Deen Scene - What's On # 16!

Its been another hectic few months and with Christmas and New Year looming there's not much sign of it slowing down. But its good to take a minute to recap what's been happening probably for the last time this year and to see what's coming up for 2019! 

Before that though press play on the mix tape above from Lucky Me artist Jacques Greene. I've been listening to this a lot over the last couple of weeks and I've found it an uplifting trip for this rather bleak and depressing time of year. Although released in April the EP which features many of these new tracks has just been released and can be purchased via his website / Lucky Me shop. Other musical highlights this month include this beautiful cover of 'Avril 14th' by Aphex Twin on a pedal steel guitar, rediscovering the amazing Jeff Buckley and despite not going to see him at The Lemon Tree I've still had 'SIX' by Mansun on heavy rotation, a masterpiece from the late 90's that brings me right back to my mum and dads house playing a racing game on the PS1, to be 14 again!

The Nuart Aberdeen walking tours have wrapped up, capping off the second year of the festival and giving people a chance to engage with the project before the wheels start turning for 2019. I was delighted to take the tour along with fellow tour guides Karen & Autumn. We each put a lot of energy into the walking tours and try to share some of the stories behind the art works but also about our experiences from the festival. Year 2 has proved popular and has thrown up some challenging topics but the public have been receptive to the ideas behind the works and appreciate the connections between local history, politics and place making. They also enjoyed the crazy wall of monsters by Bortusk Leer, a surprise fan favourite for old and young alike. The final tour was a buzz and we were joined by some young street art enthusiast including my little neighbour Mika who kindly took my hand for most of the tour and played with her sister throughout. We'll be back in the spring time with some refresher walking tours before we kick off year 3 in April so mark your calendars!

After the Nuart tour we popped along to No8 to see the final show featuring work from Marcus Murison, Hannah Gibson and Elliot Cookson who also organised the series of events for No8s summer programme. They managed to squeeze a lot into not only a short period of time but also quite a small space but it proved what you can do with very little. With exhibitions and work shops from friends, No8 seemed like the place to be over the summer and hopefuly will set a precedent for more student and new graduate led programmes, fresh, exciting and very much with a finger on the pulse!

In October myself, Mary Butterworth and Katie Guthrie finished up our mural for Sport Aberdeen at Sheddocksley. It proved to be a fun project and not without its challenges but a great experience for us all. You can check more photos of the work in progress and read a bit more about it here.

The Painted Doors project has wound up for another year and has added 14 new doors to the map! I finally got around to doing my own door for the project, 'Goliathus' which you can find down on the East Green. The project has proved to be a huge hit with art explorers and locals. continuing to highlight some of the diverse and talented artists we have in Aberdeen. One of the first artists this year Corvid Eyes also made a cameo in the BBC Alba Nuart documentary helping to highlight the close links between the doors and Nuart Aberdeen. I'm currently working with Mary on some short videos for each of this years artists so hopefully they will be finished before the end of the year! You can find a map with all the doors locations here.

The Creative Me podcast celebrated its first year with a bumper podcast special featuring me, Mary and Jenny chatting about what we've been up to individually and collectively and part 2 featured Elane Colville, Emily Utter and Lauren Aitchinson. Over the past year Ica has really pushed the boat out and has extended his microphone to many local creative, highlighting the work of many friends but also lots of people I don't know. I'm always happy to hear about new artists and proves that we all need to shout a little louder about what were doing and to try and find those meaningful connections. It can only grow and hopefully will lead to more opportunities and collaborations, more creative spaces and more visibility for what we're all doing in Aberdeen. 

Throwup Gallery had a busy month working in conjunction with Wallspot.org for their 'travel the wall' an artist exchange programme which see's artists picked from various Wallspot locations given the chance to paint another wallspot. Aberdeen welcomed Ona from Barcelona who created an incredible piece down at the Sunnybank wall while Aberdeen quine KMG Yeah along with Dundee's C.Gull were sent to Barcelona to complete the exchange. Katie has been quite active this year along with a few other local graffiti artists and hopefully 2019 will bring even more opportunities to paint and travel!

RGU hosted a special creative event 'Ghost Tanks & Dazzle Ships' which recreated a life size WW1 tank, made entirely out of cardboard and to scale in the RGU atrium. I don't think the photos quite do it justice as those amphitheatre steps are massive and yet the cardboard tank still dwarfs them. The project looked at the engineering advancements, especially the use of camouflage from the first world war but also aimed to highlight the lives of the men and women who took to the battle fields, the chaos of it all and the reality of it, something that films like Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers have helped with yet the true horrors remain unimaginable to us. Grays lecturer Craig Ellis has been at the centre of quite a few cool projects over at RGU so be sure to keep an eye on the RGU Art & Heritage Collections page for future events and exhibitions.

Peacock Visual Arts recently hosted a pop up exhibition 'GLEAN' curated members of the Associates programme, namely Erica Patterson, Niamh Coutts & Neil Kellas. The associates along side a hand picked roster of artists displayed work in the W OR M space and included some stunning pieces from William Moulding, Michael Agnew, David Iain Brown, Claire Roberts, Ane Smith and Neil Corral. It's been great to see the Associates Programme and the variety of events and workshops as a result of it. As 2018 comes to a close I'm sure 2019 will see Peacocks continue to grow and expand their reach into the communities which they serve.

Back to RGU again for a new show of work by acclaimed ceramicist Kevin Andrew Morris which took place at Grays School of Art where he also teaches. Of course the show is long finished but you can peep the photos of Kevins incredible pieces here and read a short statement about the work and its origins below. 
"Working within heritage-based projects has been central to my work and practice. Recently I’ve been engaging with concepts of craft, material and place, initially motivated by an investigation of my own family heritage and material culture.’Heritage Is The Context For All That Happens’ is a selection of work achieved during my first year in post as Technical Service Officer in Ceramics as well as my participation in the Young Wood Firing Artist In Residence Symposium held at Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Centre, Denmark. I feel that the use of wood to fire clay is a continuation of technology and tradition from ancient history into contemporary practice."

Right that about wraps it up for now or more accurately I'm tired and don't have the brain power to write much more. I haven't even covered what's coming up or what the plans are for 2019 so ill be putting together another post before the year is out! I will be kicking off an online shop where I hope to sell limited run prints and artist editions along with a few zines and other bits and our studio space Kekun has been awarded funding for a special residency programme so we'll be releasing details of that really soon. Also 2018 marked 10 years of Dancing In The Dark so I'm in the process of curating and organising a show to celebrate this milestone with artists I've featured and worked with over that time. It's been a long year and its hard work to try and keep on top of it all with a full time job to boot. But, its worth it, especially as the holidays approach and we get some time to look back and be thankful for all that we have.