Busan Cultural Foundation Residency 2023
Hye Soon Seo

We are delighted to announce a new partnership with Busan Cultural Foundation, South Korea. Following a call for applications made by the Foundation in the summer of 2023, we can now confirm the Busan-based artist Hye Soon Seo has been awarded a three-week residency at Cove Park.

Hye Soon Seo studied at the École Supérieure d’art et de design des Pyrénées, France, and has shown her work widely in South Korea and internationally. She creates sound pieces that engage with our senses of hearing and sight, manipulating elements such as surrounding sounds, language, noise, silence, and voice within different acoustic contexts. This residency is the artist's first in the UK and will be an opportunity to develop new work responding to Cove Park's 50-acre rural site overlooking Loch Long. 

Image: 'Rest in peace', 2018 (photography Sohyung Seo).

NAARCA Writing 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 thrilled to announce that the second NAARCA writing commission has been awarded to Hanna Ellen Guttorm.

Hanna is a senior researcher at the University of Helsinki focusing on Indigenous Studies and is a member of Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Sciences. She is also an Associate Professor in Sámi Teacher Education at the Sámi University of Applied Sciences in Guovdageaidnu. Her current research on healing methodologies is funded by Kone Foundation. In her writing, she has revitalised the language and North Sámi culture of her father, and invites readers to think, feel, and act towards solidarity, reciprocity, and sustainability transition.

For the NAARCA writing commission, she writes with the 'sorrow, embarrassment, and hope of an Earthling, once again, to and with her own people(s) and other Earthly beings, multilingually and care-fully.' 

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

Image: Hannah Guttorm, provided by the artist. 

Testing Grounds Podcast Series
Bonus Episode: 'Seasickness / Cur na Mara'

As the climate crisis accelerates, how can artists’ residencies be testing grounds for new – and better – ways of living and working? Testing Grounds is an 8-part podcast series bringing together artists, researchers and activists from across the Nordic region and Scotland to explore this question.

In this bonus episode, Glasgow-based Gaelic writer Mairi Macleod reads her short story, Seasickness/Cur na Mara. Following her Young Gaelic Writer Residency at Cove Park, Mairi was commissioned by NAARCA to create a short piece of fiction in both Gaelic and English, and awarded an 8-week writing residency at Saari Residence in Finland to make this work possible.

As a young woman writing in a minority language, she wants to contribute not just to the survival of Gaelic, but to its blossoming and evolution. In Seasickness/Cur na Mara, Mairi draws on a traditional Scottish folk tale – the Selkie wife – and updates it for an age of climate crisis.

The first four episodes of Testing Grounds is available to listen here or in your favourite podcast app. The final four episodes will be published on the last Friday of every month beginning 25 August. 

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

Image: Mairi Macleod, provided by the artist.

An Interview with Rodge Glass

Rodge Glass is a Glasgow-based writer, a former resident and a member of Cove Park's Associates programme. He is also a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde. Rodge returned to Cove Park this year for an 8-week Independently Funded Residency made possible through an award from Creative Scotland's Awards for Individuals.

Many residents return to Cove Park for new opportunities and events, or to devise and lead projects as part of our Learning & Engagement programme. Following his residency, Rodge spoke to Cove Park's Director Alexia Holt about his residency experience and his current work. Read this interview in full here. 

Image: Rodge Glass, Cove Park, June 2023 (photography, Alan Dimmick)

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.

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.

Launching Argyll Associates

Cove Park’s new Argyll Associates programme is live!

We are now inviting individuals and families based locally or with a connection to Argyll to join this new membership programme, helping Cove Park to continue to provide creative learning and cultural activities for individuals and groups in our local community, free at the point of access. This work includes a wide range of creative and environmental projects for children and young people across our region.

The Argyll Associates programme provides several unique ways for its members to engage with Cove Park: meeting the national and international artists we work with, taking part in exclusive events – such as readings, artists talks, screenings, summer dinners and studio tours – and spending time at one of Argyll's most beautiful and inspiring locations. For a full list of membership levels and benefits, including discounts on Space Hire and limited edition prints and artworks, and access to co-working space, please follow the link to our Argyll Associates information pack. 

To join, please complete and submit the Argyll Associates Form and for more information contact Programmes & Communications Producer Alex Marrs. 

Images: above, Cove Park's Cubes and the view to Argyll's Loch Long; below, Erin McQuarrie, Cove Park, June 2023 (photography, Alan Dimmick).

Open Fridays at Cove Park and 
Double Flower Extended!

Cove Park's series of Open Fridays have proved very popular and will now run until Friday 6 October. 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 run from 1-5pm. 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)

Saturday Studios Workshop
'Cut, Stick, Scale, Repeat' with Marie O'Connor

Saturday Studios resume in August with a new workshop inspired by Double Flower, a presentation of new prints, drawings, and paintings at Cove Park this summer by the artist Louise Hopkins.

The workshop will be led by Marie O'Connor, an artist and educator working with collage, textiles and crafts. This pattern making and paper–based workshop uses collage to explore pattern building and plays with individual graphic components and composition, rhythm, and repetition.

Our current programme of Saturday Studios are made possible with an award from Argyll & Bute Council's Supporting Communities Fund. For more information on Cove Park's creative learning programme, please contact Emma Henderson, Curator of Engagement.

Image: Courtesy of Marie O'Connor.