logo

WINTER RESIDENCY 2020: STONY CONNECTIONS MATTER1

George Ridgway, Out-tract (2019)

We are no longer accepting applications for this residency. 

The Winter Residency programme at Scottish Sculpture Workshop invites artists to come together and continue developing their practices, informed by our wider research and programme.

This winter, we continue explorations into the role of making and understanding materials in a time of climate breakdown. Together we will dwell2 in the tangles and tensions between materiality and extraction, industrial processes and ecological (un)learning. The messy overlaps between the making skills we foster at SSW through our workshops, and the skills needed to “stay with the trouble”3, demand attention, critique and complication.

How can a multi-species discourse inform future material practices? Can we develop new material knowledges and making skills in ways that resist extractive systems? How can ideas of sympoiesis, symbiosis and parasitism inform our relationships with materials?

Through these questions, we look to artists who are interested in ideas around:

  • Collaboration, multi-species communities and the more-than-human
  • Vibrant matter and new materialisms
  • Contingencies and maintenance in a future with limited resources
  • Making as a means for relationship building 

The Winter Residency is shaped and directed by the selected artists. This year it is also supported by SGSAH Researcher-in-Residence, Daisy Lafarge, and invited guests in the SSW Public Talks programme. We look to bring together diverse artists’ practices and perspectives to explore these ideas in multiple ways.

References:

1 Ahmed, S. (2014) Wilful Subjects. Durham, Duke University Press, in https://feministkilljoys.com/2016/01/29/willful-stones/

2 “To adopt a dwelling practice is not, of course, to deny that humans build things. But it is to call for an alternative account of building, as a process of working with materials and not just doing to them, and of bringing form into being rather than merely translating from the virtual to the actual” – Ingold, T. (2011) Being Alive, New York, Routledge.

3 Haraway, D. (2016) Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, Duke University Press.

DETAILS

Duration: one month (4 weeks)

2020 dates:
Residency 1: 27 January — 24 February
Residency 2: 2 March — 30 March
Please state your preferred or available dates in the application form.

Criteria: Artists of all disciplines and practices. There are up to five artists accepted per residency month. Applications should outline a clear overview of your practice, demonstrating an understanding or interest in our location, residency themes and/or facilities. Open to international and collaborative applications.

Cost to artist: Residency costs are highly subsidised by SSW but artists pay £560 per 4 week residency. There are two places allocated for emerging artists* on the Winter Residency, these places are further subsidised and cost £370 per four week residency. This does not include materials costs or charges for consumables.

* Emerging artists are stipulated as: Current BA, MA and alternative MA programme students /or BA, MA, alternative MA graduates undertaking the residency within two years of leaving studies. 

TO APPLY

The deadline for applications has now passed. 

We will aim to respond to all applicants on the week of the deadline. 

Application: We ask you to submit via our online submission platform. You are advised to complete your application off-line until it is ready to be submitted, as the contents of the form cannot be saved before submission. You will be asked to submit:

  • A cover letter stating your research area and/or interests and reasons for applying to the programme, demonstrating an understanding or interest in the location, residency themes and/or facilities. (500 words max.)
  • Artist statement providing a clear overview of your practice. (250 words max.)
  • A digital portfolio (4 – 6 work samples, e.g. images, text samples or links to online content)

If you have any questions or wish to discuss your application prior to the deadline please contact SSW Programme & Communications Manager, Jenny Salmean: jenny[at]ssw.org.uk


ACCESS

We have two family rooms available and are happy to discuss how SSW can support artists with families to access this residency.

As an alternative to a written application, you can submit by video application. To do this please use our online application form (link is below). You can upload your cover letter and artist statement in the format of video (no more than 5 minutes long). In the fields Cover letter and Artist Statement please write [see video].

If you have any specific access requirements you would like to discuss please contact us prior to making an application. Information on accessibility at SSW can be found here.

RESIDENCY AT SSW

The Winter Residency is shaped and directed by the selected artists. In each block we welcome up to five artists, who live and work on site alongside other artists who may be on site for SSW projects and Open Access.

We strongly support artist-led activity, and believe it to be key in fostering artist peer exchange with a loose residency structure of group work, which includes introductory group breakfasts and talks/exercises to share your work, studio sharings, communal dinners, walks, film and sauna nights. This year, the SSW Public Talks will also run alongside the programme and there will be opportunity for wider exchange with the invited speakers. 

Residents are given the freedom to work in an open environment, and to develop dialogues with both peers and staff. Residents are offered timetabled support from technicians and the opportunity for one to one advisory sessions with SSW staff. 

During the first week you will undertake workshop inductions and have dedicated time with technicians to develop a making schedule (should this be required) for your residency period. For further information on workshops see our facilities page. Please feel free to contact us prior to arrival, especially if you have a specific production project in mind.

See what our first and second Winter Residency groups got up to in 2019.  

  • Share