Trainee Technician Michael Hautemulle burning out a mould. Photo: Finn ArschavirA short reflection, written by Finn Arschavir, Infrastructures Intern at Scottish Sculpture Workshop: I started four weeks ago as the first Infrastructures Intern the night before the crucible of molten iron was poured marking 40 years of making at Scottish Sculpture Workshop. The countdown to my final three weeks conclude during the winter solstice – here I am at the midpoint reflecting and looking forwards. My role at SSW is to look at the infrastructures that support and sustain the […]
George Ridgway, Out-tract (2019)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 […]
Coral Brookes with Lumsden Primary School, A Wobbly Map (2019)From Summer to Autumn 2019, artist Coral Brookes, collaborated with the young people at Lumsden Primary School to build a map for the 40th anniversary of Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Aberdeenshire. Coral shares more about the project below. Starting with the idea of creating a time capsule, the project unfolded through a series of sessions where as a group we ‘revisited’ the village through anecdotes, memories, interpretations and imagination, mapped as alternative (public) monuments of the locality. We began in the […]
Dorian Braun, Deep Listening Workshop, Lumsden Weekender (2018). Photo: Erika StevensonTo coincide with our 40th anniversary celebrations this year, we are excited to announce ambitions for a major capital development project to upgrade our workshop spaces and site in collaboration with Collective Architecture. In line with SSW’s ethos and values, the development will see a ‘ground-up’ approach at its heart, utilising local materials, skills, and knowledges. It will foreground function and environmental sustainability throughout the design and construction. SSW Director Sam Trotman says, “SSW started with the desire, vision and […]
Photo: Naomi Pearce, Nine Parts Navvy (2017). Photo: SSWForming part of our 40th anniversary celebrations, we invite our neighbours in Lumsden, Kildrummy and Towie to come along and try something new in our Community Making Sessions. Join us for free workshops in blacksmithing, aluminium casting and jesmonite casting for all ages and abilities, led by highly skilled artists and technicians. Celebrating 40 years of SSW, these Community Making Sessions are a chance to share in the skills and processes available at SSW Lumsden. Each workshop will enable you […]
SSW is 40! is taking place on Saturday 2 & Sunday 3 November 2019 2019 marks the 40th anniversary of Scottish Sculpture Workshop, and with it 40 years of making here on our site in Lumsden, Aberdeenshire. We gladly invite you to join us in celebrating this milestone with a special weekend of processes, performances and partying. Looking back, we will share multiple forms of making central to SSW; a performative iron pour, a breakfast pot-luck and collaborative works in […]
Maija Annikki Savolainen, Spectral beings (2019)Gathering by land, sea and screen, in (re)constituting residency, North AiR artists and network partners invite you to join talks and open discussions, probing the future of artists’ residency in a time of ecological breakdown. Sharing learning from the North AiR pilot residency exchange, artists George Ridgeway (UK) and Maija Annikki Savolainen (FI) will open up their research and practices, developed through residency exchange with organisations in Scotland; Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Taigh Chearsabhagh with University of the Highlands and Islands, […]
Photo: Erika StevensonDeadline for submission of quotations: Wednesday 13 November 2019, 1pm Scottish Sculpture Workshop (SSW) is seeking quotes from experienced Capital Project Managers to oversee all aspects of our upcoming Capital Development phase. Following the completion of a Feasibility Study in 2018, we are looking to address the urgent need for upgrading the SSW site, so that the facilities are fit for purpose, artists, organisational needs and ambition. The successful bid will have specific expertise in capital development, business development in […]
Our third Lumsden Residency artist of 2019 is Eothen Stearn, whose practice roams between the intimacy of personal relations, the details of everyday life, music, feminism and science fiction. Bringing these diverse interests to SSW, Eo worked together with the pupils at Lumsden Primary School to build a den, thinking about it as collectively making a multi-sensory environment, or installation, in the local woodland. Eothen Stearn joined us in September 2019 for a month-long residency alongside the last of our […]
This week our North AiR: Expanding Entanglements residency artist, Maija Annikki Savolainen, leaves SSW to travel to our next partner in the North AiR residency and research cooperation, Taigh Chearsabhagh on North Uist. “Thinking photography under the horizon of extinction will allow me to draw two temporal lines in the history of this particular medium: one extended towards the past, the other – toward the future. If we consider the history of photography as part of the broader natural-cultural history […]
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