History

Since 2000 Cove Park has created residencies for over 500 individual artists. Please find links below to listings of these residencies and the participants:

2007 Residency Programme

Scottish Writer in Residence May - July

Scottish novelist Laura Hird is the first appointment in our new Scottish Arts Council three-month residency series exclusively for Scottish artists. Published by Canongate and based in Edinburgh, she has written novels and short stories as well as non-fiction. Her web site, www.laurahird.com, showcases new writing internationally.

International Writer May - August

Geetanjali Shree is from New Delhi and is the fourth in our international residency series for international writers. She is one of only a few Indian writers of fiction who write in Hindi . She has published novels and short stories as well as translations into Hindi and has herself been translated into English, German and Japanese.

Three Month Visual Arts Residency May - August

Our major residency for a visual artist was awarded this year to Torsten Lauschmann. Originally from Bad Soden in Germany, Torsten attended Glasgow School of Art in the nineties and has been based in the city ever since. He works across many media - photography , film, performance and musical projects , such as his recent collaboration with Traverse Theatre which involved the creation of an orchestra of domestic appliances.

Future 2007 residencies include visits by The Bush Theatre, two three-month crafts residencies, our first Fairbairn Programme which brings together two writers and curators with four innovative visual artists for a six-week period of collaboration and dialogue, and September will see the development of our first music commission, culminating in a concert premiere at Cove Park. As further residencies are confirmed, more information will be included on these pages.

The Springboard Programme

In 2002, and with support from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Cove Park has launched an annual programme of one-month residencies for emerging artists who are recent graduates of UK art colleges. This year, the programme is supported by the Craignish Trust and Friends of Cove Park. The participating artists include Pio Abad, Giles Bailey and Dorothy Lucus.

Music Residencies

The first year of our music residencies, this will involve a collaboration between composer Gordon McPherson, filmmaker Dave Dunbar, and contemporary music ensemble Psappha.

Gordon McPherson is presently Head of Composition at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and has been commissioned by many ensembles including the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Hebrides Ensemble.

Dave Dunbar is a freelance producer/film maker. He has shown in the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Wren Surrealist Film Festival, Bangkok Experimental Film Festival and BBC 2's Home Grown Talent.

Psappha is one of the UK's leading contemporary music groups and have toured extensively in Europe and the States.

Argyll and Bute Residencies

Cove Park has awarded four two-week residencies to artists who either live and work in Argyll and Bute or who have close connections to the region. This year, the writers Alison Clark and Jessica Parkinson, the visual artist Charlotte Hannett and the filmmaker Martin Smith will take part.

Artists in Schools

In October Cove Park will host residencies for the Visual artists Janice McNab and John Shankie, and the applied artists Valerie Olleon and Katy West. These artists will work on site for one-month and will also lead workshops for students of three of Argyll and Bute's secondary schools. Please visit the Artists in Schools pages of the website for further information.

The Jerwood Residencies

Paines Plough 7 - 11 May

A creative team from one of the UK's leading new writing theatre companies worked with playwright in residence Katie Douglas on her latest play to be produced in association with the Liverpool Everyman theatre.

The Bush Theatre 21 - 19 May

Josie Rourke - the new Artistic Director of The Bush - and Literary Manager, Abigail Gonda, invited four playwrights - Lydia Adetunji, Declan Feenan, Ian McHugh and Abbie Spallen - to join in conversation with theatre designers, Chris Oram and Lucy Osborne.

Conflict Zone/Soho Theatre 4 - 29 June

Three playwrights and an artistic team devise six stories from real life experiences in conflict zones around the world. Each play is centred around different ethnic folk rituals: a Balkan wedding, a Jewish passover, an Arab coffee house, an Indian festival, an African ritual. The result will be a full length evening for the Soho Theatre in late July followed by the Edinburgh Festival.

Three-month UK/International and Scottish Craft ResidenciesJune - October 2007

This year, for the first time, Cove Park has created two three-month Crafts residencies: one for a UK/International applied artist and one for a Scottish applied artist.

The UK/International Craft residency was awarded to ceramicist Andrea Walsh. Her work frequently combines bone china and glass, creating pieces that explore and liken the inherent properties of both materials. Walsh graduated from the Masters of Design course at Edinburgh College of Art in 2001 and continues to live and work in Edinburgh. She recently presented work at Origin, the London Craft Fair, in October 2006 and in a solo exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh, in November 2006.

The Scottish Craft residency was awarded to Steff Norwood. A graduate of ECA's sculpture department, Norwood has more recently moved into the area of bespoke furniture design. The artist also took over the Old Jail, Tobago Street Glasgow, in 2000, where he has made workable studios, workshops and recording spaces for many other artists in the city. In 2007, he developed a project based on aspirational designs for an empty shop unit, as part of the Six Cities Design festival in Aberdeen.

Silversmithing and Jewellery Residency July 2007

This residency, now in its second year, was awarded to Edinburgh-based silversmith Grant McCaig. McCaig graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1998 and currently lives and works in Edinburgh. He has shown in galleries at home and abroad and had his first solo show at the Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, in April 2007. Current work sees the influence of forms shaped for sea travel, and through this, explores nature's effect on the man made.

The Fairbairn Programme August - September 2007

This year sees the launch of a new series of residencies supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. The programme brings together UK based visual artists Laura Aldridge, Ilana Halperin, Derek Lodge and Tobias Sternberg, and writer/curators Dan Kidner and Polly Staple, for a six-week programme of research and exchange.