All posts tagged: Edinburgh

Ønwards

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When I left London for Edinburgh a few years prior, everyone kept saying: “Look, you’re moving somewhere affordable, a place with charm, character and soul.” Of course, then I did not believe I was in for such a wonderful treat. In the last couple of months the reaction has been quite a similar one. An “Oh Berlin. I envy you” here, an “Berlin? Now, I’m jealous” there. Today, sitting in my new, rather empty apartment, between boxes piling up to the heavens, patiently waiting to be unpacked, it all feels a little strange to be here. A good kind of strange, I have to say. Pretty much six years ago to this day, I first set foot on an island that was foreign, yet took me in with open arms. A place brimming with life, a place I gladly called home shortly after, made the best friends, built relationships and with every passing day I wasn’t sure what to think about going back to the familiar home shores. Now after a heartfelt jump into the …

Opening Doors

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‘Opening Doors’ is a new feature for Counterpoint Magazine, a beautifully risograph-printed magazine bringing together independent journalism and illustration. For issue #12 ‘Spaces’ I talked to the organisers of Hidden Door, a DIY arts festival colonising Edinburgh’s abandoned spaces. Read the full piece on my portfolio here.

Wee catch up: Rumana Sayed

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I vaguely memorised Rumana Sayed’s name almost a year ago when I was flicking through the truly fantastic ‘Every Woman Super Woman’ zine with its colourful aesthetics and powerful words. Fast forward half a year later, the young graphic designer becomes the new artist-in-residence at Out of the Blueprint and pretty successfully showcases a bold and punchy body of work in her first solo exhibition ‘Don’t Be Denied’. So we have a wee bit of catching up to do! Tell me a bit about your background. How did you get into making art? My name is Rumana Sayed, I’m 21 years old and live in Edinburgh. I was born in South Africa, but been brought up in the heart of Leith for 17 years. Growing up I have always been into making and creating. I didn’t know what I wanted to do leaving High School. I got into Edinburgh college to do Visual Communication & Graphic Design, studied for 3 years and it became a part of my life ever since. Its a tool for me to creative things differently in a unique way. …

Denitsa Toshirova about Cold Memories

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Often enough, this is how it goes with social media nowadays: Even though you live in the same big city and you’ve got a shared appreciation for the other’s work, doesn’t mean you’ve ever met outside of the online sphere. Denitsa Toshirova is a very talented young photographer from Bulgaria and I’ve been following her impressive portfolio for a good while now. Seriously, check out her work here, it’s fantastic. I happened to met her in person for the first time at the launch night of Boom Saloon, when we found out we’re actually magazine buddies – my piece on Jupiter Artland and Denitsa’s stunning photo series ‘Cold Memories’ side-by-side. All the more reason to sit down with her and briefly catch up on her beginnings, inspirations, identity and, well, that wretched thing called Brexit. Hi Denitsa, let’s get right into it: How would you describe your photographic style and which themes do you predominantly explore in your work? I would like to think my photographic style is always developing and I feel over the last few years …

Melanie Gilligan: The Common Sense

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‘Technologies change us – our attitudes, our behavior, and our bodies’, Melanie Gilligan observes with downright honesty. How new media and technology takes our daily lives into a stranglehold – with all its good and bad implications – has always been something that fascinated me. Are we still in control or are we turning into a meaningless, remote-controlled mass? Who are we or pretending to be behind an invisible mask? What does self-fulfilment and social interaction mean in our day and age? The versatile mixed-media Canadian artist, who works with video, performance, text, installation and music, incessantly asks said questions as part of her creative projects. Similar to previous works ‘Crisis in the credit system’ (2008) and ‘Popular Unrest’ (2010), Gilligan’s futuristic multi-episode drama series ‘The Common Sense’ delves into the effects of political and economical struggle on the individual and the collective as well as people’s ultra-dependence on technology. The experimental narrative of Phase 1 introduces us to a future technology called The Patch, a sort of prosthesis which makes it possible to directly experience the physical sensations and feelings …

Navigating the world through graphic abstraction: David Lemm

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His eye-catching artworks have been on top of my list for a while. Experimenting with form, composition and texture to weave complex narratives, David Lemm’s graphic works explores human assumptions of truth based on abstract, symbolic representations of reality. And after collaborating with the likes of Leith Late, the Hidden Door Festival or the Bothy Project, a little bird has told me that the Edinburgh-based creative has been selected as  House of Illustration’s latest resident artist! Due time to reach out and chuck a few questions over, don’t you think? Hello David, thanks for your time! What about a short intro? Hi, no problem thanks for asking. Well, I’m an multidisciplinary artist and designer based in Edinburgh. I work on a broad range of projects, including exhibitions, residencies, illustration commissions, animation, art direction and workshops. How would you describe your style & which narratives and themes does your work explore? I like to combine analogue and digital processes with a playful and experimental approach to composition, narrative, form and texture. Recently I’ve been exploring ideas relating to knowledge communication, specifically maps/diagrams, and our assumptions …

‘Something Manly’ by Stewart Bryden

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With the gender equality movement gathering support from all ends of our society, tackling misogyny and everyday sexism, it’s almost as important to turn our attention towards female roles as it is to question our general perception of men in the modern world: What’s considered manly today? Have we already pushed boundaries far enough and hurdled the last remaining features of a once patriarchal society dominated by men? The first ever stand-alone exhibition by Scottish photographer Stewart Bryden takes a similar line, exploring the visual aspects of a changing manhood, playing on the idea that there’s not only one type but a great variety blurring the borders between the masculine and powerful and the sensitive and insightful. A former assistant to NY artist and photographer Ryan McGinley and collaborating with major brands and agencies like Reiss or Dr. Martens, ‘Something Manly’ brings together a selection of his portraits and commissions, including shots of photographer David Eustace, soul singer Charles Bradley or model Chris John Millington. On that note: Tucked away in between men’s grooming essentials, …

Traces of the Past: ‘Shot at Dawn’ by Chloe Dewe Mathews

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The dawning of a new day. A forsaken, leafless tree stands guard before a field covered in thick fog. Silence. Not a soul to be seen. If you had no clue of the delicate topic that Chloe Dewe Mathews addresses with her most recent photographic series ‘Shot at Dawn’, you could easily mistake it for just a great selection of beautiful, gloomy landscape photography. In fact, there’s more to it behind the peaceful façade, best visualised by an ambiguous title choice that metaphorically addresses a covert truth: The unadorned presence of warfare. While the London-based photographer aims into the forlorn distance through her lense, waiting for the right moment and eventually releasing her trigger to take the shot, the perspective has probably been exactly the same a hundred years ago, yet facing a group of soldiers pointing their deadly rifles at a convicted brother-in-arms. ‘Shot at Dawn’ narrates the forgotten, repressed or long-lost stories of the hundreds of French, British and Belgian soldiers, who were shot for cowardice or desertion in the dark days of World …

The King’s Peace: Realism and War @ Stills Photography

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Of late, the topic of war is unfortunately as present as ever. It almost feels as if there’s nothing else the media is reporting about. Whether it’s the Ukraine crisis, the Syrian Civil War, the struggle for supremacy in Iraq or the Gaza conflict. It makes us realize again and again that visual media is a powerful tool, which easily influences how we perceive a situation of conflict, threat and peace. Do we only get to see the Palestinian suffering or do we just close our eyes from the countless Hamas rocket attacks on Israel on the daily broadcast? Do we buy Israel’s repeated self-defence claims or is the grueling seizure of Gaza and its horrendous attacks on civilians an act of war crime? True or false, it is a matter of perspective. As part of this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival and the nationwide GENERATION programme, ‘The King’s Peace: Realism and War’ at Stills Photography questions the illusion of reality so easily achieved through the camera lens. Initially centered around Owen Logan’s brilliant photo-essay ‘Masquerade: Michael Jackson alive in …

‘Enduring Light’ by Yaz Norris

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‘Is the importance of light in photography being forgotten?’ That’s the all-encompassing question that mirrors the haunting b/w series ‘Enduring Light’ of young photographer and ECA graduate Yaz Norris. For her, breaking through the natural barriers of how we perceive the world we come to accept as reality, shaped by the sensory forms of light and shadow, enables us to question our surroundings: ‘It personally came to me when I discovered the happenstance of a projection that mimicked the result of a camera obscura’, she admits. ‘While the wind sucked the blind into the window, the light hit a specific angle causing it to bend, with the result that the buildings opposite were delicately illuminated across the wall. The refraction was blurry and moving, but it occurred completely naturally, and completely by accident.’ If you look at her cracking images, she’s pretty much given the right answer herself. Check out Yaz’ website for her other projects or follow her via twitter.