In August 2018, Talbot Rice launched its residency programme supporting Scottish-based artists for a two year period. The selected artists (Aideen Doran, Rosie O'Grady, Sulaïman Majali, Stephanie Mann and Tako Taal) will be provided with space, resources from the University of Edinburgh and financial and technical support to realise their projects over the duration of their residency.
The selected artists conducted a talk at Edinburgh College of Art outlining their individual practice and brief proposals for projects they may undertake at Talbot Rice. For the sake of our 2 minute read constriction, we have chosen to document the first three speakers at the talk.
First to speak was Aideen Doran- a Glasgow based artist, whose practice spans across a diverse range of media from moving image to writing. Aideen practice is underpinned by the appropriation of materials already existing in the world exposing them to disorder, interference and elements of chaos. Notions of artistic labour and material production are coupled with the history and endless future of technology- reality cross-hatched with radio and microwaves, laptop screens seen as a psychogeographic space and our position, particularly as females, jeopardised through time by the infiltration of technology in the work place. Aideen proposes her main area of research constituting her residency will be the subject of language, the female voice, Siri and Alexa, separating text and voice from their utilitarian function. Digital media and the dissemination of information always subject to chance, nature and degradation.
Sulaïman was next to talk- like Aideen, Sulaïman is based in Glasgow. His practice moves between the territories of sculpture, film, performance and photography interrogating references to imagined communities, dislocation and the relationship between the personal and political. Sulaïman's vision for his period at Talbot Rice is to engage with student audiences and to utilise the collections of Edinburgh University in his artistic practice. Considering the archive as a garden to grow futures, themes of colonial modernity, placement and displacement, housing and rehousing form the backbone of Sulaïman's proposal for his residency period.
Edinburgh-based artist Stephanie Mann was the third speaker. Her works take the form, primarily, of written word, print and moving image. Within these medias, Stephanie uses objects- colourful and playfully arranged and manipulated by the artist herself. Stephanie described the use of objects in her practice as condensation points- manoeuvred and placed in different contexts encouraging a playful element of surrealism to her work founded upon an awareness of traditional sculptural principles. She described her fascination with the gut and her 'collaboration' with it as a collection site. Stephanie's focus is concentrated on membranes, the subconscious and notions of the above and below- inner and out of body experiences. Stephanie hopes to develop her interest in archives during her residency considering the ways we keep things and who the decision makers are in dictating the future of objects and their livelihood.
In conclusion, it seems that the theme of collections and collectivity are pertinent to each of the artist's future aspirations for their residency projects. Whether examining and researching Edinburgh University's own collections archive or exploring ways in which medias can cross-over one another each artist responds to pertinent political, anthropological and technological issues.