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SSW is 40!

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 progress developed through residency this year. This weekend looks to bring together our communities, local, national and international, to collectively reflect on 40 years of living and working together, making relationships, skills and art at SSW.

Looking forward, we are excited to reveal our ambitions for the development of our workshops and invite you to make a contribution to the future of SSW by making functional objects for use in our new buildings. In doing this, we celebrate some of the skills, materials and processes held here at SSW, and continue to support the coming together of artists, crafts folk, thinkers, families, young people and the more-than-human into the future.


SATURDAY 2 NOVEMBER
6:00pm
Iron pour and party
We will kick off the evening with a performative iron pour by a team of SSW technicians (past and present) and interventions by SSW x Counterflows resident Letitia Pleiades.

Following this, join us for food by artist collective Rhynie Woman, a donations bar and dancing ’til late with Dj-ing by Letitia Pleiades and Counterflows’ Alasdair Campbell.


SUNDAY 3 NOVEMBER
9:30am — 11am
Breakfast pot-luck
Join us for a breakfast pot-luck. Bring a dish – whatever you prefer to eat for breakfast- and add it to the table. A SSW tradition, hundreds of artists and visitors have shared food, conversation and ideas around a collective meal, formed of each of their contributions (and leftovers!). Coffee will flow until 11am.

During the breakfast, there will be opportunity to sign up for the day’s open making sessions.

11am — 1pm
Open workshops and making sessions
Make a contribution to the future of SSW, by making functional objects for use in our new buildings in open making sessions. In all the workshops, you will make one for SSW and take one home for yourself.

Blacksmithing | Ages 16+
Learn how to forge hooks for hanging coats, towels or foundry leathers! The 2 hour session is led by artist Uist Corrigan with SSW Trainee Technician Michael Hautemulle, and covers the basics of drawing out, hammering and bending mild steel bar, shaping it into a hook of your design.

Terrazzo Tiles | Suitable for all ages, children under 16 should be supervised by an adult
Cast hexagonal tiles from jesmonite with artist Claire Baily. Using cold casting techniques, combine materials collected from the SSW site to experiment with surface, texture and colour and make tiles for splashbacks, table tops or coasters.

Aluminium casting | Suitable for all ages, children under 16 should be supervised by an adult
Make cast aluminium keyrings in the SSW foundry with SSW Lead Technician, Eden Jolly. Learn how to make a simple pattern and basic mould, before assisting our technicians on an aluminium pour, casting your moulds with molten metal.

Spaces on the workshops are limited and can be booked at the breakfast pot-luck. If you live in Lumsden, Kildrummy or Towie, check out our special Community Making Sessions on Saturday 2 November 2019.

11am— 4pm
Café
Cakes and coffee will be available to purchase throughout the day in our pop-up café, featuring the handcrafted table, crockery and cutlery made at SSW for Makers’ Meal (2012). Warm up from 12:30 – 2pm with a bowl of hot soup on the house.

1pm — 4pm
Lumsden Residency workshops
Come and share in the outcomes of the Lumsden Residency with artists Coral Brookes, Romy Danielewicz and Eothen Stearn and the students at Lumsden Primary School.

Lip, Belly, Foot | 1:30pm – 2:30pm
Head, neck and spine, lip, belly and foot, will come together in a ceramic throwing and movement workshop led by Romy Danielewicz. The workshop draws from ideas of ‘inefficient’ or ‘off centre’ movement, informed by the potters’ wheel as well as movement therapy practices such as the Alexander technique. Considering the connections between human and clay bodies in motion, we will make gentle adjustments and work collaboratively to produce a simple choreography on and off the wheel.

A Wobbly Map | 2:30pm – 3pm
Join Coral Brookes and students from Lumsden Primary School for a short introduction and launch of A WOBBLY MAP, featuring Lumsden’s many monuments; fictional and anecdotal, sculptural, invented and recalled. Rendered through three forms, a publication, sonic journey and fabric banner, these ‘maps’ are a reimagined archive for Lumsden, from the collective perspective of the students at Lumsden Primary School.

Disruption Den | 1:30pm – 4pm
Build a den with Eothen Stearn as a space for shelter, safety, support and magic. Following construction, watch a short film inside, Disruption Den, created through workshops with Lumsden Primary School students.

3pm – 4pm
Raku Demonstration
From iron to clay, we will bookend our celebrations with red hot, regenerative firings. Tying up the weekend’s activities, our regular ceramics users will demonstrate the experimental Japanese low-firing process, raku. Taking glowing ceramics from the outdoor gas fired kiln and placing them into smoky buckets of sawdust, unpredictable and spectacular effects result. Come and join us in witnessing the results and sharing and final toast to the weekend together.

This event is free and open to all. Please let us know if you are joining us by emailing arts@ssw.org.uk.

Find further information on disabled access at SSW here. For suggestions, questions or requirements relating to access please get in touch by emailing jenny[at]ssw.org.uk.

Find out more on places to stay, local amenities and other events.

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