Maker/Designer Residency 2023

Generously supported by the Turtleton Charitable Trust, the Maker/Designer Residency is a new fully funded residency for a Scotland-based maker or designer aged 50 or above. 

Following an open call for applications, we are pleased to announce the residency has been awarded to Isabelle Moore, an award-winning furniture designer-maker based in Edinburgh. Her studio practice incorporates woven fibre techniques and timber construction to produce functional, minimal furniture pieces. More information on this residency and Isabelle's work is available here.

Image: Isabelle Moore, Elliptical Woven Chair (photography, Jake Curtis, art direction by Hana Al Sayed).

Royal Conservatoire Scotland Residency 2023

Now in its third year, our collaboration with The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland offers recent graduates from its Contemporary Performance Practice course a research residency at Cove Park. The recipient this year is Margot Conde Arenas.

Margot is a Venezuelan, Colombian, Welsh and Dutch multidisciplinary artist, performer and facilitator based in Glasgow. Working across live performance, video art and movement, her work explores decoloniality, migration and displacement, homelands, traumatised bodies, womanhood, biophilia, and ancestry. At Cove Park, Margot will further investigate decolonial perspectives through academic and creative research.

Image: Margot Conde Arenas. 

Edinburgh International Book Festival Residencies 2023

We are delighted to partner with Edinburgh International Book Festival to host two Australian writers in August. 

Sophie Cunningham is a non-fiction writer and novelist with a passion for trees, walking and broader environmental issues. She will be a guest of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, talking about her novel This Devastating Fever (2022), and her essay collection City of Trees: Essays on Life, Death and the Need for a Forest (2019). 

Sarah Krasnostein is a multi-award winning writer and critic. She is the best-selling author of The Trauma Cleaner (2017) and The Believer (2021). At the Edinburgh International Book Festival, she will lead a narrative non-fiction workshop and discuss her explorations into belief systems for her book, The Believer. 

This residency is generously supported by Margie Seale, David Hardy and Joanna Sutherland. 

Image: Sophie Cunningham (photography, Mathew Lynn) and Sarah Krasnostein.

Young Gaelic Writer Residency
Sgriobhadair Òg air Mhuinntireas 

Now in its second year, the Young Gaelic Writer Residency is the result of a partnership between Cove Park and Comhairle nan Leabhraichean / The Gaelic Books Council. It supports a Gaelic writer based in Scotland, aged under 30, and provides the time and funding required to develop current projects.

A-nis san dàrna bliadhna, tha an cothrom airson Sgrìobhadair Òg air Mhuinntireas na thoradh air co-bhanntachd eadar Cove Park agus Comhairle nan Leabhraichean. Tha e a’ toirt taic do sgrìobhadair Gàidhlig fo aois 30 agus stèidhichte ann an Alba, a’ toirt dhaibh ùine agus maoin airson pròiseactan a leasachadh.

We are delighted to announce the recipient of this residency is Fine Mayer. Fine is an avid reader and writer with a particular passion for modern poetry and fantasy novels. At Cove Park, Fine plans to continue writing her debut YA fantasy novel.

Tha sinn air leth toilichte innse gur i Fine Mayer an tè a tha gu bhith air mhuinntireas am-bliadhna. ’S e leughadair agus sgrìobhadair gionach a th’ ann am Fine aig a bheil ùidh mhòr ann an nua-bhàrdachd agus nobhailean fantasach. Aig Cove Park, tha e fa-near do dh’Fhine a ciad nobhail fhantasach do dhaoine òga a leasachadh.

Image: Fine Mayer, Young Gaelic Writer Resident, 2023

NAARCA Commission 

The Nordic Alliance of Artists' Residencies on Climate Action (NAARCA), co-devised and co-led by Cove Park and Saari Residence, aims to build a long-term bridge between Scotland and the Nordic countries around the most pressing global issue of our time. This three year project brings together artists' residencies from seven countries to collaborate on research, commissions, institutional change and education around climate action.

We are delighted to introduce the artists commissioned by NAARCA to develop new work. 

Nikhil Vettukattil is an artist and writer who lives and works in Oslo. Using a range of media such as sound, installation, performance, text, sculpture, and video, his practice questions modes of representation and image-making processes in their relation to lived experiences. While in residence at Artica Svalbard (Norway) Nikhil will develop new work that will incorporate research on food production and distribution in Svalbard and its relation to the climate crisis.

Rikke Luther is a Danish artist based in Copenhagen. Her current work explores 'new interrelations created by the environmental crisis as they relate to the Earth System'. Her research project 'More Mud' includes residencies at Baltic Art Center (Sweden), Skaftfell Art Center (Iceland), Artica Svalbard (Norway) and research trips to Finland and Greenland. From these field studies, she will develop a new film to be completed in the Spring of 2024.

To learn more about the commissions and NAARCA visit the project's website.

Image: Nikhil Vettukattil, Defaced Press Photo .

Material Futures Residencies 2023
Open Call for Applications

We are very excited to announce a new residency programme made possible with support from The Fenton Arts Trust.

Material Futures Residencies are designed to support UK-based visual artists working with or developing sustainable materials and processes as a key aspect of their work. Cove Park will award two fully-funded three-week residencies in December this year and would like to invite those eligible for this opportunity to apply by Monday 4 September 2023. 

Further information, application guidelines, and a link to the online application form, are available here.

Image: Work in progress from the studio of Santtu Laine, recipient of the Sculpting Futures: Ecologies in the Making Residency, 2023.

Magnetic 2
Open Call for Applications

We are pleased to confirm that Cove Park is a host partner in Magnetic Residencies 2, the second year of a joint Franco-UK initiative that brings together eight institutions to create a new programme of artist residencies of eight weeks each: four in France - CAPC Musée d'art contemporain de 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 here in Scotland. 

This year, the residencies will work in tandem. Cove Park is working with Villa Arson and artists based in Scotland should apply to this residency; artists based in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur should apply for a Cove Park residency.

The open call for applications is live and the deadline is 29 August 2023. More information on the programme, the tandem partnerships, and the application process is available here.

Magnetic 2 is a programme of Fluxus Art Projects, which is 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 International, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the British Council, and its private patrons and friends.

Images: above, David Douard, Magnetic Resident 2022; below, the call for applications for the Cove Park Magnetic 2 Residency 2023.

Launching the American Friends of Cove Park

Cove Park’s new American Friends of Cove Park membership programme is live!

In recent years Cove Park has hosted several leading US-based artists, including artist and writer Tyler Coburn, artist and educator Carl Linstrum, and ceramicist Natalie Weinberger. The aim of this initiative is to provide more funded residencies at Cove Park for US-based artists. As a new addition to our wider individual philanthropy programme, it provides US-based supporters with a tax-effective way of donating. To do this, we have partnered with Outset Contemporary Art Fund.

Outset is an international charity that for 20 years has been supporting institutions to unlock funding for innovative art projects. They do not take any commissions and 100% of funds raised are received by Cove Park. Cove Park and Outset have worked together on several projects, including a residency for the artist Catherine Street at the time of her exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, and a major commission of new work for Cove Park by artist Alex Frost. Support from Outset also made possible Double Flower, the current presentation of new work by artist Louise Hopkins. 

To join, please complete and submit the American Friends of Cove Park Form. For more information, please contact Programmes & Communications Producer Alex Marrs. 

Images: above, ceramicist Natalie Weinberger at Cove Park in 2019; below, Carl Linstrum at Cove Park in 2022 (photography, Alan Dimmick).

Cove Park's 'Saturday Studios' Receives
Supporting Communities Award

We are delighted to share some very good news. Cove Park's Saturday Studios programme - of free, creative and artist-led workshops for young people in our local community - has been awarded funding from Argyll & Bute Council's Supporting Communities Fund.

This award will allow Cove Park to offer four new Saturday Studios Workshops in 2023, led by professional artists connected to our residency programme. Saturday Studios will resume after the school holidays on 26 August and further details will be announced soon.

For more information on our creative learning and events programme, please contact Emma Henderson, Curator of Engagement.

Image: Artist and former resident Lotte Gertz and Saturday Studio participants at Cove Park, 2019.

Open Fridays at Cove Park
Double Flower, Louise Hopkins

Cove Park is open to visitors every Friday afternoon, between 1pm and 5pm, until Friday 15 September 2023. Visitors are welcome to see Double Flower by Louise Hopkins - a new project commissioned by Cove Park - to explore our beautiful 50-acre site, learn more about Cove Park's residency and engagement programmes, and meet the team. Open Fridays are free and everyone is welcome.

Cove Park is just one hour from Glasgow and accessible by public transport. Information on how to travel to us is available here.

Double Flower can also be seen by appointment on an alternative day. To arrange your visit please email Alex Marrs (Programmes & Communications Producer).

Double Flower is made possible with kind support from the Hope Scott Trust, Outset Contemporary Art Fund, and the Young Presidents Organisation.

Image: 'Double Flower Performance Outtake', Louise Hopkins, 2023, Archival Digital Print (photography, Alan Dimmick)