DEEP ADAPTATION: rethinking our relationships to each other and the planet

Deep Adaptation at The NewBridge Project is "an ongoing programme of commissions, talks, screenings, workshops and events exploring how current social, political, civic and economic issues can be understood in relation to climate change.

In thinking about climate futures, The NewBridge Project has been engaging with the work of Jem Bendell who has begun to explore the need for Deep Adaptation.

The Deep Adaptation approach involves the following:

Relinquishment – people and communities letting go of certain assets, behaviors and beliefs where retaining them could make matters worse

Resilience – people and communities better coping with disruptions

Restoration – rediscovering forgotten attitudes and approaches to life, such as increased community-level productivity and support

The NewBridge Project is embarking on a process of collective learning to deepen understanding through conversation, action and creativity.

Artists and activists based at The NewBridge Project are keen to move these ideas forward, and are asking questions about necessary changes that are required on an individual and local, as well as a national and global, level. The group are aware that it isn’t only about what obligations we have, but also our capacities to act – in this programme, responsibility is rethought as “response-ability”.

Alongside a programme of events, Deep Adaptation presents work by artists Rhona Foster, Alex Lockwood, Chad McCail and Lucien Anderson and David Lisser who are working in collaborative ways to explore these ideas within Newcastle and Gateshead. 

The intention is that the exhibition acts as a public space for people to respond to, and reflect on ideas of deep adaptation, producing a collaborative response to issues surrounding climate change."

Exhibition: Saturday 14 April – Saturday 26 May
Events: Wednesday 11 April – Saturday 19 May

For more information please visit

https://thenewbridgeproject.com/events/deep-adaptation/

Radio 4's 'Something Understood' ponders Is Art Good For Us?

In the latest episode of BBC Radio 4's Something Understood (Sunday 18th December 2016) "the poet Michael Symmons Roberts explores the idea that the arts are good for us - body and soul - and considers whether they can be both tonic and threat to society.

He says, "Art is as various as we are, and its moral weight and status is unstable, unpredictable. In times when people are losing trust in politics and religion, art can start to look like a replacement. But if we put too much of our moral weight and hope into art, we imperil it, and it can imperil us too."

Some of the great Victorian philanthropists thought art would benefit society and used their wealth to make art freely available to the masses. Whether or not the original Turner paintings offered in a Manchester museum,improved the lives of the working class is not evidenced, but the continued idea that the arts are of moral benefit persists.

Roberts offers the example of Ken Loach's groundbreaking film Cathy Come Home as a sign that society can be improved through the arts - along with the way Bob Dylan and others used their music to effect social change in the US during the 1960s.

But he also strikes a note of caution. "The arts can act as the conscience of the state, a challenging force for good. But they can equally be used as an instrument of propaganda. Whenever I hear the arts per se being touted as a positive moral and political force in society, I start to feel uneasy." Using evidence of Nazi propaganda from the Second World War, he also points out that a love of art is not necessarily an indication of a healthy morality.

Roberts concludes that art is not per se a good thing for us, but that he 'couldn't imagine, and wouldn't want to, a life without music or poetry or films or paintings'."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08557zj

Generation Programme details released

The first programme details for a landmark series of exhibitions celebrating 25 years of contemporary art in Scotland have been revealed today.

GENERATION will bring an ambitious and extensive programme of works of art by over 100 artists to over 60 galleries, exhibition spaces and venues the length and breadth of the nation between March – November 2014, with the majority of exhibitions taking place over the summer of 2014, as part of the Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme.

GENERATION has been in the making since 2011. The programme will continue to grow in the coming months, and featured artists announced today include Charles Avery, Sara Barker, Karla Black, Christine Borland, Martin Boyce, Roddy Buchanan, Steven Campbell, Duncan Campbell, Katy Dove, Graham Fagen, Moyna Flannigan, Douglas Gordon, Ilana Halperin, Charlie Hammond, Iain Hetherington, Louise Hopkins, Callum Innes, Jim Lambie, Lorna Macintyre, Sophie Macpherson, Alan Michael, Rosalind Nashashibi, Toby Paterson, Ciara Phillips, Alex Pollard, Charlotte Prodger, Mary Redmond, John Shankie, David Shrigley, Ross Sinclair, Simon Starling, Clare Stephenson, Corin Sworn, Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan, Cara Tolmie, Sue Tompkins, Hayley Tompkins,  Zoë Walker & Neil Bromwich, Alison Watt, Cathy Wilkes, Richard Wright and many more.
Downloads

Generation Programme Overview

THE PARTNERSHIP
GENERATION is being delivered through a partnership between the National Galleries of Scotland and Glasgow Life, and is supported by Creative Scotland. These partners have engaged with a range of associate partners, venues and arts organisations across the country to ensure a truly national reach for the project. The programme aims to shine a spotlight on the past 25 years - a period which has seen Scotland develop an international reputation as a distinguished centre for contemporary art, produce a disproportionate amount of award-winning artists, host a number of ground-breaking exhibitions and foster an infrastructure which has helped allow contemporary art to flourish.
GENERATION is part of the Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme, which is a partnership between the Glasgow 2014 Organising Committee, Glasgow Life and Creative Scotland. Generation has ambitious goals to raise the profile of contemporary art in Scotland and to increase access and participation. It is being produced with the assistance and expertise of partners including VisitScotland and EventScotland, British Council Scotland, Museums Galleries Scotland, Education Scotland, Young Scot, Children in Scotland and the BBC.
THE SCALE, AMBITION AND GEOGRAPHICAL REACH OF GENERATION
The scale, ambition and geographical reach of GENERATION make it the first project of its kind. It will be one of the most ambitious celebrations of contemporary art ever held by a single nation, and aims to reach and build new audiences for contemporary art. The venues involved in the project have programmed their own exhibitions, working with Associate Curator Katrina Brown and a specially convened Curatorial Board comprised of representatives of the partner organisations, to ensure that all the exhibitions share the aspirations of the project.
One central aim of the project is to engage with a new generation and bring to life the possibilities that contemporary visual art presents to young people between the ages of 12 and 25 with an extensive education and outreach programme specifically devised to fuel their imagination and increase their participation. The programme for children and young people is still in development and more details will be announced over the coming months.
KEY MOMENTS AND WORKS CELEBRATED
The wide-ranging programme will highlight the cultural significance of key moments and works from the past 25 years, featuring seminal pieces from landmark exhibitions and bringing significant works to new audiences in galleries and exhibition spaces across the nation.
The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art will host a two-part exhibition across the Scottish National Gallery and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art One, which will bring together historically significant works from the past 25 years and show them in parallel with new work by both established and emerging artists. Steven Campbell’s landmark On Form & Fiction exhibition, a memorable part of the Third Eye Centre’s programme for Glasgow 1990 which saw the artist cover all the available wall space with a remarkable range of work, will be recreated in the Scottish National Gallery as part of GENERATION. Also being shown in Edinburgh for the first time at Scottish National Gallery will be Martin Boyce’s 2002 Tramway show Our Love is Like the Flowers, the Rain, the Sea and the Hours.
Among the four solo shows being staged at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art are two celebrated works which have been shown to great acclaim in Edinburgh, but never before in Glasgow: Douglas Gordon’s Pretty Much Every Film and Video Work from about 1992 until Now (a comprehensive collection of Gordon’s work in film and video, including some of his most celebrated installations such as Play Dead; Real Time, Feature Film, 24 Hour Psycho and 30 Seconds Text) and Nathan Coley’s The Lamp of Sacrifice, 286 Places of Worship – a scale model in cardboard of every ‘Place of Worship’ listed in the 2004 edition of the Edinburgh Yellow Pages telephone directory.
Collective Gallery will mark the 20 year anniversary of Ross Sinclair’s Real Life projects, whilst The Fruitmarket Gallery will trace the development of Jim Lambie’s practice, from the sculptures with which he first came to public attention in the early 1990s, to his signature floor work ZOBOP (1999), to Ultra Low through to new work, specially made for the solo exhibition.
Elsewhere in the programme, Paisley Art Gallery & Museum will revisit Information – the significantexhibition staged in 1989 in the Museum by a group of then-emerging artists from Glasgow School of Art including Roddy Buchanan and Jackie Donachie – with a show of work by current Glasgow School of Art MLitt students, who have been invited to respond to the theme of “Information” within the particular context of Paisley Museum.

NEW WORKS AND COMMISSIONS
Although there is an emphasis on existing works, GENERATION will highlight the continued relevance of visual art at local, national and international levels through a number of new works and commissions. Artists exhibiting new works include Claire Barclay, Alex Dordoy, Ciara Philips, Karla Black, Dalziel + Scullion, Alex Frost who is creating a new work for Cove Park’s 50-acre rural site overlooking Loch Long, Mary Redmond, Lorna Macintyre, Sara Barker and Moyna Flannigan.
In line with its international reputation for commissioning, producing and presenting contemporary art, Tramway will present a programme of new works by an array of leading artists including Sophie MacPherson, Charlotte Prodger, Clare Stephenson, Cara Tolmie, Sue Tompkins, Cathy Wilkes, Alan Michael, Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan, Charlie Hammond, Iain Hetherington and Alex Pollard.

SPANNING THE LENGTH AND BREADTH OF THE COUNTRY
GENERATION will see exhibitions taking place the length and breadth of the country. Participating venues include The Pier Arts Centre in Orkney, which will present a major exhibition of work by Zoë Walker & Neil Bromwich spanning more than 15 years of their practice. Caithness Horizons in Thurso will show the work of Douglas Gordon for the first time in the north of Scotland, whilst a specially curated exhibition of work by Toby Paterson will tour to venues in Kirkcaldy, Inverness, Peebles and Dumfries. Another touring exhibition will be the Travelling Gallery, which will see the work of a group of artists at varying stages of their career and working in a range of media (including Hanna Tuulikki, Craig Coulthard and Laura Aldridge) shown throughout Scotland.
Dalziel + Scullion’s installation Tumadh : Immersionwill be staged in two parts in An Lanntair in Stornoway and Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh, whilst venues East Ayrshire, South Ayrshire and Dumfries and Galloway will present works by some of Scotland’s major contributors to the development of contemporary art in the last 25 years as part of the South By South West (SXSW) partnership.
THE INTERNATIONALISM OF GENERATION
The GENERATION programme also features an array of works produced in Scotland over the past 25 years - many of which have won prestigious international prizes, or have been shown at renowned museums and galleries or festivals across the world - but which have never been shown before in Scotland, offering audiences the opportunity to see them for the very first time.
The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the Scottish National Gallery will show Simon Starling’s Burn Timeand Graham Fagen’s Peek-A-Jobby and a sculptural installation by Christine Borland, all of which have never been seen in Scotland before.
The Common Guild will host three consecutive solo exhibitions by Corin Sworn, Duncan Campbell and Hayley Tompkins, the artists presented by The Common Guild exhibition Scotland + Venice 2013, a Collateral Event of the 55th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia, which received international acclaim.
ARTIST-LED INITIATIVES AND SUPPORTIVE INFRASTRUCTURE
GENERATION will highlight the work of artists and the distinctive infrastructure in place in Scotland that has supported the development of contemporary art over the past 25 years. Support from Creative Scotland (and formerly the Scottish Arts Council) has enabled a range of initiatives and facilities to thrive – from grass-roots and artist run initiatives such as Transmission Gallery (a model which has been adapted the world over) through to production facilities and artists’ studios to major museums and art centres. In the spirit of such artist-led initiatives, Cooper Gallery in Dundee will host Studio Jamming: Artists’ Collaborations in Scotland – the first discursive survey to foreground the grassroots character of artists’ collaboration. Dundee Contemporary Arts will present Continue Without Losing Consciousness - three solo exhibitions by Rob Churm, Raydale Dower and Tony Swain. They’ll reference the artists’ collaboration for the 2010 Glasgow International Festival - Le Drapeau Noir - which was a temporary artists café held at The Old Hairdressers, and will develop their original concept into three new projects built around a core installation and featuring events, concerts and intervention.
Patricia Fleming Projects will celebrate the DIY and lo-fi approach instrumental to the rise of artist-led activity in Glasgow with DISCORDIA, which will feature performance, live music and limited edition t-shirts by twenty contemporary artists involved with Patricia Fleming Projects from the early 90s to the present.
City Art Centre’s Urban/Suburban exhibition is based on work acquired through the National Collecting Scheme for Scotland, the Scottish Arts Council initiative founded to support the sustained development of collections of contemporary visual arts by Scotland’s museums and galleries. Featured artists include Chad McCail and Carol Rhodes.
Sir John Leighton, Director-General of the National Galleries of Scotland, said: “There is an amazing story to tell about art in Scotland over the past 25 years and we believe that we have found a very compelling way to tell it with what surely must be one of the most ambitious programmes of exhibitions ever mounted by a single country. With over 60 free shows across the entire country, this is a massive opportunity for both residents and visitors to experience world-class contemporary art from Scotland.”

Councillor Archie Graham, the Chair of Glasgow Life, said: “This is a groundbreaking partnership between Glasgow Life and the National Galleries of Scotland, which will allow us to share our outstanding collections, resources and knowledge. GENERATION presents a unique opportunity to galvanize a new audience for the artists and artworks that have propelled both Glasgow and Scotland’s contemporary art onto a global stage.
“Now is the time to tell the story of how Glasgow and Scotland has nurtured such incredible talent and to ensure that communities from Orkney to the Borders can share in what promises to be an amazing show.”
Janet Archer, Chief Executive of Creative Scotland said: "We are delighted to be working in partnership with the National Galleries of Scotland, Glasgow Life and venues across Scotland to deliver GENERATION, which celebrates 25 years of contemporary art in Scotland. It provides a unique opportunity to reach more people in more places with the art and ideas of our time.  We are particularly excited to be engaging with children and young people. GENERATION features work made in their lifetime.  We hope experiencing these extraordinary exhibitions will inspire and fuel their imagination as they journey through their own lives."
Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop said: ”The Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme offers a wealth of opportunities for people right across Scotland to get involved in a number of truly inspiring cultural activities, connecting people and communities to the Games, and encouraging them to celebrate culture in new and surprising ways.
“As part of the Cultural Programme, GENERATION is an exciting opportunity to enjoy, celebrate, and learn about our nation’s rich recent history of achievement and excellence in contemporary art.
“The sheer scale and ambition of this project is testament to the large number of talented artists that Scotland has produced over the last quarter of a century.
“I’m pleased that along with once-in-a-lifetime exhibitions there is also a strong focus on engaging and inspiring our young people. I’m positive that the creative legacy of GENERATION will be felt not only across the country but down the years for a long time to come.”
For further information on GENERATION visit: nationalgalleries.org and use #GENERATION on Twitter.
ENDS

Notes to editors
1. GENERATION will feature work by artists who came to attention working in Scotland between 1989 and 2014 and include work by artists born in Scotland, as well artists of other nationalities who studied and live or lived in Scotland.
2. A specially convened Curatorial Board comprised of representatives of the partner organisations along with an Associate Curator, Katrina Brown, has formed the overall shape of the project, its specific manifestation across the partner organisations’ venues and the extension of the programme nation-wide to include many other galleries and organisations across Scotland.
GENERATION, Curatorial Board:
Simon Groom, Director, SNGMA
Sarah Munro, Head of Arts, Glasgow Life
Amanda Catto, Portfolio Manager, Creative Scotland
Katrina Brown, Associate Curator for GENERATION
Keith Hartley, Chief Curator & Deputy Director, SNGMA
Victoria Hollows, Contemporary Arts & Museums Manager, GoMA
Lucy Askew, Senior Curator, SNGMA
Working with Jenny Crowe, Project Manager for GENERATION
3.   This is the first ever such national project in Scotland.
Previous exhibitions in Scotland that have offered a view of the contemporary art of their time have included:
‘The Vigorous Imagination: New Scottish Art’
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 1987
‘New Art in Scotland’
CCA, 1994
‘Here + Now: Scottish Art 1990-2001’
Dundee Contemporary Arts
McManus Galleries and Generator Projects, Dundee
Aberdeen Art Gallery and Peacock Printmakers, Aberdeen
4. Creative Scotland is the national development agency for the arts, screen and creative industries.
5. The Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme launched in July 2013 and is a national celebration with two strands: Culture 2014 and Festival 2014.
Culture 2014 is an unprecedented national programme of extraordinary new work by world-leading and emerging Scottish and international artists. It will be intimate and epic, intense and life-affirming. Stories will be told of individual lives and communities, special places and moments in time. These come together in one programme, creating a journey throughout Scotland that frames and celebrates the Games.
Festival 2014 is a massive Games-time celebration in Glasgow running alongside the sporting action, transforming the city from 19 July to 3 August with an invigorating mix of entertainment, culture and enjoyment filling the streets, spaces and stages of Glasgow.
The Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme is an opportunity for the whole of Scotland to get involved in the Games. From grassroots celebrations to large scale projects: the aim is for every community in Glasgow and Scotland to celebrate and benefit from this historic event.
The Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme is a partnership between the Glasgow 2014 Organising Committee, Glasgow Life and Creative Scotland.

Market Gallery Studio Project Residency

I am delighted to have  been selected to take part in the Market Gallery programme. Dates of the residency are yet to be confirmed, but I will keep you posted!


http://www.marketgallery.org.uk/