SSA
Newsletter
December 2005
From the President
The SSA 2005 exhibition now seems such a long time ago, but the SSA
is back on the cultural map with our programme of 2006. First we have
Body Parts II - a three-day action-packed extravaganza of live art.
This collaboration between the Royal Scottish Academy and us will take
place in and around the library and black-and-white room of the RSA
Building from the 17th to the 19th February. Expect the unexpected.
This will be followed by the Scottish tour of SSA on Screen 2006 (four
dates between March and May). We are grateful to everyone who took the
time and effort to create and submit these film and video works. The
selection procedure was exciting - we all felt honoured to be the receivers
of so much creative exploration. However, establishing a network for
any visual art tour is difficult, and it has been an uphill struggle
persuading curators of public spaces to allow an artist-led organisation
to submit a programme of work…… but finally it looks as
though many more people across Scotland will have a chance to see the
work, to hear some of the film artists talk, and participate in lively
discussion.
All this activity will lead us happily on to our annual exhibition in
the summertime. Thanks to the efforts of ESSA and all of you who generously
donated to the Auction for Scottish Art, we have the funds to cover
our rent in 2006 and 2007. This show will be in the Upper Galleries
alongside the RSW. The hand-in date is on June 1st, the first day of
summer (easy to remember!), with our private view scheduled for the
Friday night, June 16th. Write it into your diaries now, and we shall
make it a night to remember.
We are planning for the three days following the opening to feature
an education programme of events, lectures and workshops relating to
our fantastic Indian contemporary art ‘…As Others See Us’
project, just one of the SSA initiatives which will be happening alongside
our open submission exhibition. It will be brilliant to see what amazing
art our SSA members have been up to. We look forward to a great year.
In response to the demands on out office computer and Internet facilities
following the gathering of submissions for our India project, we are
happy to announce the investment in a new machine with a massive memory
and Broadband connection. Next year we shall follow this by setting
up an SSA Internet dialogue room via our website where members can comment
on relevant issues, exchange views and share information.
Wishing you all the best of the Festive season and an exciting and creative
year ahead for us all.
Kate Downie
DACS
payback
Has your visual artistic work ever featured in books, magazines or journals,
or been used in UK terrestrial television broadcasts in the last three
years? If the answer is yes, you could be eligible for a share of Payback
2005.
Payback 2005 is your free opportunity to claim a share of revenue where
copyright is collectively licensed (such as for photocopying). The Design
and Artists Copyright Society (DACS), the UK’s collecting society
for the visual arts, negotiates a share of this money on behalf of all
visual creators in the UK and pays it back via Payback.
This year DACS has more than £2 million to distribute to fine
artists, designers, craftspeople, photographers and all other creators
of visual artistic works.
To claim your share of Payback 2005, please download a claim form from
the DACS website: www.dacs.org.uk or contact Richard Guest, Payback
Project Co-ordinator:
Tel: 020 7553 9062
Email: richard@dacs.org.uk
Mail: Design & Artists Copyright Society, 33 Great Sutton Street,
London EC1V 0DX.
Last year, thousands of artists received money from Payback. So what
are you waiting for? It’s Payback time. Claim your share!
SSA
on Screen 2006
Following the success of our dedicated programme of short film and video
during SSA 2005, we have attempted to go one stage further with SSA
on Screen 2006. Following nationwide advertising calling for submissions
last summer, the SSA Council has short listed twelve works for projection
from eleven artists, films of duration between one and six minutes.
These works will first be seen as part of prestigious SSA Scottish tour
featuring venues such as The Cameo Cinema* in Edinburgh, Glasgow Film
Theatre (who are generously allowing the programme to be seen on the
BIG screen), the amazing new Threshold Artspace at the forefront of
the new Perth Concert Hall (where we shall premiere a new Horsecross/SSA
co-commission** of an artist’s digital film) and in Peacock Visual
Arts in Aberdeen (where we shall hopefully launch this work whilst simultaneously
transmitting the whole event live and international on 36oTV, including
the discussion afterwards with questions and response from anywhere
in the world). It is tremendous that these venues are supporting us
so generously, and relationships and collaborations will blossom.
Ultimately, SSA on Screen will regroup in a dedicated digital art space
within the Upper Galleries of the RSA Building in June and July to join
the rest of our annual exhibition.
SSA
on Screen tour schedule
Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen
March 4th 6—8pm
(awaiting confirmation)
Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh
TBA pending Cameo future
Glasgow Film Theatre
April 23rd 3—5pm
Threshold Artspace, Perth
April 17th 6—8 pm
(awaiting confirmation)
SSA 2006, RSA Building
June 17th – July 20th continuous showing.
*We wish to convey our gratitude to the Cameo Cinema who was the first
venue to offer us distribution of our new programme. It is they who
have inspired us to further seek new opportunities for visual artists
working in film. The Cameo’s future hangs in the balance as this
goes to press, and I am sure many members will support the campaign
to ensure that any redevelopment of this cinema preserves its core function
as the leading art house cinema in Scotland.
Contact www.savethecameo.org for the latest update and to offer support.
**Horsecross is the organisation set up to manage Perth Concert Hall
and Theatre and regularly commissions and produces new artists’
works to be exhibited at the Threshold Artspace.
Artists include Angela Bartram, Katayoun Dowlatshahi, Maria Doyle, Paul
Eames, Anthony Lakey, Lisa Keiko Kirton, Jan Pottinger-Glass, Susanne
Ramsenthaler, Matteo Rosa, Bruce Sharp and Cynthia Whelan.
Body
Parts 2006 – SSA/RSA collaboration
Dates: Friday 17th
Saturday 18th
Sunday 19th February
Venue: The Black-and-White Room and the Library of the RSA
For our 2006 3-day event, we are delighted to announce that the following
artists have been selected to perform.
Angela Bartram, England
Zhané Warren, Belgium
Bronwyn Platten, Scotland
Mark Wayman, England
FOUND, Scotland
Carlos Cortes, Spain
Gillian Taylor, Scotland
Rita Marhaug/Ingunn Wright, Norway
Amanda Couch, England
Some work will be controversial and risky, and some audiences might
be shocked. Most of the work will be unique to Body Parts. However,
following last year’s debacle with the NGS/Health & Safety
officers v Beagles and Ramsay/the SSA, we PROMISE this year to have
no cooking, nothing messy and to tidy up after we are finished. Honest.
What we definitely need are volunteers to help as assistants during
this 3-day event. Please contact the Secretary if you can help.
Full programme details will be published at the end of this year on
the SSA and the RSA websites.
‘As
Others See Us’ – Indian artists at SSA 2006
The SSA has a long history of inviting artists from other countries
to contribute to our annual exhibitions. In June 2006 we are inviting
an elite selection of contemporary artists from India alongside some
Scottish artist collaborators, to respond to Scottish culture: to allow
us “to see ourselves as others see us” in the spirit of
Robert Burns. Their experience of Scotland might be real or imagined.
The results will be electric, excellent and not at all predictable.
Robert Burns was a poet who encouraged us to hold a mirror up to ourselves
and to imagine how we might appear to others. Some of the most successful
visual art is created from the position of an enlightened outsider looking
at what we think we already know.
From a wide submission based on numerous leads, we have selected seven
artists to participate. This project is groundbreaking in that it is
the first time the SSA has ever curated a project by Internet. We delight
in the fact that submissions were made long distance without all the
usual attendant problems with the post. We are currently fundraising
like mad to meet the target budget of £10,000 – airfares,
framing, etc. Help or suggestions from SSA members will be gratefully
received.
News
in brief
Council resignations
Jo Ganter, the Vice-President of the SSA, has resigned with effect from
February 2006. She has served one year as VP, following three years
on Council. Jo has been tireless in her support of the SSA and its many
projects, and we will miss her hard work , her intelligence, her irreverent
attitude and her smile.
Elspeth Lamb has also resigned from Council. She will continue to be
involved in educational projects, however, contributing to the programme
during the annual exhibition.
AGM
The AGM of the SSA will be held on Saturday, January 21st at 3 pm at
the Scottish Arts Club, Rutland Square, Edinburgh. We hope to welcome
lots of you and hear your views about our plans for the SSA.
Can you help?
Some of the Body Parts performers will need accommodation February 17th
to 19th. Please let the Secretary know if you can provide a bed.
Gift Aid — the SSA makes £2000 in 2005
Registered charities such as the SSA can benefit from Gift Aid, which
means that those members who pay income tax can help us, at no cost
to themselves, by filling up forms available from the Secretary. We
can even claim retrospectively for your subscriptions in past years,
as well as into the future. This year, we were able to benefit to the
tune of £2000, a great help to the SSA. It means we can do more
to make the annual exhibition a great success and support other projects.
SSA members benefit from Bank of Scotland opportunity
Those SSA members who have access to email were alerted in November
to an opportunity to exhibit work at the Bank of Scotland’s new
offices in London.
Check out the members who took up this opportunity at www.bankofscotland.co.uk.
New members
Welcome to all new members who have joined the SSA recently —
Sandra Leece, Sheena Graham-George, Alan Beattie Herriot, Andrew Purkis,
Vera Coghill, David Hutchison, Wendy Somerset-Jones, Michael E Mullen,
Jenny Bruce, Barry McAnearney and Mary-Claire Younger.
And remember…
The annual exhibition will be held in the summer of 2006 for this year
only. Hand-in of work — June 1st. It will be open to the public
from Saturday, June 17th to Thursday, July 20th. We will be calling
for proposals for installations in the next newsletter in March, with
a deadline of April 7th. Please nominate members to serve on Selection
and Hanging Committees on the forms included in this mailing, and think
about volunteering to help out.
President:
Kate Downie
Vice-President: Jo Ganter
Council:
Calum Buchanan, Chrissie Heughan
(co-opted)
Fiona Hutchison, Ruth Pelzer Montada
Gregor McAlpine, Iain McColl
Judith Rowan, Miriam Vickers
Alan Watson, Chris Wood