Each year SSW host a series of open talks to accompany our Summer Artist in Residence programme. These talks are set up to bring people together, share food and have vibrant conversations.
The 2018 public talks series presents the work of Simone Kenyon in the month of June and Jez riley French in August. Both artists have a deep interest place and make emotive site response work.
These talks are free of charge and are followed by simple meal and discussion in the SSW bothy. Everyone is welcome and no booking is required for the talks, but if coming in larger numbers please notify us ahead of the event: arts@ssw.org.uk/ (+44) 01464 861372.
Simone Kenyon
Something moves between
Thursday 28 June, 6.30 -7.30pm
Image credit: Lucy Cash
Simone’s talk will introduce elements of her ongoing research and aspects of her new project Into the Mountain.
Into the Mountain is a performance project exploring and celebrating women’s relationships with Scotland’s high and wild places. Inspired by the lyrical and embodied prose of Nan Shepherd’s 1974 book, The Living Mountain, this site-sensitive dance performance takes place deep in the Cairngorm Mountains, the area described and revered in Shepherds’ writing.
Through a programme of workshops, talks and live performance Into The Mountain is an invitation for audiences to (re)discover the unique environment of the Cairngorms National Park and explore how women’s experience of place provides us with tools to navigate and come to know the landscape.
Simone Kenyon is an Edinburgh based artist and dance maker. She creates trans-disciplinary works that encompass dance and somatic practices, environment, ecology, walking arts, mountaineering, participatory and performance events for both urban and rural contexts. Her solo practice explores Walking as a choreographic practice, sensory experiences and our perceptions of environments. She has a wide breadth of knowledge and skills informing how she creates work for and with specific places and people.
Jez riley French
a quiet position – elusive fields
Thursday 9 August, 6.30 -7.30pm
Workshop 10 August, 10am – 1pm (booking required*)
Image credit: Pheobe riley Law
Focusing extensively with sound as both material and subject JrF’s work over the past
three decades has involved installation, intuitive composition, scores, film and
photography.
Alongside performances and exhibitions Jez lectures and run workshops in various
countries on field recording / located sound as an art form and has also developed a
range of specialist microphones widely used by recordists, sound artists, musicians,
sound designers and cultural organisations. He also works as a curator of live events, of
a record label, of sound installations and an arts zine ‘verdure engraved’.
In recent years he has been working extensively on long form recordings of surfaces,
spaces and situations and developing the concept of photographic scores and ‘scores
for listening’.
Aspects of his work have been exhibited or performed in events and installations
alongside that of Yoko Ono, David Bowie, Pauline Oliveros, Chris Watson, Jana
Winderen, Alvin Lucier, Annea Lockwood, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Stars of the Lid, Jeremy
Deller, Sarah Lucas, Brian Eno, Signe Liden, Sally Ann McIntyre, David Toop etc, at
galleries including The Whitworth Gallery (Manchester), Tate Modern and Tate Britain,
MOT – Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (Japan), Artisphere (USA). During 2017 he
was commission by the UK’s City of Culture, Hull 2017, to deliver or be involved in
several key projects inc. Height of the Reeds & North Atlantic Flux.
For 2018 Jez is working on several major projects inc. one focused on the design &
detail of spaces between buildings in Japan and further works exploring structures
resonated by compositions and their locales . He is also working with his daughter, the
artist Pheobe riley Law, on a series of performative collaborations. In June 2018 Jez
curated ‘murmurations’ an week long trip to Glenshee featuring guest artists &
participants from around the world inc. Chris Watson, Heather Ross, Yvonne Billimore,
Stephanie John, Gill Russell, Jana Imert & Kaffe Matthews.
Key works are pieces capturing the sound of the dolomites dissolving, ants consuming
fallen fruit, buildings vibrating, teleferica’s interacting with locales, the infrasound of
domestic spaces around the world, glaciers melting in Iceland and the tonal resonances
of natural and human objects in the landscape.
jezrileyfrench.co.uk
*Please note the workshop with Jez riley French is free but space is limited and booking is required. To book please contact arts@ssw.org.uk/ 01464 861372
