available here and the award will be announced in April.
We are grateful to Edinburgh International Book Festival for their support and to The Bridge Awards for funding this international exchange.
Images: writer Jan Carson at Cove Park in 2019 (photography by Alan Dimmick).
Making Tracks 2023 - Call for Applications
Making Tracks will return to Cove Park in October 2023 for its annual two-week residency. This international music exchange programme has an environmental focus and brings together exceptional emerging artists with more experienced musicians. A UK tour follows the residency and we are looking forward to hosting this wonderful project again this year.
The open call for applications to take part in the 2023 programme opens on 28 February. More information is available on the Making Tracks website. Video profiles shot at Cove Park of all the 2022 Fellows can be found here.
Video: Alaa Zouiten, 2022 Making Tracks Fellow at Cove Park (courtesy of Making Tracks)
NAARCA Writing Commission Announced
The Nordic Alliance of Artists’ Residencies on Climate Action (NAARCA) has awarded its first writing commission to the Glasgow-based Gaelic writer Mairi Macleod. Mairi was the recipient of the 2022 Young Gaelic Writer Residency at Cove Park, developed in collaboration with Comhairle nan Leabhraichean / The Gaelic Books Council.
We are delighted that Saari Residence in Finland has also awarded Mairi a two-month residency beginning in March to support her work and we are grateful to the Kone Foundation for making this opportunity possible.
Mairi will slow travel to Finland and continue to write her first Gaelic children’s novel: a dystopian story set in a near-future Glasgow exploring the loss of nature, justice, and the power of friendship. She will also begin to write the commissioned short fiction story in Gaelic, which will comment on the environmental crisis and be translated to encourage international dialogue and the exchange of ideas across languages.
NAARCA, co-devised by Cove Park and Saari Residence (Finland), was launched in November 2021 and aims to build a long-term bridge between Scotland and the Nordic countries around the most pressing global issue of our time. The collaboration is founded upon the geological, climatological, historical, and linguistic similarities that unite both regions, and is the starting point for a permanent, expansive and holistic network of cooperation.
Image: Mairi Macleod at Cove Park (image courtesy of Mairi Macleod)
Testing Grounds
Episode Two Launching Soon
The next episode of the NAARCA podcast Testing Grounds will be available from Friday 24 February 2023.
This edition asks how does the built environment affect our experience of the climate crisis, and vice-versa? Charlotte Hetherington, Director of Artica Svalbard, introduces us to Longyearbyen, and to our two contributors: architect Ingvild Sæbu Vatn and anthropologist Alexandra Meyer. They explore how climate change is affecting people’s relationship to the place, why we need new
approaches to 'waste' buildings, and the value of engaging local people with planning the future of our towns.
To subscribe and listen visit naarca.art/testing-grounds-podcast/ or search for Testing Grounds in your favourite podcast app.
Image: Artica Svalbard.
Saturday Studios in February
Magical Paper Making with Caitlin Dick
Join the Aberdeen-based artist and former resident Caitlin Dick at Cove Park on Saturday 25 February to learn how to transform an everyday paper recycling pile into beautiful and functional hand-made seed paper.
Caitlin's research and multi media work centres around human impact on the environment, and this workshop is offered as part of our NAARCA programme. The workshops are free and open to children between 7 and 11 years of age and 11+.
For more information on the workshops and to reserve your place please visit Cove Park's Eventbrite page.
Image: Workshop participant at Cove Park (courtesy of Emma Henderson).
