Creative Residencies for Carers:
Artist Announcement

Creative Residencies for Carers is an expanded programme designed to support individuals who have established creative careers – working in all art forms and specialisms - but are unable to fully maintain or develop their practices due to their roles as unpaid carers for adults. 

Following a call for applications, we are delighted to announce the five artists joining us this year are: interdisciplinary artist Bobbi Cameron, writer, artist, and researcher Alexandra Compton; multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Jo Mango; writer and journalist Claire Prentice; and designer and maker Cecilia Stamp.

We are grateful to The Binks Trust for making this programme possible.

Images: above, Bobbi Cameron, for the first words of a dreamworld, 16mm film, 5.1 surround, film still, 2024; below, Jo Mango (photography, Daria Bilyk).

RSA Residencies for Scotland:
Artist Announcement

We are pleased to confirm artists Alistair Gow and Mina Heydari-Waite are the recipients of the 2026 RSA Residencies for Scotland at Cove Park.

Mina is a British-Iranian interdisciplinary artist based in Glasgow. Working across moving image, installation and sculpture, her practice draws together workshops, archival research, material exploration, familial histories and cross-disciplinary dialogue.

Alistair works primarily with printmaking. His images come from a fascination with things that present potential: blank spaces, billboards, roads, and pictures hanging on walls are recurring motifs. He is fascinated with the physical act of making. The practice of printmaking, particularly the process, craft, and community of a workshop, is essential to how he thinks about and makes art.

The 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.

Image: Farang, 2024, Mina Heydari-Waite, presented at Offline as part of Glasgow International Festival (photography, Sall Jubb).

EDI Advisory Group:
Artist Appointments

Following a call for applications, three former residents have been appointed for a one year term to Cove Park's Equalities, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Advisory Group: Ben Ramsay, Ailie Robertson, and Sumayaa Usmani. 

Originally from the Templehall area of Kirkaldy, Ben Ramsay is a writer and director bringing working class stories to the screen and stage, experimenting with genre and biographical stories from his upbringing. In addition to his creative work, Ben has served as a  representative for the retail trade union USDAW, and is currently a Membership Officer for the Scottish Society of Playwrights. 

Based in Argyll, composer and harpist Ailie Robertson works across folk, classical, and electronic music. Alongside her freelance practice, she has developed projects that widen participation: working with disabled participants, people with care experience, those living with dementia, and individuals from the global majority. Her work around deafness and music includes projects supported through Chamber Music Scotland and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Ailie also serves on the Scottish Music Industry Association’s EDIA Advisory Group. 

Born in Karachi, Sumayya Usmani is an author now living in Glasgow. As a PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow, her writing sits at the intersection of South Asian storytelling and postcolonial memory. Her current work as the Fundraising Manager for the Scottish BPOC Writers Network, and formerly as the Diversity Co-ordinator on the Guild of Food Writers Committee, carefully considers non-Western epistemologies and what it means for an institution to honour cultural frameworks that fall outside the dominant tradition. 

The EDI Advisory Group supports the ongoing development of Cove Park’s EDI Policy & Action Plan (2023-2028), and evaluates our policies, practices, and programming through this lens. The new appointees to this Group will join: Trustee, former resident, and multidisciplinary artist Ashanti Harris; Curator of Engagement Emma Henderson; Director Alexia Holt; Trustee, cultural worker, and writer Parvinder Marwaha; Senior Producer Alex Marrs; and Trustee, former resident, and writer Heather Parry.

Image: The launch of the Scotland/Japan residency exchange programme at Cove Park, October 2018.

Collective Home:
Group Residency 2026

In May we announced the three creative practitioners appointed as Embedded Artists for Collective Home, a new project involving communities across Argyll and developed through the Culture Collective initiative, administered by Creative Scotland. 

The artists - theatre director Kenny Glennan; writer and filmmaker Carina NicHaouchine; and climate artist and designer Alicia Storie - tool part in a group residency this month, using the time to meet with our Culture Collective Coordinator, Emma Henderson, and with representatives from several key departments within Argyll & Bute Council, including Community Development, the Resettlement Team and Gaelic Development, and with colleagues at Argyll & Bute Climate Action Network.

The Embedded Artists were joined by the first artist invited to contribute to this programme through a series of shorter term projects: musician and Gaelic singer Mairi McGillivray. 

Collective Home is one of 23 projects across Scotland awarded funding through Culture Collective. It aims to support a national network of creative practitioners, organisations, and communities working collaboratively to shape the cultural life of their local areas. Read more about this project here.

Images: Collective Home Group Residency

Bagri Music Awards 2026
Ayman Hlal

We are thrilled to announce that the recipient of the 2026 Bagri Music Award is the leading Syrian violinist, musician, and educator Ayman Hlal. 

Now based in Berlin, Ayman specialises in both Middle Eastern and Western classical music. Since leaving Syria as a result of war, he has participated in several national and international events and projects, and performed with multiple orchestras and bands, including the Syrian Expat Philharmonic Orchestra (SEPO), and Nai’ Oriental Orchestra in Austria.

Ayman will perform at Cove Park on Saturday 25 July and at The Mackintosh Church in Glasgow on Saturday 1 August 2026. Complimenting Ayman's two-week residency, these events are presented in partnership with the Bagri Foundation.

In 2025 Cove Park embarked upon a two-year partnership with the Bagri Foundation to launch Sound Series, a new programme of residencies bringing acclaimed international musicians to the UK. The recipient of the first Award was the Palestinian composer and musician Faraj Suleiman.

The Bagri Foundation works within a network of leading cultural organisations that champion artistic excellence and provide extraordinary artists from across Asia wider visibility on the global stage. Working collaboratively with Cove Park to nominate and select the artists, the Bagri Music Award is aimed at artistic development and is a unique opportunity for acclaimed emerging or mid-career musicians from West Asia to spend quality time in Scotland.

Ayman's residency has also been developed in collaboration with SEPO, the first Symphony Orchestra for professional and academic Syrian musicians who live in the European Union. SEPO was founded in September 2015 in Germany by the Syrian musician Raed Jazbeh. The orchestra brings together approximately 75 musicians to preserve and protect Syria's rich cultural heritage in the face of destruction, while sending a powerful global message of peace, solidarity, and artistic excellence. Since its inception, the orchestra has toured extensively, performing on prominent European stages across Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Poland, Greece, Italy, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Further information and tickets for both the Cove Park and Mackintosh Church performances are available via Ticket Tailor.

Image: Ayman Hlal (left). Courtesy of the artist.

Summer Micro Residencies 2026

Our popular Micro Residencies are back and taking place from 6 July – 3 August 2026. 

This programme is open to artists, creative practitioners, writers, and researchers, from every creative discipline, who are in need of dedicated time to focus on a specific project, meet a deadline, or pause and take stock between projects. Summer Micro Residencies are delivered through our Open programme and offered for three to six nights at a subsidised rate.

The cost of a Cube or Pod is subsidised with prices ranging from £65 per night for a Cube to £200 per night for a Pod (suitable for two/four people). Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until filled. Apply here.

Images: Bonnie MacRae, Cove Park, 2022 (photography, Alex Marrs).

Call for Applications
International Visual Theatre Residency

We are delighted to be working in partnership with Manipulate Arts, along with three international festivals (Go Figure, Oslo; TIP-Fest, Turku; and Arrivano dal Mare, Ravenna), to host an International Visual Theatre Residency at Cove Park next year.

Via Manipulate Arts, we are now accepting applications from Scotland-based artists working in the fields of visual theatre, including: puppetry, object theatre, mime, clown, circus or physical theatre.

The residency aims to offer deep mid-stage development on Scottish visual theatre projects, in recognition of the need for longer development timelines for devised work. We aim to grow quality and ambition in visual theatre practice, and will support three Scottish and three international companies to develop works in parallel and engage in creative exchange.

This opportunity has been developed in response to needs identified by our artist community for greater support for time-intensive devising processes, and more opportunities to internationalise their practice.

Learn more about the residency programme here and apply by 15 July. 

Image: Noah Ferder and Amy Clark, RCS Contemporary Performance Practice Residency, 2025 (photography, Tommy Ga-Ken Wan). 

Open Fridays & Doors Open Day 2026

Cove Park's popular series of Open Fridays continues this year, welcoming visitors to the site on Friday afternoons. These events are an opportunity to see Cove Park's site, studios, and accommodation, learn about our current programmes and meet the team. Refreshments are available.

Everyone is welcome from 1-4pm on Friday 10 July, and Friday 7 August.

Cove Park will also take part in this year's Doors Open Day, opening our doors for workshops, tours, and special events on Saturday 19 September. Details of the events will be confirmed in the next few weeks.

If you would like to visit and require further information please contact Rona Grierson.

Image: The Jacobs Building (photography, Tracy Bloxham) 

Cove Park Friends & Patrons 

Cove Park is proud to have a growing community of supporters who believe in the vital work we do to promote national and international cultural exchange and ensure our local rural community has access to innovative and creative learning opportunities as well as protecting the biodiversity of our site.

By becoming a Friend or Patron of Cove Park, you will help us to enrich arts, culture and creativity in Argyll and across Scotland, support the global exchange of ideas through our artist residences and save the natural heritage of Cove Park as a space for everyone to enjoy. Wherever you are, you will know your donation is making a vital contribution to the work of Cove Park and our support of artists. If Cove Park and our work means something to you, please consider becoming a Friend today. Learn more and join here.

If you are based in the United States, you can join our American Friends of Cove Park, our tax-effective annual giving programme. 

Image: 'Double Flower', Louise Hopkins, a Cove Park Commission, 2023.