To celebrate the close of our 40th year at Scottish Sculpture Workshop, we have commissioned three texts that explore our current practices and speculate on the transformations that can take place here. Taru Elvfing, Ilana Halperin and Jack Tan have all come to know SSW in many different ways across varied time periods. Their words share both their personal experiences of SSW, and the opportunities they see in our future.
We hope these texts help more people to come to know Scottish Sculpture Workshop at this moment. From the perspective of artists and curators who have contributed to SSW over the years, join us in looking towards the next 40 years through their provocations and reflections.
Trespasses and Retreats | Taru Elfving
“What is taken and what is left behind? How can the brief encounters have longer lasting ripple effects? What is required of the artist and the organisations that host the visitors passing through their communities?” Questioning the idea of a rural residency retreat, Taru looks to the possibilities in the peripheries, to shift centres of cultural production and decolonialise residency practices. This text is based on a longer essay How to retreat in/to the frontiers? published in The Midden (2018).
Download Trespasses and Retreats via this link.
40 years and more | Ilana Halperin
“How is it possible to lead a normal life in a still world, alongside the knowledge that your neighbour, (the remote world) is right next to you in this communal present?” Reflecting on a life coming to know volcanoes, Ilana draws links between geology, material and communal more-than-human perspectives.
Download 40 years and more via this link.
Kitchen Gods and Kiln Gods | Jack Tan
“In working with clay each movement of my thumb as it blended coils together constituted an action in tandem with he pause before it, a pause that was an opportune moment of intention and desire”. Looking to the spaces between eating, sleeping and making, Jack writes on the ceramics workshop as a place of chance, vision and action.
