March 2022
March see the culmination of our annual series of Winter Subsidised Residencies, bringing a wonderful range of choreographers, dancers, composers, musicians, curators, directors, producers, designers, visual artists, and writers to Cove Park. This month we are delighted to host Farah Abdessamad, Sacha Airlie, Toria Banks, Alison Burnley, Tracey Emerson, Georgia Germani, Patricia Haemmerle, Melanie Hering, Ariane Jackson, Anne Waggot Knott, Richard Luke, Fiona McGovern, Sheila MacNeill, Amy Pennington, Fran Quinlan, Bonnie Radcliffe, Martyn Riley, Amble Skuse, Luca Serra, Charlotte Smithson, and Sarah Trounce.
These residents are joined by the artists commissioned to develop new projects for the Argyll Beacon, a programme focussing upon Scotland's rainforests and devised in partnership with ACT: Argyll & the Isles Coast & Countryside Trust. Read on for news of the programme's commissions and events.
We are also very pleased to welcome artist Hannah Brackston to Cove Park. Hannah is working on the development of three Unexpected Gardens for shoreline sites along the Rosneath peninsula, and more information on this exciting project is given below.
Although our series of subsidised winter residencies draws to a close in March, it is still possible to take part in our programme this Spring and to book independently-funded residencies. If you would value time to focus on your work between early April and mid May 2022, please contact Nicola Jamieson directly for more information.
Scroll down for the launch of The Play Park, the announcement of our Associates Residencies and the Varuna/Cove Park Residency Exchange, news of the 2022 Taiwanese Writers Residencies, our search for a Podcast Producer for the NAARCA programme, the call for applications to the Architectural Association Visiting School at Cove Park this summer, and our forthcoming Saturday Studios workshop with MOCA: Mapping Ocean Change through Art, as part of our Engagement programme.
Image: Cove Park Residency Accommodation (photography by Alan Dimmick)
The Cove Park / RAW Material Company Residency Exchange Programme
Our ongoing exchange programme with RAW Material Company in Dakar, Senegal, entered a particularly busy phase in March. The Dakar-based photographer Ibrahima Thiam concluded his six-week residency at Cove Park this month, and marked his final week on site with an event and visits to his studio for other artists, curators, producers, and colleagues from British Council Scotland.
The Glasgow-based artist Juliane Foronda has arrived in Dakar for her residency at RAW Material Company, and we are sure she will have a very productive and enjoyable time. We are grateful to British Council Scotland for their support and to our friends at RAW Material Company for making this project possible.
Images: above, Ibrahima Thiam at Cove Park, March 2022 (photography, Alan Dimmick); below, Juliane Foronda, 'slow pressure, wild survival', 2019, dried flowers, metal, plastic, varied edition of 94.
Argyll Beacon Residencies, Commissions,
Tree Planting & Climate Cafés
March has seen a great deal of Argyll Beacon activity. Artists in Schools workshops were led by artist Juliana Capes, and we were excited to take groups of students from Hermitage Academy in Helensburgh and Lochgilphead High School to rainforest sites in our region, where they met our ACT colleagues and woodland rangers. Working in parallel with Juliana are Rachel McBrinn and Alison Scott, commissioned to create a new short film connected to rainforest and woodland sites in Argyll. Artist and storyteller Katrine Turner's work during her Year of Stories 2022 Residency also takes the rainforest as its theme, and we look forward to working with all the artists involved and presenting the final film and digital audio projects in May.
Our third Climate Café took place this month, bringing artists, writers, and creative practitioners together with environmental specialists and our local community. The March Café followed the first phase of planting for a micro-rainforest on Cove Park's site. This work was undertaken by volunteers, current residents, and members of our team, under the expert guidance of Ian Dow, ACT's Woodland Coordinator. We are grateful to all the volunteers and look forward to watching the forest's first 250 trees take root at Cove Park!
Images: School Visit to Rainforest Sites in Argyll (photography, Juliana Capes); Rachel McBrinn & Alison Scott at the Climate Café, March 2022 (photography, Alex Marrs).
News from the Unexpected Gardens
This month sees the arrival at Cove Park of the Glasgow-based artist Hannah Brackston. Hannah has been commissioned to lead on the development of three Unexpected Gardens as part of the nationwide Dandelion programme. Working with Jill Lee (Dandelion - Emerging Creative Producer), Hannah is currently visiting all three garden sites on the peninsula, and planning the development of each garden with Arleen Sinclair, Garden Design student from Scotland's Rural College (SRUC). Arleen will help with the planning of each design, and advise on planting and interpretation over a 10-week placement at Cove Park.
Hannah's work will build upon the ideas shared during a community consultation event held at Centre 81 in Garelochhead, and we are grateful to everyone involved. The Unexpected Gardens are now at a very exciting stage and we will share more news of their development in future Newsletters.
Image: Autumn Brown at the Clachan Glen, Rosneath, one of three sites for Unexpected Gardens on the Rosneath peninsula (photography, Alan Dimmick); below, Hannah Brackston, Damshot Woods, Pollok, Glasgow, 2018 (Photography, Dan Sambo)
The Play Park
March sees the launch of The Play Park, a pilot residency programme for eight mid-career theatre makers who will gather for one week at Cove Park to explore ideas and acts around 'thresholding': finding, inhabiting and expanding the edge between forms of practice, physical environments, species, social spaces, and gestures of communication.
The programme will be led by
practitioners who work on and across boundaries of theatre, dance, literature, visual arts and film, and whose own investigations have produced new forms of storytelling, interspecies collaboration, and ethical reorientation. There will also be individual dialogues and facilitated movement, object manipulation and environmental research workshops on and around Cove Park's site.
The Play Park is directed by Dramaturgical Lead, Lu Kemp, Artistic Director of Perth Theatre, and Cove Park’s Programme & Communications Producer, Alex Marrs. They are joined by eight facilitators including Alex Bird (Puppetry), EmmaClaire Brightlyn (Movement – Fight), Xialou Guo (Writing), Mamoru Iriguchi (Interdisciplinary Practice), Tim Licata (Movement – Feldenkrais), Rita McDade (Interpretation & Translation – BSL), Chris Thorpe (Storytelling) and Jack Webb (Movement – Dance). Participating in The Play Park are UK-based theatre makers Rachel Briscoe, Vittoria Caffola, Amy Conway, John Darvell, Laura Edwards, Dylan Gray, Andrea Ling, and Saffy Setohy.
This programme is supported by The Foyle Foundation and The Garrick Charitable Trust, and more information is available here.
Image: Lu Kemp.
Cove Park Associates: Residencies Announced & Call for Applications to the Varuna / Cove Park Exchange Programme
We are thrilled this year to award two funded residencies to members of Cove Park's Associates programme. Launched in 2021, and marking our 21st anniversary, this membership programme is open to Cove Park alumni and is the primary means through which we can continue to support and work with our former residents. Last year we invited Cove Park Associates to apply for two funded residencies in 2022/2023, and we are pleased to announce that these have been awarded to visual artist Edward Gwyn Jones and writer Kirsty Logan.
A further benefit of the Associates programme is the opportunity to take part in international residencies. We are currently inviting applications from former Cove Park literature programme residents for a one month residency at Varuna - The National Writers' House Australia, from 25 September to 22 October 2022. This residency is made possible with support from The Bridge Awards and further information and details of how to apply are available here.
If you are a former resident and would like to join our Associates programme, please visit the Alumni Page on our website for more information, or complete and submit the Associates Membership Form.
Images: Above, Edward Gwyn Jones, still from Twisted Pair, in-progress (2022); below, Kirsty Logan (photography, Simone Falk)
Taiwanese Writers Residencies
Our programme of one-month residencies for Taiwanese writers continues this year and we are pleased to announce both Yuching Lin and Eric Chi-Puo Lin will travel to Cove Park in May. Both writers are highly respected and have published widely in Taiwan and internationally. The residencies will enable the writers to develop new work, to pursue research interests in the UK, and visit cultural organisations in Scotland.
The Taiwanese Writers Residencies are supported by the Ministry of Culture Taiwan.
Image: Above, Yuching Lin; below Eric Chi-Puo Lin.
NAARCA Seeks Podcast Producer
NAARCA, the Nordic Alliance of Artists' Residencies on Climate Action, co-led by Cove Park and Saari Residence (Finland), are pleased to announce an open call for a freelance Podcast Producer. We are seeking an experienced, enthusiastic producer to create a new conversational/interview podcast series of eight episodes to be published over two years. The series will discuss the climate crisis and its effects on the Nordic region and the matrix of sustainability –ecological, social, mental and financial. Guest speakers will come from Nordic Countries and Scotland and represent different scientific, artistic, activist and indigenous knowledge.
Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis and the first review will begin on 21 April 2022. To learn more about this role and how to apply, click here.
NAARCA members are Cove Park, Saari Residence (Finland), Arctic Culture Lab (Greenland), Artica Svalbard (Norway), Art Hub Copenhagen (Denmark), Baltic Art Center (Sweden), and Skaftfell – Center for Visual Art (Iceland).
Image: NAARCA representatives at Cove Park, November 2021.
Architectural Association Visiting School 2022
Cove Park and the Architectural Association are calling upon architects, designers, and artists to generate spatial propositions for Cove Park's site in collaboration with the Architectural Association's Visiting School (AAVS).
The Visiting School is a global network of courses and workshops pursued and shaped by students working intensively in small groups led by AA tutors. Central to the programme is the idea that experimental, new, and provocative forms of architecture are best learned by doing. The school promotes, tests and challenges global interests in architectural learning and exchange by embedding a diverse group of creative students and tutors in an array of unique rural, urban, and international contexts.
Cove Park is very excited to be the location for the 2022 Visiting School from 11 - 24 July. The School will engage with Cove Park's ambitions for the development and extension of our accommodation and facilities on site, integrating principles of low embodied carbon, co-living and responsibility towards the land. The School will invite participants to consider what these terms mean today as we plan for an uncertain future defined by climate breakdown. How can we integrate a radical ethos of environmental sustainability with flexible land management planning and ever-changing user’s needs and desires? How can we best relate to the scale of the site, the challenging presence of the natural elements, and the existing buildings?
AAVS Cove Park will be a two-week experimental programme in which to explore these questions by interrogating, researching, and testing spatial propositions within the context of Cove Park and our 50-acre site. Participants will be free to undertake an individual or collaborative approach to their projects amongst a multi-disciplinary cohort. As a group AAVS 2022 will transform Cove Park into a dynamic forum, generating and exchanging ideas which will contribute towards the design brief of the centre’s future development.
Participants will be supported by a teaching team at the intersection of architecture and art through lectures, guided walks, workshops, and tutorials. This call is open to current architecture, design and art students, PhD candidates and young professionals, and creative practitioners globally. For more information about the programme, please contact visitingschool@aaschool.ac.uk and register your interest now by visiting the Architectural Association's website.
Image: AAVS
Cove Park Engagement
MOCA: Mapping Ocean Change through Art
Our next Saturday Studios workshop takes place on Saturday 26 March. MOCA: Mapping Ocean Change through Art is for participants of all ages and will be led by artist Jennifer Argo and marine biologist Dr. Neil Banas. Read more about the wider MOCA project here.
Argo will lead a guided walk and discussion along the shore by Cove Park, to reflect on our shared knowledge of local coastal marine species. Participants will collect inspiration, sketch, and reflect on the balance of the local ecosystems that bridge the sea and shore, followed by a plankton origami workshop at Cove Park. In the afternoon we will draw connections between marine species that inhabit the ocean and coastal regions between Cove Park and the Arctic on a map, including details of existing and potential impacts and knock-on effects on habitats and different species due to climate change.
For more information, and to reserve your free place, please visit our Eventbrite page.
If you have questions concerning this event, please contact Cove Park Curator of Engagement Emma Henderson.
