In January, we were pleased to welcome Conor Cooke, Flora Deborah, Katie Surridge, Kati Karki and Theodore Vass to our first winter residency of 2019.
Responding to our call out which considered the multiple experiences, divergent thought and communal entanglements that exist at SSW in relation to our archive and documentation in our 40th year, all artists had an interest in oral histories, speculative narration, making kin and becoming with each other. The programme of activity, which included studio visits, saunas and reading groups, drew from research by SGSAH Researcher in Residence at SSW, Naomi Pearce, and Donna Haraway’s ‘Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Anthropocene’.
Alongside programmed activity and through the artists’ practices, Katie Surridge built and ran her iron furnace ‘Mad dog’ for the first time, and poured a bronze ceremonial drinking vessel that was ‘christened’ at the 1990’s stone circle near Muir of Fowlis. Kati Karki ran a series of collective writing workshops, which were carried throughout the residency, and the group went on a number of moonlight walks in the snow. All together, the time was explorative and social, with friendships made that have generated conversation and collective activity beyond the residency period.
SSW yard in the snow. Photo: Flora Deborah
Woodcarving introduction with Julian Schmechel. Photo: SSW
Studio visits. Photo: SSW
Studio visits. Photo: SSW
Presentations. Photo: SSW
Heating low-melt alloy for cuttlefish casting. Photo: Flora Deborah
Snowy weekend walks. Photo: Theodore Vass
Conor dips string in wax. Photo: Flora Deborah
Collective writing group text
Flora fills her stomach-shaped candle mould with bees wax. Photo: Flora Deborah
The night of ‘uudenvuodentina’. Photo: Katie Surridge
Taking readings through ‘uudenvuodentina’, a Finish divination practice in which molten metal is dropped into water. Photo: Katie Surridge
After the first iron smelt using ‘Mad dog’, Katie Surridge’s furnace, built on residency. Photo: SSW
Studio drawing and photo by Flora Deborah
Katie Surridge’s furnace, ‘Mad dog’. Photo: Katie Surridge
