Jasper Coppes & Dorian Braun - Resonant Bodies Residency - January to February 2019

7 January 2018 – 17 February 2019

We were delighted to welcome Jasper Coppes and Dorian Braun on the first of ESW’s 2019 Micro Residencies. They spent six weeks at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, developing their work “To Finish Each Other’s Sentences”. They were chosen for this residency after an open call and selection process in early 2018.

During their residency Coppes and Braun began to make a cello using a never realised design by Alexander Battan Grant (1856-1942) a respected and innovative maker of fishing rods and stringed instruments.

Coppes and Braun are engaged in an ongoing dialogue that evolves around and through their respective practices. The residency at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop was their first opportunity to collaboratively produce a new work. You can read about Braun’s earlier research into Alexander Grant, undertaken as part of Edinburgh Art Festival 2016 and discussed in Map Magazine.

Event Open Studio
Saturday 2 February, 2-5pm
Coppes and Braun hosted audience members at their studio at ESW on Saturday 2 February, 2-5pm including musicians, music historians, artists and wood workers. The visitors had the chance to see the planning drawings and reference images which the two artists were working from, see the components of the cello, including the two wood-turned body parts made from sycamore, and hear about the process so far. The conversation travelled through specifics of the project and onto related questions around the gender issues of the cello pin, using animal glue or hardware store glue on historic wooden instruments, the effect of different sorts of varnish on the sound created and the reasoning behind bridge design including why it’s the only non-fixed part of a stringed instrument. We also listened to a historic recording of a friend of Battan Grant’s playing the Rondello, a similarly designed violin, and talked about whether his aspiration to reach the purity of human voice in his instruments was achieved.

Event To Finish Each Other’s Sentences
Thursday 14 February, 6-7.30pm
This event was the first public presentation of Coppes and Braun’s interpretation of Alexander Battan Grant’s cello design. Coppes and Braun introduced the process of researching and making the instrument, as well as acknowledging the many experts they have sought out to advise on the project. The evening concluded with Simon Weins (artist and electronic musician ) and Feronia Wennborg (musician and composer) using the elements of the cello to perform an improvised sound-work using a bone microphone.

Coppes and Braun are delighted to have received the generous support of Inverness Museum and Art Gallery; Creative Scotland Open Project Funding; Stuart Reid at Stringers; St. Cecilia’s Hall, University of Edinburgh, and the Fisherrow Wood Working Group, Musselburgh.

Dorian Braun is a visual artist living and working between Glasgow and Ullapool. Recent exhibitions include: ‘Annual Art Show’, Can Serrat, Barcelona (2016), ‘Platform’, Edinburgh Art Festival (2016), ‘Rippers’ Visual artist unit, Glasgow (2015), ‘Royal Scottish Academy New contemporaries’, Edinburgh (2014). He was in residence at SSW, Lumsden and Can Serrat, Barcelona (both 2018).

Jasper Coppes is a visual artist who lives and works between Glasgow and Amsterdam. Recent exhibitions include: ‘Cabinet Interventions’ Glasgow International Festival, Glasgow (2018), ‘Flow Country’ Glasgow Short Film Festival, (2017), ‘Roineabhal’, Galerie van Gelder, Amsterdam (2015), ‘Delaying Tactics’, House for an Art Lover, Glasgow (2015).

Simon Weins is a visual artist and electronic musician, working with installations, objects, film and sound. Recent exhibitions include ‘dock / ancien palais de justice’, Les Brasseurs Liege (2019); ‘Pulses’, Mount Florida Gallery Glasgow (2018); ‘Look at me and see what I could not (yet) see’, Bonnefanntenmuseum Maastricht (2017) and ‘Slow Accident’, Nieuw Dakota Amsterdam (2017). Together with Caroline Hussey & Nuno Mendoza he organizes ‘Soup, Zuppa’, a monthly event for free improvisation at The Old Hairdresser Glasgow and releases experimental Electronica as Garland with Phillip Jondo on Amsterdam-based Label Lullabies for Insomniacs. www.simonweins.com

Feronia Wennborg is an artist and musician based in Glasgow, working with installation, performance, text, video and tape. She is part of several music collaborations in Glasgow and beyond, and released the album ‘Wet Courage’ with ECCO on GLARC in 2018. Recent exhibitions include ‘Blomma’, The Pipe Factory Glasgow (2018); ‘Exposition Collective’, Visarte.Vaud Lausanne (2018); ‘Which they draw into their mouth’ Crownpoint East Glasgow (2018) and ‘Function’, Mount Florida Gallery Glasgow (2017).

Micro Residencies

The Micro Residency programme is an annual open-submission residency opportunity for artists. It is primarily research based and is set up to foster experimentation, innovation and to support artists in the development of new work. Four six-week residencies are selected by a panel of invited arts professionals. The next application deadline will be in spring 2018 – Subscribe to our mailing list to know when the application process opens.

Selected artists receive: