A Time And A Place

Now in its second year, Place Projects is fast becoming an integral part of the Collective Gallery’s ever-expanding New Work Scotland Programme. The artist-led initiative aims to support emerging artists by developing a community in which constant dialogue leads to the creation of art. Places are coveted by recent graduates, eager to be nurtured by one of Scotland’s leading galleries and keen to collaborate with some of the country’s most talented up-and-coming artists.

In keeping with this spirit of the free exchange of ideas, The Journal spoke to Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) graduate Rachel MacLean and Glasgow School of Art alumnus Simon Gowing. Maclean and Gowing’s collaboration, The Principal Inhabitants of the Moon, is the first of two Place Projects to be shown at the Collective Gallery.

Q. Rachel, how is the environment you're working in now—within the NWSP—different to your experience at ECA?

RM: It's exciting to be working collaboratively, as my experience at the ECA has largely been working towards criteria which specifically assess individual achievement. It is great to work with Simon, Place Project and The Collective—it's an opportunity to connect with the art scene outside of the college and encounter different perspectives and working methods, which has helped me to expand my ideas beyond the framework of the art institution.

Q. How did your collaboration come about?

RM: The collaboration was curated by Place Project, who organised individual interviews with a selection of recent graduates to decide who could work together.

Q. What can we expect from your exhibition?

SG: The exhibition came about as a response to William Hogarth’s etching Some Principal Inhabitants of the Moon, a surreal and obscure work depicting a fantasy lunar ruling-class, illustrating figures with personified, semi-mechanical attributes.

Hogarth’s image is framed within the aperture of a telescope, allowing the voyeur access to a distant fantasy. However, this vision is defined by familiar signifiers, and as with so many human musings on extra-terrestrial life, we try and explain the inexplicable in terms that we can comprehend—explaining the tendency for alien's to be humanoid.

RM: The print, rather than simply a whimsical fantasy of moon life, can be viewed as a satirical mirror to life at Hogarth’s time. In this sense, he is an outsider looking at contemporary life as something he doesn't understand, trying to understand it in terms he can comprehend. What is created is an abstract. As a parallel, the exhibition is an abstract of an abstract— there is a gap in understanding (created by our ignoring the initial intention of the print) upon which we have created further abstract.

Q. As recent fine art graduates, is it difficult to set up a successful, independent art practice?

RM: In some ways it depends upon what that practice involves. The more studio space and equipment necessary the more financially difficult it is to fund your work beyond college. However, I believe that with the networking opportunities offered by the internet, it is much easier to broadcast your work for free, and connect with a local and international art scene than before. Also, if it's not too romantic a suggestion, I like the notion that some of the most interesting creative moments can emerge from working within undesired limitations—though if you remind me of this optimism in a few months, I may have changed my mind.

For now it seems MacLean and Gowing’s "most interesting creative moments" will have to wait, though their current situation is far from undesirable. With the increasing popularity and prestige of the New Work Scotland Programme their artworks have suddenly been catapulted under the art world’s microscope. With the Collective Gallery as a springboard to their future careers surely the only way from here is up?