Micro Residency Programme
Supporting Artists’ Research and Development

Deadlines: ongoing, applications should be sent in at least one month before the proposed residency is to take place. Please specify month of choice. Maximum of six micro residencies in 2009.

Background
ESW’s artistic programme is co-ordinated by the Artistic Programme Committee (APC) made up of the Assistant Director and four artists elected from the ESW membership. The APC devises a programme which is shaped and inspired by artists and ESW members.
In 2005 ESW member, Steve Dale proposed the creation of two outdoor workspaces for use as thinking and working environments for artists. The Pavilions Project was organized in collaboration with pupils at Trinity Academy, who produced designs from a brief arrived at through consultation with ESW’s artists.
In 2007, two Pavilions were completed, and immediately artists found that they were useful and flexible workspaces. Since then they have been used in a number of ways, for student placements, as research and exhibition spaces, and for sound recording.

The Micro Residency Programme, was devised to enable artists to benefit from ESW’s facilities and support, while encouraging networking and peer critiques between participating artists and ESW’s members. Each Micro Residency lasts one month, and artists can work in one of the ESW Pavilions and access ESW’s workshop equipment free of charge. In general there will be around six residencies available each year, and proposals are selected by the APC.
A fee of £150 is awarded to successful applicants for production costs, and ESW will organize and promote a public event at the end of the residency.

How to apply

Please complete the attached application form, and send with the following:
- 8 images or examples of your work in jpeg or dvd form
- current CV
- artist’s statement

Please send applications by e-mail to gordon@edinburghsculpture.org or by post to:
Gordon Munro, Assistant Director
Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop
25 Hawthornvale
Newhaven
Edinburgh
Scotland
EH6 4JT

Please note: Due to limited space, postal applications can only be stored for one month. If you would like your application to be returned, please enclose a SAE.
If you have any further questions or queries, please feel free to phone 0131 551 4490 or to e-mail admin@edinburghsculpture.org

ESW’s Artistic Programme Committee members:
Gordon Munro, Assistant Director
Alice Betts
Rocca Gutteridge
Duncan Robertson
Derek Sutherland


Vancouver Arts Centre/ESW exchange programme

Resident Artist: Barbie Greenshields
December 1 2008 – 28 February 2009
Funded by an Arts Development Grant from the Department of Culture and the Arts the initial part of this project involves a three-month residency at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop to research and develop a new body of work.

I was born in Riverton, South Australia. This is a place on the other side of the world from the place of my forebears.

Approximately one to two percent of the entire human population has naturally red hair. I am one of them.

The country whose population has the highest percentage of naturally red-haired people is Scotland. I am descended from those people.

My red hair is material evidence to me of my connection with a far distant place and far distant others. There is a direct connection to my personal narrative as a redhead living in Australia, and to the city of Edinburgh.

Given that possessing naturally red hair influences my sense of self, this project sets out to elucidate my experience of being a redhead. It also endeavours to investigate the idea of my place on a continuum that links me to the gene pool that has ordained my hair colour. I am interested in examining manifestations of these facts and the manner in which they influence how I understand and make meaning of my world. By extension, this exploration of particular experience opens out into wider parameters of identity, belonging and destiny.

As well as these two points of focus, there is a third layer of intrigue and synchronicity pertinent to this project. That is, the particular DNA combination that produces the gene of red-headedness, discovered and described in 1995 by Professor Jonathon Rees of Edinburgh University, is regarded in the world of science as a mutant gene. I am particularly interested here in social meanings of mutation and the fact that Edinburgh should be the home of this research. To define as ’mutant’ sets apart from the norm, thereby making reference to the idea of the outcast. So for me there is a dichotomy about Edinburgh. It is the place of my ancestors, where one in six people have red hair. It is also the centre for research identifying red hair as a mutation. As such, Edinburgh paradoxically encompasses both belonging and outcast, and this idea fascinates me.

Biography
Dr Barbie Greenshields received a MFA from University of Tasmania in 2000 then completed a PhD in Fine Arts at Griffith University, Queensland in 2005. On her return to her home in Albany Western Australia Barbie is pursuing her own practice and teaching part-time at Curtin University, Albany. In 2006-07 Dr Greenshields curated and acted as a mentor for the participating artists during the development of their artworks for the exhibition Emblems of Belonging held at The Residency, WA Museum Albany. Her most recent solo exhibition was Eating Anatomy 2005, at QCA Gallery in Brisbane. Recent group exhibitions include 17th Tamworth Fibre Textile Biennial In the World; head, hand and heart 2006, Temperature; Contemporary Queensland Sculpture 2004 at the Museum of Brisbane, Mesh 2003 at The Art Gallery, National Institute of Education, Singapore and Boundless 2002 at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth.


Artist in residence – Darren Farquhar
With funding from Scottish Arts Council, Darren Farquhar has been in residence at ESW in the short-let studio since September 08. Darren has benefited from a period of research and experimentation and is also working towards a live one-off performance at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop early in 2009 for ESW’s micro residency programme. The performance will be a mixture of raw, controlled visceral violence, complemented by the ordered constructions that underpin the chaos of the action on display. Various ideas are currently being explored, but the event's layout will be inclusive of the two interior spaces within ESW and the large outdoor space; one interior space will be used to screen a show reel of past performances, with the second space used to house a sculptural expression of the spirit of the performance. The performance itself will be staged outside and will incorporate both pavilions. It will last between 15 and 25 minutes in duration and involve the use of natural and synthetic substances, dramatic lighting, mild pyrotechnics and other elemental forces, led by a number of performers in full costume. The audience will be invited to come dressed in black, red or white clothing, and will be asked to participate in creating the right atmosphere for the performance.

Tangents

A series of informal talks and seminars which will examine the relationships between the visual arts and a spectrum of other disciplines.
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