A Matter of Precedents by Annette Krauss opens on 1 June, as a research resource in the Library.
This collaborative long-term research project reflects on Collective’s move to the City Observatory and explores the site’s designation as a ‘common good asset’.
The project launches with two walking conversations on 1 & 2 June led by Annette Krauss and other artists and cultural thinkers, and will visit common good sites in Edinburgh.
18 June – 4 September
backwash, an exhibition of new work by Camara Taylor, opens in the Hillside on 18 June. The exhibition consists of new video and mixed-media work relating to the artist’s ongoing conversation with Scottish waterways and a collection of public papers spanning several centuries. Camara Taylor is a participant in Satellites, Collective’s development programme for emergent pracitioners based in Scotland.
25 June – 18 September
On 25 June The Beast by Ruth Ewan will open in the City Dome.
A new animation, presented alongside archival material, focuses on the Scottish/American steel magnate Andrew Carnegie and his namesake Diplodocus carnegii. The exhibition explores intersecting ideas around power, exploitation, culture and the history of capitalism. The animation has been co-written with Marxist magician and professor of theatre studies Dr Ian Saville.
Collective is delighted to host artist Cauleen Smith in Edinburgh to produce a new public performance, in association with her 2014 film H-E-L-L-O currently screening in our City Dome.
At the centre of H-E-L-L-O is John Williams’ famous five-note musical motif from Stephen Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Working with Collective’s unique landscape, architecture and backdrop, the artist’s specially devised performance will take place across Calton Hill and will feature five locally based musicians playing Williams’ score as a ‘call and response’ on their bass clef instruments.
The installation of Cauleen Smith’s film in our City Dome, which is screening until 15 May, brings the themes of H-E-L-L-O into conversation with her long-term interest in astronomy and coastal cities. The piece bears witness to the devastating impact and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and hones in on the damage that has been done to the long established African American community through the city’s eagerness to embrace regeneration.
Collective is situated in an exposed location on top of Calton Hill and this will be an outdoor performance, so please check the forecast and dress accordingly.
This is a free, drop-in event, no pre-booking needed.
Collective is now open from Tuesday – Sunday, 10am—5pm
Visit Collective this Easter break to experience a range of creative workshops suitable for children of all ages – from workshops celebrating rainwater in partnership with Edinburgh Science Festival, to drop-in creative sessions exploring our PLAY programme, and a final weekend of activities inspired by our current exhibition H-E-L-L-O by artist Cauleen Smith.
Edinburgh Science Festival: Rain Harvest
9–10 April 11am—12.30pm & 2—3.30pm £5 | Book in advance
Join in with the 2022 Edinburgh Science Festival and explore the beauty and vitality of rainwater in this hands-on, sensory workshop that blends art, science and play.
11–22 April Tuesday – Sunday, 10am—4pm Free | No booking needed
Throughout the Easter holidays, families are warmly invited to drop in to Collective and join us at our Play Shelter and Hillside spaces to take part in a range of art activities related to our year-round Collective Play programme.
Collective PLAY Weekend: Vibrations
23–24 April, 11am—4pm Free | No booking needed
Join us for a final Easter holiday weekend of free outdoor play and creative activities for children and families, inspired by our current exhibition H-E-L-L-O by Cauleen Smith.
A limited number of quiet slots are available on 23 April for families and children with autism or sensory learning disabilities.
COLLECTIVE are delighted to launch our 2022 programme with a presentation of Cauleen Smith’s film H-E-L-L-O, which brings together themes of historic erasure, presence and loss.
H-E-L-L-O takes John Williams’ famous five-note musical motif from Stephen Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, translating it into a greeting for sites across post-hurricane Katrina New Orleans.
The various interpretations of the sequence speak to the enduring spirit of the city. Although situated in the geography of New Orleans, Smith’s film allows us to contemplate Edinburgh’s relationship to its own landscape, inhabitants and history in a time of turbulence and change.
Cauleen Smith is an American born filmmaker and multimedia artist, best known for experimental works that address African-American identities. Smith currently teaches at the California Institute of the Arts.
H-E-L-L-Owill be screened on loop in the City Dome from 22 January – 1 May. Entry is free and there is no need to pre-book, but some social distancing measures will be in place.
Collective is currently open Thu-Sun, 10am-4pm (Tue-Sun, 10am-5pm from April 2022).
Launch Event Friday 03.12.21, 7–9pm Book free tickets here
In 2011, the explosion of riots in English cities prompted much moralising from Scotland’s political, policing and media establishments on why the outbreak never reached Glasgow. Not for the first time, the country’s elites appeared to be attributing the lack of rioting to the particular characteristics of Glasgow’s working class communities.
The fearful part of it was the absence is a new exhibition by writer Joey Simons which investigates the periodic eruption and absence of rioting in Glasgow, and its effect on the shape of the city.
Taking its title from Henry Cockburn’s observations on the ‘terrible silence’ and ‘fearful absence of riot’ that characterised the great demonstrations in Scotland in support of parliamentary reform in 1832, Joey’s exhibition pieces together a constellation of historical and contemporary sources to explore a recurring pattern of response and erasure to collective violence in the city.
For the exhibition, Joey presents a montage of audio-visual material, texts, poetry, a wall drawing and audio. Videos made by Joey and the photographer Jack Wrigley depict their friends reciting texts ordered around riots and their relationship to silence, language, violence, geography and weather.
Recitals take place on sites of historical riots in Glasgow, today many of which are derelict, demolished in preparation for private development, or in the process of gentrification.
Join us on Friday 3 December, 7-9pm, to celebrate the opening of the exhibition. This is an open event and all are welcome. Much of the event will take place outdoors in our new ‘Play Shelter’ so please dress for the weather!
Numbers inside the exhibition will be monitored in line with social distancing advice so a short wait may be required.
Capacity is limited due to social distancing so please RSVP by booking a free ticket on Eventbrite.
Launch Event Friday 01.10.21, 7–9pm Book free tickets here
Collective is delighted to present a new installation by Glasgow-based artist Mina Heydari-Waite.
Building on discourse around Iranian diasporic identity, Mina invites viewers into a new immersive set. Composed of sculptural objects and a sound work, this installation creates a dreamscape that holds the audience in a conversation about ritual sites, moments of rupture and Social Dreaming.
In sleep it made itself present to them translates the embellished architecture of Persepolis – an ancient city in modern Iran rich in cultural meaning and ambiguity – into a digital space, rendering it flat and geometric. Processing the elaborate motifs of Persepolis through graphics programmes, Mina prepares them as a CNC-machined, flat-packed kit.
An integrated sound work is made in collaboration with sound artist Claude Nouk and reconstructs fragments of conversation with Mina’s mother, Hamideh Heydari-Waite, a psychotherapist and anthropology researcher based in London.
Their conversation explores and expands on ‘Social Dreaming’, a practice that distinguishes dreams from the dreamer and explores their possibility to uncover wider collective meanings. In this exhibition, Persepolis itself becomes an emblem of this collective mode of dreaming.
Join us on Friday 1 October, 7-9pm, to celebrate the opening of the exhibition. This is an open event and all are welcome. Much of the event will take place outdoors in our new ‘Play Shelter’ so please dress for the weather!
Numbers inside the exhibition will be monitored in line with social distancing advice so a short wait may be required.
Please RSVP by booking a free ticket on Eventbrite.
Collective is delighted to present Acts of Observation, a group show by artists and writers Ana García Jácome, Jeda Pearl Lewis, Abi Palmer and Simon Yuill. The new exhibition spans our entire site and is presented as a series of solo presentations, or ‘acts’, throughout our different buildings, spaces, and online.
Dynamic in form and content, the artists brought together present a diverse range of works including film, interactive installation, writing and architectural interventions.
Acts of Observation directly questions, contextualises and challenges how we negotiate institutional language and spaces, and how disability is represented. The participating artists articulate and politicise notions of recovery and offer visions of positive, inclusive futures.
Artworks on display include: interactive installation Crip Casino by Abi Palmer, where absurdist poetic diagnoses are delivered by the spirit of Elvis reimagined as a medical practitioner; two film works by Ana García Jácome – It’s Like She Had Never Existed and The [ ] History of Disability in Mexico, new poetry by Jeda Pearl which questions how we are observed and which bodies are seen as sublime; and a new text work by Simon Yuill, expanding the text works produced for the artist manifesto Not Going Back to Normal.
Join us on Saturday 25 September, 2 – 4pm, to celebrate the opening of the exhibition, including a live poetry reading by Jeda Pearl Lewis. This is an open event and all are welcome.
Much of the event will take place outdoors in our new ‘Play Shelter’ so please dress for the weather! Numbers inside the exhibition spaces will be monitored in line with social distancing advice so a short wait may be required.
Please RSVP by booking a free ticket on Eventbrite.
Collective is delighted to present a new exhibition by Satellites Programme participant Becky Šik.
Central to the exhibition is Mercury, an experimental new moving image work. Structured rhythmically and associatively the new film interlaces an evocative, resonating soundtrack (made using homemade instruments and magnetic sound machines) with an array of high production source material.
This includes infrared night-time video of bats and 16mm footage documenting a teenager magnet-fishing in a canal; alongside a ‘cut-up’ narration juxtaposing stories of hobbyists and an amateur satellite tracker; and scientific and philosophic reflections on the nature of communication.
Concepts of ‘echo’ are central to this work, used as both metaphor and audio effect; as locating device and editing strategy. Mercury focuses on that which sits just beyond a human’s everyday perception, where invisible forces become tangible.
Bats use echolocation to navigate; solar winds interfere with radio communications; whirring magnets excite and resonate bass strings; a Theremin allows us to articulate music from magnetic fields.
The event opens this Saturday, admission free.
Find out more, including screening times and how to pre-book tickets on our website.
Satellites Programme is Collective’s development programme for emergent artists and producers based in Scotland.
All of our grounds, shop, takeaway coffee Kiosk, and restaurant The Lookout will also be open so make some plans and let us welcome you back to Calton Hill. Opening hours are 10am-4pm Thurs-Sun throughout May, and 10am-5pm Tues-Sun from 1 June.
Collective’s events programme also resumes this month.
We’re really looking forward to fully opening our doors to visitors again.
Social distancing measures will be in place to keep you safe – if you have any concerns or questions about visiting Collective drop us a line at mail@collective-edinburgh.art
Join us at Collective for a weekend of free, socially distanced, outdoor play and crafty activities for local families and under 12s.
Taking inspiration from Christian Newby’s new large-scale textile work in the City Dome, Collective Play: Warp/Weft invites children and families to take part in creative play and fibre art activities across the site!
Throughout the weekend:
Try your hand at weaving with artist and maker Rhona Jack as the City Observatory pillars become a giant loom!
Claim your free fibre craft and play pack, designed by Rhona with everything you’ll need to make your own tapestries using recycled materials
Visit Christian Newby’s exhibition, Boredom>Mischief>Fantasy >Radicalism>Fantasy: learn about the tools Christian used to create his textile work, and see how many different motifs you can spot in the tapestry
Collective PLAY: Warp/Weft is free, donations welcome, but booking either a morning or afternoon slot via Eventbrite is required.
Every care has been taken when organising this event to ensure the safety of visitors, staff, and to adhere to COVID-19 government guidelines:
Pre-booked tickets for a morning or afternoon session will allow us to maintain a safe number of visitors to Collective Play at all times.
Materials packs have been carefully packaged using sanitised hands and will be yours to keep after the event.
Children and adults will be asked to sanitise their hands before taking part in the giant weaving activity, and numbers will be limited to ensure social distancing.
All play will take place outdoors. Collective is based in a large public park, Calton Hill and, after taking part in the on-site activities, we encourage families to take their materials packs out into the park to explore.
Tickets are limited and previous events have sold out so early booking is recommended – all details and booking link are on our website here:
Rhona Jack is a multi-disciplinary artist, living and working in Dundee, whose practice is formed by a combination of sculpture and fibre art, often blurring the lines between art, craft and design.
She graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in 2017 and is currently a Committee Member of GENERATORprojects.
Recent exhibitions include ‘Wear and Tear’ (Nomas* Projects, Dundee, 2021), ’Women in Print’ (Zane Bennett Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, 2020), Platform (City Art Centre, Edinburgh, 2020), Reduct (Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 2020), Satellite (Summerhall, Edinburgh, 2018), Inside:Outside and An Isolated Process (both MERZ Gallery, Sanquhar, 2020).
