Tag: public art

Alberta Whittle: All About Love

Works by Alberta Whittle to be exhibited across Edinburgh on a series of large scale billboards

From 11th – 17th December 2023 artworks by Scottish Barbadian artist Alberta Whittle are to be exhibited across Edinburgh on a series of large scale billboards and advertising spaces as part of BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s UK-wide ‘All About Love’ commission curated by Zarina Rossheart.

The public art project celebrates the legacy of All About Love, the seminal text by cultural critic, feminist theorist and author bell hooks. The iteration in Edinburgh with Alberta Whittle is realised in collaboration with the National Galleries of Scotland.  

Against the backdrop of political and social turbulence, Alberta invites us to come together to confront difficult truths from both the past and our present times, in order to find collective healing. Often drawing on profoundly personal materials, poetic imagery, and intimate stories, Alberta’s message is ultimately one of hope; hope for a different future, and a call for us to ‘invest in love’.

The works in this outdoor exhibition, taking place in 12 locations across Edinburgh including Market Street, Newhaven, Haymarket and Leith, are drawn from original watercolours featured in Alberta Whittle’s largest solo exhibition to date at the National Galleries of Scotland. Free to visit, Alberta Whittle: create dangerously is open at Modern One until 7th January 2024.

The central work of the city takeover titled Invest in Love comes from a series of new watercolours by Alberta currently on display in the National Galleries of Scotland: Modern One.

Inscribed in hand-painted script, the work acts both as a direct call to action and as a reminder to audiences (and herself) to bring love into the everyday – love for the self and love for others.

Alberta has used this phrase on a number of occasions throughout her career including in her solo presentation at La Biennale di Venezia in 2022 where she represented Scotland.

Other messages in the billboard series include Fill your heart with hope and Step lightly, tender encouragements by the artist that come in the spirit of love, care and hope.

These are situated alongside more defiant and rebellious calls such as Raise the alarm, as well as Create Dangerously, a reference to Haitian writer Edwidge Danticat and their meditation on the lived experience of an immigrant artist, telling stories of those that have managed to thrive and create in spite of the harrowing events they have gone through.

Alberta Whittle says: ‘I return to bell hooks time and time again. She reminds us to centre love in how we move through the world and to replenish ourselves in our active learning with others.

“Living in the catastrophe of racial and cultural violence, we need to hold onto love with all our hearts. Invest in love.”

The works, which are shown as small watercolours in the NGS exhibition, will be presented  as large-scale billboards for the first time. The block colour used in the works displayed for this new project is the ultramarine blue drawn from the wall colour used at NGS where Invest in Love is hanging.

Alberta Whittle’s billboard takeover is the final in a series of BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s UK-wide ‘All About Love’ commissions that have taken place across 2023 featuring works of artists: Grace Ndiritu in Birmingham; Jasleen Kaur in Glasgow; Eve Stainton in Manchester; Helen Cammock in Brighton and Asmaa Jama in Bristol. 

Zarina Rossheart, the project’s curator explains: “‘All About Love project was conceived as an invitation for artists and audiences to come together in communion and to look at love as a radical tool for resistance while living in the violent world and society collectively overtaken by pain and grief.

“Alberta Whittle has consistently encouraged us to ‘Invest in Love’, one of the tender and inspiring messages that will appear on the billboards across Edinburgh this December. I am excited to work with Alberta and the National Galleries of Scotland to present these works in the city large-scale for the first time.’

BUILDHOLLYWOOD Founder Tim Horrox says: ‘The journey of our first major UK wide curatorial and artist commission has enabled us to explore the concept of Love, through artists celebrating cities including Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Brighton and Bristol.

“We are now delighted to be presenting such important works by Alberta Whittle in Edinburgh – we are honoured to work with Alberta and look forward to audiences engaging with her work this December.’

Artist shortlist for national Windrush Monument revealed

The Windrush Monument will be a permanent tribute to a generation of arrivals from the Caribbean to Britain

  • Shortlists of four influential artists to design national monument at London Waterloo Station unveiled
  • Designs will be showcased around the country this summer
  • Winning design expected to be unveiled on Windrush Day 2022

The four artists in the running to design the national Windrush Monument at Waterloo Station have been revealed today (30 April 2021).

The Windrush Monument will be a permanent tribute to a generation of arrivals from the Caribbean to Britain – from the arrival of MV Empire Windrush in 1948 and in the decades that followed. 

It will recognise how the Windrush Generation have enriched our nation’s history and made invaluable contributions to all aspects of British life, from our health and transport services to our politics, businesses, literature and culture.

The four artists shortlisted to design the monument are all of Caribbean descent and include world renowned, established and up and coming artists working across the visual arts.

The four artists chosen to make up the final shortlist are:

  • Sculptor and painter Basil Watson has designed public sculptures and monuments across the world including statues of Martin Luther King, Usain Bolt and Merlene Ottey. He was awarded the Order of Distinction (Commander Class) in 2016 by the Jamaican government in recognition of his artistic accomplishments. His family is part of the Windrush Generation.
  • Jeannette Ehlers uses a mixture of photography, video, installation, sculpture and performance in her work. Her work addresses complex questions about memory, race and colonialism, influenced by her Danish Trinidadian heritage. In 2018 Ehlers was the co-creator of a significant public memorial in Copenhagen to Mary Thomas (a 19th century slavery freedom fighter), in collaboration with the Crucian artist La Vaughn Belle.
  • Daughter of Windrush generation pioneers, Valda Jackson works in sculpture, painting, printmaking and moving image creating complex narratives that reflect and question our past and present with intent on influencing our future. In 2017, her collaborative public art practice ‘Jackson and Harris’ won the Marsh Award for excellence in Public Sculpture from the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association.
  • Recently commissioned by Hackney Council to create a permanent sculpture honouring Hackney’s Windrush Generation, Thomas J Price has significant experience of creating public artwork. The British-Jamaican artist works across sculpture, film and photography focussing on representation and perception in society.

London Waterloo Station is strongly associated with the stories of many members of the Windrush Generation. It stands at a point where thousands of Windrush pioneers first arrived in London before starting new lives across the UK.

The monument will be an ambitious public artwork that stands as a testament to the contribution of Caribbean pioneers in communities across the United Kingdom. It will create a permanent place of reflection and inspiration and be a visible statement of our shared history and heritage.

The artists unveiled today were selected by the Windrush Commemoration Committee (WCC), chaired by Baroness Floella Benjamin DBE.

Chair of the Windrush Commemoration Committee Baroness Floella Benjamin DBE said: “We are entering a really exciting stage of this project with the realisation of the monument just round the corner.

“Our shortlist contains a vibrant mix of talented artists, all with lived experience of the Windrush legacy and we will now see proposals developed into a vision for the national monument to the Windrush Generation in London Waterloo Station.

“The monument will be a permanent place of reflection and inspiration for Caribbean communities and the wider public, especially children. It will act as a symbolic link to our past, and a permanent reminder of our shared history and heritage for generations to come.”

Communities Minister Lord Greenhalgh said: “Over 70 years ago, when the first passengers on MV Windrush disembarked at Tilbury Docks, it marked an extraordinary moment in the history of modern Britain.

“The Windrush generation and their descendants have gone on to play an important role in every area of British life, helping to shape the society we are so proud of today.

“I look forward to seeing the designs that these exciting artists will produce to celebrate and honour their contribution to our nation’s vibrant history, right at the centre of our nation’s capital.”

The artists will now be asked to develop their ideas into a maquette, model or drawings to illustrate their design. Each shortlisted artist will present their proposal via a short film, which will be shared nationally with a focus on the British Caribbean community.

UP Projects were appointed by MHCLG to manage the selection process and ensure the views of the Caribbean community in the UK were sought on what would represent a meaningful legacy.

A long list of 16 artists who matched the criteria of the artistic brief was put forward to the Windrush Commemoration Committee, chaired by Baroness Floella Benjamin DBE.

Over the summer the public will be encouraged to consider the proposals. UP Projects’ team includes a Caribbean Networks Consultant and a Curator & Caribbean Community Engagement Consultant, who will liaise with the Caribbean community as a major part of the public engagement strategy. This will ensure that a meaningful monument is commissioned to represent the Windrush Generation. Their views will be taken into consideration by the WCC as they make their final selection.

The winning design is planned to be revealed in Black History Month in October and the monument is expected to be unveiled on Windrush Day 2022.

“I was there”: sign up for PROCESSIONS Edinburgh

The City of Edinburgh Council has pledged support for PROCESSIONS Edinburgh. Alongside the Scottish Government’s Centenary Fund, Event Scotland part of VisitScotland’s Events Directorate and Creative Scotland, the City of Edinburgh Council has partnered with Artichoke to support the mass participatory event on 10 June. Continue reading “I was there”: sign up for PROCESSIONS Edinburgh

Art at the heart of Pennywell All Care Centre

Arcadeum project artists Hans K Clausen and Lindsay Perth have officially presented two new public artworks created in collaboration with North Edinburgh residents and NHS staff commissioned as part of a public art residency with NHS Lothian.

Yesterday Hans and Lindsay  unveiled two public art commissions for the newly built Pennywell All Care Centre. Supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland’s Open Project Fund, Edinburgh & Lothian Health Foundation and NHS Lothian the commissioned artworks have been created in collaboration with North Edinburgh residents and NHS Lothian staff through a series of projects since February 2016.

Artist Curator, Hans K Clausen’s The People’s Museum of Memory and Myth is a celebration of North West Edinburgh through the ordinary and extraordinary, the unique and the ubiquitous. Following in the tradition of the ‘Wunderkammer’ The People’s Museum of Memory and Myth is a curated collection of everyday objects elevated to precious artefacts with the intention of generating curiosity, reminiscence, association and wonder.

Housed in a bespoke cabinet in the foyer of the Pennywell All Care Centre, 9 vitrines are stacked upon a reconstructed railway baggage trolley each populated with artefacts collected from communities and individuals within North West Edinburgh. Each item represents fragments of social history from the community and individuals who live and have lived in and around Muirhouse and North West Edinburgh. These fragments of history, factual and mythical, aim to ignite memories, generate conversation and connect people through the power of objects.

The objects have not been selected because of profound historical provenance or monetary value but for social, nostalgic or sentimental significance and to celebrate the diversity of local histories, personal experiences and collective stories; from a grandmother’s handbag imbued with personal and sentimental memories, to a megaphone a symbol of collective activism and protest, to a world champion’s boxing gloves.

To deliver this project Hans has worked closely with local residents and organisations researching and collecting objects and narratives. The design and construction of the museum cabinet has been a collaboration with Old School Fabrications, while the signed and numbered People’s Museum of Memories certificates to be presented to all donors was a collaboration with artist and designer, Genevieve Ryan.

Hans said: “Building The People’s Museum of Memory and Myth has been a joy, I’ve been continually impressed by the enthusiasm and generosity of the people I’ve met and entertained by the stories, memories and passion that has been generated.

“I hope The People’s Museum of Memory and Myth is not just a collection of seemingly ordinary and unrelated items but a visually stimulating way to remember and celebrate the personal and communal stories and myths that helped define this community. If conversations are started, memories preserved, stories told and myths created as people wander past I will feel I have done my job.”

Artist Lindsay Perth has created a stunning interactive glass lighting installation. Hand blown glass shapes created by members of the community, NHS staff and Lindsay suspend from the ceiling. Each of the 52 pieces is unique in its colour and shape as chosen by its maker, personally blown and formed in workshops in the glass department of Edinburgh College Art. When all these highly individual pieces come together they form this ‘community’ of remarkable glass lights. Glass makers have engraved their signatures on their pieces, underlining the artworks sense of local identity.

The artwork is interactive, the lights responding to people’s movements below. Light animations are triggered and play out within the glass pieces, moving around the artwork. Waves of rich colours and reflections impact the new health centre’s entrance space.

Lindsay said: “I wanted to work with glass for this commission to create an artwork that explored a material that is both fragile and robust at the same time, qualities that could be seen as similar to our own humanness.

“Each piece is unique, all the makers choosing their own colours, shapes and blowing their own glass. These differences come together to create a beautiful collection of colour and light. Key to the artwork is that it responds to people’s presence, the lights give back some energy to the people and to the space.

“Workshops supported by glassmaker Ingrid Philips were incredibly inspiring experiences. We were given the opportunity to be really creative and learn about glass and literally breathe life into the installation that I hope will engage, delight and illuminate this new building. Particular thanks too to my collaborator on this project the awesome designer maker Mark Kobine.”

Speaking at the unveiling of the two artworks Kate Wimpress Director of North Edinburgh Arts said: “It is a privilege to host Hans and Lindsay and the artists and designers that have worked alongside them.

“The North Edinburgh community has been energised by the projects they have delivered and their thorough inclusive approach recognises the importance of art and culture in local placemaking. This project helps put Muirhouse on the map as a centre of creative talent of all abilities.”

David White, Strategic Lead for Primary Care for Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership said: “Public buildings should not be fortresses for professionals and our new Pennywell All Care Centre is no exception.

“Providing health and social care services in an environment that the local community has been involved in creating will produce a space that they will enjoy using and feel comfortable using. We are delighted to home these community pieces of art in a prominent place in the Muirhouse community.”

Anne Petrie, Visual Arts Officer at Creative Scotland said: “It is extremely exciting to see these community-led artworks unveiled to the public. As artists in residence, Hans and Lindsay have worked closely with North Edinburgh Arts and people of all ages in Muirhouse to enrich the final artworks with their memories and knowledge of the local area.

“The Art of Living project is an incredibly important example of a collaborative approach to community engagement with creativity and the arts, that will enrich lives and widen access to cultural activity.”

For more information about the Pennywell All Care Centre please visit www.nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk

Einstein comes to Muirhouse!

Billboard art at Muirhouse Libraryein

Muirhouse Library welcomed a distinguished guest yesterday when artist Hans Clausen unveiled a billboard poster of  Albert Einstein, with his quote: ‘The only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library’. The public art is the first in a series to be created by the Arcadeum project team. Continue reading Einstein comes to Muirhouse!

Stick figures to light up St Andrew Square

City ‘sticks’ with Spring art events

key_frames_singapore1

An invasion of stop-motion stick-figures will create a spectacle of light when a major art installation makes its first appearance in Scotland next month.

KEYFRAMES, delivered by Curated Place with French artists collective Groupe LAPS, has been named a key event in the 2016 Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design. It will be exhibited within Edinburgh’s St Andrew Square from 4 February to 28 March.

The 80 light sculptures will shine in sequence to an original musical composition to create the illusion of movement. The installation, which has been conceived to create an immersive experience, will invite people to wander through St Andrew Square to experience the space from different angles and in a new light.

This is the first time KEYFRAMES will be exhibited in Scotland following a UK debut in Durham at the 2013 Lumiere Festival. It has delighted thousands of people across the world from Singapore to Jerusalem, France, Spain and the Netherlands.

The exhibition, which is free, is being funded by the City of Edinburgh Council and EventScotland with the support of Marketing Edinburgh and Essential Edinburgh.

Councillor Richard Lewis, Edinburgh’s Festivals and Events Champion, said: “When KEYFRAMES opens next month, the experience of wandering through St Andrew Square will be like entering an enchanting stop-motion animation.

“This is public art which can be enjoyed by all ages and the impressive display will illuminate the night sky. It will bring the city centre to life during the transition from winter into spring and, going by the success of 2014’s Field of Light and last year’s Light Fantastic project,  I’m sure it will draw an impressive footfall and support our city’s evening economy.”

Groupe LAPS is best known for animating public spaces, marrying art with technology by pooling light, sound, and multimedia to create public art.

Speaking about the opportunity to present the artwork within Edinburgh, Thomas Veyssiere from Groupe LAPS said: “The most exciting thing about installing KEYFRAMES in St Andrew Square is that it will be a long and immersive form. Our lighting puppets will inhabit the square for two months. Rather than offering one point of view, visitors who walk through the Square will naturally discover different actions and see and hear funny things. Sound will envelop the whole area and entice visitors to get closer to the installation.”

Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop said: “The Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design is now underway and we have an exciting array of events planned to showcase Scotland’s spirit of invention and creativity.

“KEYFRAMES is a fantastic example of what will be on offer during the year. The installation will bring a busy part of our nation’s capital to life and, as a free event, gives everyone the opportunity to participate and experience the architecture and environment of St Andrew Square in a new and different light.”

Roddy Smith, Chief Executive of Essential Edinburgh, added: “We are delighted to support a project in St Andrew Square that promises to be a stunning addition to the city centre. KEYFRAMES is something that will draw and delight local people and visitors alike, and add to the ambience of the city centre well into the New Year.”

This will be the third consecutive year the city council has lit St Andrew Square in spring. Bruce Munro’s Field of Light saw the gardens transformed into a field of swaying, colourful spheres in 2014.

Then, in 2015 – after six weeks and over a thousand tweets to change the colour of the Melville Monument -, Edinburgh’s interactive Light Fantastic installation in St Andrew Square glared red on its final night in support of Nepal.

Young Muirhouse artists show a lot of bottle!

Zoo Arts, a creative  project led by artist Alice Betts based at North Edinburgh Arts, will be installing  another piece of exciting contemporary public art in Muirhouse Shopping Centre  on Wednesday (15 May) at 5pm.  

Light will shine  through recycled plastic bottles filled with coloured water turning a grey space  into a playful symphony of colour. This eyecatching piece of work has been  created by local young people who have participated in creative  outreach sessions supported by Muirhouse Library and Muirhouse Youth  Development Group. 

Zoo Arts aims to  encourage and support young people to develop their contemporary art skills,  install temporary public art and undertake professional art commissions. The  project works with local young people (9 – 14 years) who have an interest in  visual art and are keen to develop their creativity. This project hopes to  inspire future creative collaborations, locally and city-wide. 

For more information  go to  www.northedinburgharts.co.uk or to dicuss the project further contact Angela Austin on 315 2151, email marketing@northedinburgharts.co.uk

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