Deveron Arts Annual Report 2014-15
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Annual Report 2014-15 Annual Report 2014/15 1. Organisation and Management 2. Residency Projects and Programme • Hielan’ Ways ⁄ Some Colour Trends with Alec Finlay ⁄ Lorg Coise: Footprints with Gill Russell ⁄ The Symphony Way with Paul Anderson ⁄ Over the Hills tae Huntly by Ron Brander ⁄ Hielan Ways Symposium • Cooking the Landscape with the Rhynie Woman • Lubare and the Boat with Sanaa Gateja and Xenson • Perambulator with Claire Qualmann • Wandering Waste with Gayle Chong Kwan • Oaks and Amity with Caroline Wendling • Imprint/Abandon with Aidan O’ Rourke 3. Other Projects and Events • Walking Institute • Cultural Health Worker • Slow Marathon 2014 • Town Collection • Other Events 4. Capital Development and Purchases 5. Publications & CDs 6. Networking and Training 7. Funding and Thanks Appendix: Press and Media Event Statistics Deveron Arts: the town is the venue 3 Annual Report 2014/15 1. Organisation and Management 2014/15 has been another very productive year for Deveron Arts. Over the course of the year we have developed 7 projects; published 7 books and a symphony, organised a two day symposium and another Slow Marathon, as well as many other events, talks and workshops. We continued to develop our website, creating a new sub-site for the Walking Institute. We also updated the overall layout and started to make it more mobile friendly. Work began on a redevelopment of our online shop. All thanks to our web designer Dorian Fraser-Moore. Over the course of 2015, we will be making further improvements in both the design and content – including the new online shop - as well as a completing our new News page, which will incorporate various social media channels. Throughout 2014-15, we continued to work in partnership with our funders, developing further relationships with other arts organisations both nationally and internationally, such as Ugandan Arts Trust, 32º East, Henry Moore Foundation, Wysing Arts Centre and SSW. We were successful in our application for Regular Funding (formerly Projects forming Programme) from Creative Scotland, securing funding for the period 2015-18. Curating and Programming 2014/15 was the final year in Deveron Arts’ Hospitality programme, which shifted from the previous focus on the three strands of: travel, hosting and language. Although hospitality remained as an overarching theme, our programme developed beyond these initial strands and instead became influenced by the current cultural and political situation in Scotland. The momentum of the Scottish referendum galvanized both our thinking and interests as a team. Ideas highlighted through the on-going debates about the referendum, such as issues of land use, migration and the role of the military had an effect on our future programming in our rural community of Huntly. With the integration of the Walking Institute nested within Deveron Arts, we began to think how this development could influence our programming and how we could develop the idea of a peripatetic school further. While developing a programme that was very much about working within Huntly, we thought how the Walking Institute could allow us to role out the town is the venue methodology to other places and how the methodology of walking might be used to examine the place of Huntly within the wider world. Management, Staff, Volunteers In 2014/15 Deveron Arts was run by a full time Director (Claudia Zeiske) and a full time Project Manager (Kate Sargent). In addition to this, Catrin Jeans continued in her role as Cultural Health Worker (previously titled Cultural Health Visitor). Throughout the year Deveron Arts took on board 8 interns and one work placement student. Our Project Manager, Kate Sargent, in the autumn of 2014, announced her pregnancy Deveron Arts: the town is the venue 4 Annual Report 2014/15 (congratulations!!) and that she would be taking maternity leave as of April 2015. It was decided that Joss Allen would take over as maternity cover in her absence. During the year 2014/15 the following people were involved with Deveron Arts: Claudia Zeiske – Director Kate Sargent – Project Manager Catrin Jeans – Cultural Health Worker (from July 2013) Alexander ‘Twig’ Champion, Intern (Oct 2013 - April 2014) Camilla Crosta, Intern / SC Intern (Nov 2013 - May 2014) Katie Carlisle, Intern (May 2014) Aminder Virdee, Intern (May - July 2014) Joss Allen, SC Intern (May - Dec 2014) Riccardo Mariani, Intern (August – October 2014) Lindsay McMillan, Intern (Nov - Feb 2015) Rachael Disbury, Intern (Jan - Mar 2015) Katriona Anderson, Work Placement (Oct - Mar 2015) Deveron Arts also had various other school placements during the year. Board of Management Mary Bourne, Chairperson Calum Mitchell Stephen Brown Louise Scullion Sophie Hope Christine Sell (2014) Iain Irving Mike Whittall, Treasurer Kevin McIntosh Jason Williamson Janice Macpherson, Secretary Deveron Arts would like to thank John Swan, who stood down from the board, and warmly welcome Christine Sell, who joined in 2014. The Walking Institute steering group meets twice a year, the members are: Michael Höpfner Jason Williamson Prof. Tim Ingold Prof. Deidre Heddon Ron Brander Shadow Curators Sarah Worden (The Lubare and the Boat) Lotte Juul Petersen (Oaks & Amity) Barbara Steveni (Lure of the Lost) Other People engaged Daisy Williamson – Cooking and Catering Dorian Fraser-Moore – Website Lesley Booth – Media work Deveron Arts: the town is the venue 5 Annual Report 2014/15 Hilda Fowler – Cleaning and generally running the ship Neil Angus – Garden and Landscape labouring Volunteers Katie Rose Johnston, Keith and Pam Cockburn, Patrick Scott, Steve Brown and many more Premises Deveron Arts continues to operate from our premises in the Studio of the Brander Building. Renovations of the Walking Institute office continued. Additional storage space has been created, allowing for publications previously stored in the basement to be moved upstairs. We continue to maintain the Brander Building garden, and have plans for a redesign in 2015. Deveron Arts: the town is the venue 3 Annual Report 2014/15 2. Residency Projects and Programmes Hielan’ Ways The rediscovery of trading routes connecting the Aberdeenshire heartland with Cairngorm Highlands [T]he plight of a people who have forgotten their myths, and imagine that somehow, now is all there is... Kate Tempest, Brand New Ancients Hielan’ Ways is an interpretation of a local name for the routes that connected the market town of Huntly over the Clashmach to remoter districts in the hill country to the west. A network of ancient lifelines, it was a vital link for those who lived along its way, enabling the flow of people, goods and livestock along the tracks between the "Capital of Strathbogie" and communities in the Upper Deveron, the glens of Strathdon, the tributaries of the Spey and beyond. Its distances were covered at walking pace; an area now largely empty of any human dwelling or activity, its heritage and significance is in danger of being condemned to history. We asked a selection of artists, how can we re-engage with this place, and what possibilities and potentials lie undiscovered in this remote landscape? Begun in 2013, the Hielan’ Ways project saw artist Simone Kenyon collaborate with celebrated fiddle player Paul Anderson, poet Alec Finlay, Aberdeenshire artist Gill Russell and historian Ron Brander. The project continued into 2014, culminating in the two-day Hielan’ Ways Symposium: Perceptions of Exploration, held in Tomintoul. Three publications and a symphony were all completed in 2014. ⁄ Alec Finlay – Some Colour Trends An investigation into the place-names that are embedded in the Scottish landscape Can’t we imagine people who have colour concepts which are other than ours…? Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on Colour Place-names are embedded into the Scottish landscape, many printed on maps, many more held in people's memories. Despite the intermittently dour hues of the climate, many of these names derive from colours and describe a colourful world. This lexicon bears the influence of Norse, Gaelic, Pictish, and Scots, as well as English, sometimes reflecting conflict or incomprehension between these cultures. Some names are poetic, others ironic, but they invariably refer to reality, and can be traced back to elements of the landscape. And so, we wonder - are The Cairngorms really The Blue Hills; is Am Monadh Ruadh, The Red Hills or Binnmach duibh, The Dark Hills? Edinburgh based artist and poet Alec Finlay, unable to walk the land due to illness, developed an innovative approach to mapping the area, reflective rather than constructive, focusing on the Gaelic place-names by which we still come to know this landscape. In particular, Alec focused on those names that are rooted in a description of colour, and the ways a particular culture (Gaelic) perceived the landscape through a translation of these names. Through his investigation into place-names in the Hielan’ Ways area, Alec wrote a series of poems composed of real and imaginative walks in the landscape. For this, he relied upon the legs, ears and eyes of others to walk out into the landscape for him and gather the material needed. Alec worked closely with Gill Russell and Ron Brander in a process of exchange; as they provided documentation of their experience of the physical landscape Deveron Arts: the town is the venue 3 Annual Report 2014/15 Alec provided an account of the landscape as perceived through a translation of the Gaelic language. Publication These poems and new translations of Gaelic place-names were published in, Some Colour Trends — trend is Alec’s translation of drove road — which Alec describes as, “a genealogy of place-names relating to colour” in the Hielan’ Ways area. ⁄ Gill Russell – Lorg-Coise: Footprint Mapping an ancient landscape for a contemporary audience 'lorg-coise': Gaelic for footprint, literally means 'a finding of foot.’ John Stuart-Murray, Reading the Gaelic Landscape The Hielan' Ways’ landscape and ecology is dominated by two vast shooting estates, Cabrach and Glenbuchat.