Creative Initiatives

Documentation of Laura's and Ailsa's event in Stonehaven this January.

Laura Edbrook and Ailsa Lochhead commenced their six month residency in September.

The Creative Initiatives are funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation as part of ESW’s Professional Development Programme.

Let’s Get Together II
St. Bridgets Hall, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

Exploring the realities and possibilities of collaborative practices in contemporary art, Artachat and Robert Gordon University’s second event, Let’s Get Together II, acknowledged the multiple types of collaboration, but focused on how distinct methods and approaches can be generated by collaborative partners. Framing the discussion was a performative review of a current project by artists Ailsa Lochhead and Laura Edbrook, who are mid-way through a six-month Creative Initiatives residency at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop. Ailsa and Laura described their unique situation and conditions to a diverse audience comprised of local people from the creative sector such as poets, painters, an art therapist, art historians and various academics that held different views on collaboration, all of whom contributed various opinions and thoughts to the discussion.
As part of the discussion on collaborative praxes, Ailsa and Laura offered to illustrate some of their work-in-progress, tailored to discursive learning environment of Artachat. The artists introduced a scenario, in which they ‘performed’ an interpretive reading of a short story (Tongue) by Barry Yourgrau. The process for producing the performance, or ‘sketch’, entailed reading and re-reading an excerpt from the chosen text, extracting the words and then representing the work through alternative means.  Since the work presented was incomplete, Ailsa and Laura invited the local participants to discuss what they had witnessed, before also contributing an improvised scene themselves in order to complete the work, by collaborating with one another directly. Such an act allowed everyone to ‘work-out’ and ‘work-through’ any burning questions or address any expectations of collaborative processes first-hand, as well as through discussion. Although this aspect of the workshop allowed the participants to collaborate physically and directly, while engaging with a small task, there was also a sense of collaboration inherent in the sketch performed by Ailsa and Laura. “If you present something ‘full,’ there’s not anything left to work out.” In the performance/’sketch,’ there was a distinct collaboration involved between performers and audience in the resolution and production of meaning – a highly active process suggested by the artists.
Excerpt taken from event summary, written by Dane Sutherland, January 2012

3:1 minute sketch and then there was a pause, followed by an invite to respond:
Thoughts before the start – give colour to words, make patterns of letters or words.
Some friends!
Harpoon paintbrush,
First time spelt ‘’fri-ends’’ over two lines... practical joke... end of friendship.
Is this performance a puzzle like a cryptic crossword?
Is this performance?
Or presentation?
Absurdity,
Smiling mouth but tongue gone, sinister,
Why did they do this?
Didn’t they think?
How cruel,
How thoughtless.
Also, what is the cushion shaped object on the stage?
I think I understand some, but not all!
Were you powerless?
Rules of play,
Were you asleep?
Destructive whim,
Were you dreaming?

Edbrook is an artist and writer and Lochhead is a visual artist; both graduated from MFA at Edinburgh College of Art and live and work in Scotland. Recent and current projects include; (Edbrook) Bad Romance, crowd-sourced publication with Norman James Hogg; MAP Magazine Residency, Glasgow; Blurred Boundaries (with Ailsa Lochhead), Ambulance Depot, Edinburgh; NWSP 2010, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh; A Solution for the State of Disappointment, 2HB Vol.7, CCA, Glasgow (Lochhead) Our Complex, Generator, Dundee; Concrete Flows, Old Mackays Unit, Cumbernauld; Lee Joss, Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh; Blurred Boundaries, Ambulance Depot, Edinburgh; They Do Things Differently There, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh