For this year’s festive season, Wasps offices and receptions at The Briggait and South Block (Glasgow), Perth Creative Exchange and Inverness Creative Academy will close on Friday 23 December 2022 at 5pm. The galleries with exhibitions open to the public will also be closed during this time.
We will reopen on Wednesday 4 January 2023, where regular services will resume. Tenants are free to access their studios/offices as normal over the festive break.
For out-of-hours property related support, tenants can contact Wasps staff either by emailing property@waspsstudios.org.uk or by calling the Glasgow office number (0141 553 5890) where they can access emergency contact information. To log any problems in your building, you can also log into the Tenant Portal and click ‘report a problem’ in the right-hand menu. The Property Team will then respond as soon as they can to address the issue.
In the meantime, we wish you a peaceful and relaxing holiday and a prosperous New Year. We’ll be seeing you in 2023!
We want to congratulate ECA student and fine artist Hannah Joy Grist on being selected as the winner for the first ever SSA x Wasps Award.
Some of the Wasps team visited the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh on Friday 16 December for the SSA’s 130th Annual Exhibition to select someone from the wide array of work on show spanning print, installation, film, sculpture and painting by the country’s fine artists.
We were struck by the scale and ingenuity of Hannah’s radiator sculptures Self Neglect in the Comfort Zone I & II, and the skill that had gone into manipulating such unwieldy objects by stacking and bending the metal so precisely. Our new Project Coordinator (Arts) Caitlin Callaghan was excited to be a part of the judging process in selecting Hannah to receive this prize for the first time.
Well done to all the participating artists and the SSA on a fantastic show, and congratulations to everyone that also won a prize on the night, including The Briggait tenant Lynsey MacKenzie who won a show at TATHA Gallery in Fife next year. We look forward to working with Hannah in 2023 to host an exhibition of her work at The Briggait. Due to her vast variety within her practice, we are keen to see how she uses this opportunity at The Briggait to take her work to the next step. She was also winner of the SSA New Graduate award.
You can visit the SSA’s 130th Annual Exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy until Tuesday 10 January 2023. Click here to visit the SSA website for more information.
Nairn, a town in the Scottish Highlands about twenty miles west from Inverness, finds its origins as an ancient fishing port. It’s understood that settlers arrived around ten thousand years ago, its strategic location forming the backdrop of many significant events throughout Scotland’s history. Relics of Pictish worship dot the landscape, and centuries-old castles, home to many kings and queens, can be found just down the road.
Nowadays, the town of Nairn is home to approximately ten thousand people (including actor Tilda Swinton) and is known for its scenic beaches and vibrant literary scene. There’s a wealth of inspiration for artists and creatives to be found in Nairn.
Links Studios, formally the Links Primary School, is on Grant Street, three-minutes walk from Nairn’s beautiful beach. Built in 1851, children from the surrounding Fishertown area passed through the Links School for their education. During busier fishing seasons, attendance was less regular for pupils as they were put to work at the port.
The school closed in the late 1960’s, before Wasps reopened the building in 2015 as Links Studios, providing eight studios and one creative business office. The studio building also features a project space that is used by the tenants and locals for workshops and exhibitions.
Though the number of artists working at Links is small, the community is close-knit and passionate. The tenants at Links include painter and tapestry maker Catriona Coghill, illustrator Meaghann Harris, painter Shaun MacDonald and sculptor Emily Coulson.
If you’d like to see the studios for yourself and arrange a visit, contact lettings@waspsstudios.org.uk or click here to see our currently available spaces.
Perth Creative Exchange will be open to the public on 3rd and 4th December
Perthshire’s newest artist and creative industries centre, Perth Creative Exchange, hosts its second ever winter market on Saturday 3rd- Sunday 4th December from 10am-4pm.
The public is invited to join the artists and creatives for two days of showcasing the vibrant work of both the wider artistic community and local studio holders.
There will be over twenty five stalls exhibiting a wide range of works from jewellery, textiles, ceramics, painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography and much more. The Winter Market and Open Studios presents an opportunity to meet the artistic community, find some unique Christmas gifts, learn about creative processes, and support local artists, makers and independent businesses.
Cal Scott of HooperHart, a Perthshire-based maker of miniature wooden worlds and accessories, said: “As a small creative business recently relocated to Perthshire, it’s been fantastic to make use of some of the Perth Creative Exchange facilities this year, so I’m particularly delighted to have the opportunity to take part in this Creative Winter Market event alongside studio tenants and other makers from the wider community.”
Perth Creative Exchange Open Studios will also take place over the same two days and visitors are encouraged to pop in so see the artists in their working environments, where many studio doors will be open. There is also a new group exhibition by tenants, Winter Exchange, now on view at Perth Creative Exchange’s gallery spaces.
Perth Creative Exchange is operated by Wasps, Scotland’s national provider of creative spaces. The centre provides working accommodation for visual and applied artists as well as offices for creative industries, social enterprises and charities. Opened in 2019, the Perth Creative Exchange development rescued the former St John’s School building, and in 2021 the project won the Regeneration Project of the Year accolade at the Scottish Property Awards.
Perth Creative Exchange’s Winter Market and Open Studios is on at Perth Creative Exchange, Stormont Street, Perth, PH1 5NW on Saturday 3 & Sunday 4 December, from 10am to 5pm. It’s free to attend and is wheelchair accessible.
In our contemporary world where your attention is consistently under pressure, divided, fed back to you, Pauley asks, how possible is it to capture optimal experience or is its delicious elusive promise just enough to keep us going? Or, I wonder, what would it mean, with all its privileges, to stop, lie down and rest a while, feel the soft weave against your cheek, and let your mind wander?
Glasgow-based writer Caitlin Merrett King was commissioned by Wasps to write about Sophia Pauley’s solo exhibition FLOW MATTERS at The Briggait this month. The artist and the writer spoke online before meeting in person at the opening on a dark winter night. Caitlin’s writing moves between experimental reflections on images or sensations conjured by Sophia’s work for the show, and more descriptive prose that situates the reader inside the gallery space to talk about ‘flow’ – a headspace in which a person becomes completely immersed in an activity to the point that nothing else matters. Both Sophia’s sculptural installations (informed by her time spent as a competitive swimmer) and Caitlin’s writing appeal to this state of being.
Caitlin Merrett King is a writer and programmer based in Glasgow. She has published writing with Sticky Fingers, MAP Magazine and Pilot Press. Her debut novella Always Open, Always Closed will be published by JOAN in early 2023.
Sophia Pauley is a British artist, brought up in Cardiff and currently in her second year of her MA studying Painting at Royal College of Art in London. She graduated from Edinburgh University with a BA Hons in Painting in 2018 and was the recipient of the ACS Studio Award. Recent exhibitions include: 196th RSA Annual Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (2022); Immersions, Robinson’s College Cambridge (2022); RAW, Soho Revue, London (2022); Re-Connect, SSA, Online (2021) and Artists In Transit Auction for Refuge (2021).
Waiting for the Sea Eagle is a new performance work by dance company Knights of the Invisible, made up of artist Iona Kewney and musician Joseph Quimby. The world premiere takes place in Lyon at Les Subs on the evenings of November 10th,11th and 12th. Beyond Lyon, the work will continue at international theatres and festivals in Austria, Denmark, Belgium and other cities across Europe for the rest of 2022 and into 2023.
Knights of the Invisible create raw visionary worlds of performance art. Their visceral connection conjures an emotional atmosphere housing both physical and psychological tension. They weave the pores of existence into a sonic physical journey. Metaphysical and ritualistic matter fuel the work. They are the white noise of many charactered selves. Their open technique exposes them to transformation and chance in time and space. Iona and Joseph’s methods balance on the borderlines of extremes and fragility. Their practise weighs on the edges of change where different energies and emotion accumulate to transcend daily life into surrealist territory. The combined ‘force major’ imagines a world bigger than both of them. At once both primeval and futuristic. The music is composed as a network of energy states and vocal passion. A magnetic soundscape touching and colliding in the atmosphere uniting Joseph and Iona. Connecting and echoing their souls, surrounding environment and dreamworlds. The taste of the vibrating atmosphere shaping physical imagery in the space. Their dance is the theatre of life. A spiritual uprising of the will and emotions pushing the inner world through the outer skin. Anatomical frankensteining of the body and being.
For the coming season, change is crucial. As artists, we need to endeavour to be part of that change and give up the safety of the studio. This November and December finds Garter moving her paintings from one wall to another. Gusto and Relish is a very well established and beloved café in Strathbungo, Glasgow. It’s known for honest to goodness delicious breakfasts and brunches, great coffee and an atmosphere conducive to kicking back with ease. And at the heart of it, is an enthusiastic owner, who loves art. You’ll probably find Garter there until the Hogmanay bells are striking, cooried doon with a wee cup of something good.
Garter says:
Should we ever find ourselves without artists, we will be the poorer for it. We’re a testament to the skill of creating distractions from the complicated, layered world we live in. We observe and present the conundrums of the human condition. And we love it, with all its challenges. My paintings are a balance between striving for beauty and reaching towards reality. I use the process of painting to gain a better understanding of what life brings. It’s my thinking place. Sometimes, it just keeps me company. In my paintings you will find love, sorrow and hope, in no particular order. It’s so important that I put these works into the public domain, to give them a conclusion, and to take me on to the next ones. If you find yourself in Gusto, I recommend their potato scone roll with black pudding x
See Garter’s show Saturday 5 November–Friday 30 December 2022 at Gusto and Relish, 729–731 Pollokshaws Road. Open 9:30am–5pm each day.
A huge congratulations to LDN Architects for winning the Highlands and Islands Architectural Association Award for New Life for Existing Building last night!
This award was given in recognition of their incredible work on Inverness Creative Academy, and the transformation of the former Royal Academy building that they oversaw to provide artists’ studios, workspaces for creative industries, as well as publicly accessible meeting, events, exhibition, café, and workshop space.Inverness Creative Academy is now the largest sustainable creative arts facility and community resource of its type in the Highlands and has been developed with, and for, the local creative community. The restoration, carried out by Robertson Construction Northern, created 32 artist studios, a community run traditional darkroom, and a large events space in the former Gym Hall. Externally, an innovative approach was taken whereby existing fabrics and fixtures were reused and repurposed rather than removed and replaced. It also upgraded services in the building to make it universally accessible for the first time.
Mid November’s Albion Expo 2022 offers the unprecedented opportunity to explore Edinburgh’s hidden creative hub at Albion Business Centre, and to meet its eclectic range of designer-makers and artists within their studio environs.
Visit Albion Expo on Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 November. For more information on the event and to book a free slot to attend, click here.
For the first time a wealth of multidisciplinary artists, designers, craft professionals from Unit 1, Unit3, Unit 5, Unit8 and WASPs operating around the cobbled yard (which historically housed James Dunbar’s soda bottling yard) are throwing open their doors to welcome in industry professionals and the public alike. Visitors can engage with skilled craft practitioners, fine artists, ceramicists, sculptors, jewellers, furniture designer makers, glass artists, architects, screen printers, plasterwork specialists, textile designers amongst others, whose considerable material knowledge and practices make an invaluable contribution to Scotland’s cultural life and beyond.
This nascent annual event has grown from featuring the fine woodworking skills at Units 5 & 8, to encompass the breadth of talent within studios and workshops across 5 adjacent units, who have never before offered public access together. The pop-up gallery will feature work developed last May by Finbarr Lucas during Unit 5’s first furniture residency programme. This is an unprecedented opportunity to meet the makers, see inside their studios, engage directly in craft demonstrations, purchase work for your home or seasonal gifts, discuss a commission, book your spot on a craft course or just head along for a good old nosey of the unparalleled diversity and quality of Albion’s combined talents.
Follow Albion Expo on Instagram here, and find the building on Maps here.
Due to the age of the buildings, only Unit 5 and the pop-up gallery are wheelchair accessible. For safety, if you plan to travel by car please park in the streets outwith the gates of the Albion Business Centre yard.
Perth Creative Exchange is excited to be opening the community garden in partnership with Sustrans, a great charity that supports walking, cycling and wheeling activities across the UK.
As the new community garden at Perth Creative Exchange nears completion, it’s time to come together to find the best way for it to flourish as a welcoming, inclusive space that is run by local people and open for everyone. That’s where Friends of Perth Creative Exchange comes in! Whether it’s mowing the grass, organising volunteer rotas, welcoming groups who are using the garden, or just being keen to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty, all skills and abilities are welcome.
Everyone from the local community is welcome to participate in the meetings. Join us for a meeting to help shape the group’s purpose and future at one of the following times: Saturday 29 October, 11am-12:30pm (online on Zoom), Monday 31 October, 12:30pm-2pm (in-person at Perth Creative Exchange) and Wed 2 November, 5:30pm-7pm (online on Zoom). The in-person session is drop-in. Register for one of the online sessions at https://tinyurl.com/PCX-FoG-meeting.
