Edinburgh based photograph Peter Dibdin has been visiting and working in Sierra Leone since 2014, photographing a development project by Orkidstudio who were building a new school for underprivileged girls run by Swawou School Foundation.
The resulting images of the community involved in the build, from the students to the construction team, will be published in a beautiful hardback book featuring 72 photographs, interviews and essays.
A Kickstarter page is now up and running where you can pre-order a copy of the book, supporting its production. All profits from the book will be donated to the Swawou School for Girls.
Your can pre-order a copy of the book and make other pledges via the Kenema Kickstarter page.
Swawou School student Aminata Sheriff at home
Brick layer Lahai Samai Ngabulango on site in 2014
Teacher Dauda Kabba at the site of the new school
Labourer Moina Kallon digging a 15 ft deep cess pit
Many thanks to everyone who joined us at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop yesterday for the launch of Score Tae The Toor, a handmade book and remix CD inspired by the Concrete Antenna sound installation at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop created by Simon Kirby, Tommy Perman and Rob St John and developed from our previous Concrete Antenna 12" vinyl/print package.
The trio gave a set of musicians access to their sound archive, tower instruments and compositions, and asked them to re-imagine the sited material created for the installation. Seven writers were asked to write pieces inspired by the tower and the installation, with pieces covering architecture, memory, archives, urban ecology and public art, written as essays, poetry and morse code.
Named after a phrase used by fishermen in the Firth of Forth using tall buildings on the Edinburgh skyline to orientate their sailing, Score Tae The Toor is a limited edition publication printed using a variety of techniques including risography, lithography, letterpress and computer controlled pen and knife plotters. Each cover features a unique numbered frame from an animation created by Tommy Perman.
Find out more and order a copy of Score Tae The Toor via our Random Spectacular website
Many thanks to Andy Catlin for his photos of the opening event. You can view more via Andy's Facebook page.
Interrobang: an international showcase of letterpress print forms part of Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft's The Village of Type programme.
Selected by a panel of typographers and designers, this open submission exhibition forms part of Ditchling’s popular Artists’ Open House trail and takes place in the beautiful former studios of painter Sir Frank Brangwyn. The exhibition features the work of contemporary letterpress artists from as far afield as Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the USA.
We're delighted to have been involved in this project and have produced a Random Spectacular journal dedicated to the event.
The diversity of the exhibition is reflected with an example of work by each of the contributing artists alongside additional articles that take a look at the idiosyncratic approach to typography of Ditchling's printing press St Dominic's. We also talk to Alan Kitching about his work and inspirations and find out more about the activities of the Occasional Print Club, whilst The Counter Press look at the role and relevance of the recent revival in letterpress and Anthony Burrill takes us on a tour of a printing works in a hidden corner of Rye. Take a look inside Interrobang.
The exhibition continues at Jointure Studios (just down the road from Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft) until 30th May 2016. Find out more.
Our Random Spectacular journal, Interrobang, is now available to purchase online via our St Jude's Prints online gallery.
Dynamo Works 'House'
The Print Project 'Shapednoise / Blood Music / Joanne / Boe&Lx poster for Golden Cabinet'
Dafi Kühne 'Januarloch'
Geri McCormick 'Viva'
The front cover of our Random Spectacular journal, featuring an interrobang printed by Thomas Mayo.
Our feature on the work of Alan Kitching Find out more.
Our look at the idiosyncratic approach to typography of Ditchling's printing press St Dominic's Find out more.
I've been meaning to post something about our friends at Caught By The River's latest audio release on their Rivertones label for a few days. What's been delaying my post is thinking about a way of explaining just how good it is.
I'm still trying to work that out, but as it seems to be (justifiably) selling extremely quickly (the first vinyl edition has sold out) I wanted to get this posted before it sells out completely.
It's the first long player on the Rivertones label and is the soundtrack to Wolfgang Buttress' award winning pavilion at the 2015 Milan Expo. The Hive is an immersive, multi-sensory experience inspired by groundbreaking UK scientific research into the health of bees and the audio release is a hypnotic conceptualisation of their life, work and living environment. The musicians involved in the project improvised in the key of C, playing along to a live feed of sounds from the a beehive.
A series of live performances are underway. Luke Turner has just reviewed the Nottingham debut of the Be collective's performance...
"It’s a genuinely immersive experience, as cosy as if we are in the hive itself. Indeed, there’s an old-fashioned wicker hive on stage, just in front of the keyboards. Although bees communicate by vibration, amplified recordings of their activities are audible to the human ear, and the sound of tooting queens and their subjects’ waggle-dancing hums in and out of droning melodica, Tibetan singing bowls, accordion, cello, guitar and occasional vocals." Read in full
There's not much more than I say other than do what you can to get a copy of the CD or vinyl release before it's too late.
This summer the installation will come to Kew Gardens. Find out more
Concrete Antenna, our third Random Spectacular project, is now available as a digital download and a deluxe 12” vinyl album package of new music, a set of art prints, a series of short essays and a specially created tide table created by Tommy Perman, Simon Kirby and Rob St. John inspired by their sound installation in the new landmark tower at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, loosely based on the urban history, architecture and ecology of Newhaven in North Edinburgh.
The sound installation is currently set to run until February 2016 (though this may be extended). Keep an eye on the Concrete Antenna website for details.
From 14th to 31st October 2015, Ed Kluz will be exhibiting a series of new mixed media collages at the John Martin Gallery at 38 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4JG.
Ed Kluz is an artist, illustrator and printmaker. His work explores contemporary perceptions of the past through the reimagining of historic landscapes, buildings and objects. The ideas of early Romanticism, the Picturesque movement and antiquarian representations of topography and architecture underpin his approach to image making. He has a particular interest in the eccentric, uncanny and overlooked – follies, lost country houses and ruins provide a constant source of inspiration.
As a designer and illustrator Ed has received commissions from the V&A, Faber, Folio Society, John Murray publishers and Little Toller Books, in addition to the fabrics he has designed for St Jude's.
Ed was born in 1980 and grew up in Swaledale, North Yorkshire. He studied fine art at the Winchester School of Art between 1999 – 2002. He now lives in East Sussex.
Find out more about Ed Kluz in this short film by Alun Callender.
Opening on 2nd July 2015, 'Tonight Rain, Tomorrow Mud' is the second solo exhibition of David Cass' work at The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh.
Cass’ 2013 solo show ‘Years of Dust and Dry’ was a great success where he transformed the gallery by installing some 200 found object based paintings which spoke of loss, decay and time.
As well as artworks that describe his travels over the last two years, Cass' newest work is inspired by the devastating floods which swept Florence in 1966 and Paris in 1910. He uses these historical events as point of focus to tackle the extremes of drought and inundation.
Cass explains...
“I began creating these artworks late in 2013: 47 years after the flood which claimed at least thirty lives in Florence itself. I first visited Florence in late 2010, on a Royal Scottish Academy scholarship. I’ve returned several times since 2010, and my artistic response to the city has gradually developed. Inspired by artist James Hogg’s set of letters written from Florence during November 1966 (published in Dear Eddie & Popp by S.A.C.I.) this series of studies are as much an attempt to introduce a new element into my practice as they are explorative responses to the history of this catastrophe.”
Created with semi-hardened vintage paints, on antique papers and framed (in most cases) in antique frames ‘Tonight Rain, Tomorrow Mud’ features paper-based artworks, created in Almería, Florence, Lucca and Paris.
The exhibition runs from 3rd July until 1st August 2015 at The Scottish Gallery, 16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ. Find out more via David Cass' website or The Scottish Gallery