Residencies
Cross Currents
Bothy Project, Fogo Island Arts and Fogo Island Workshops are delighted to announce Cross Currents, a residency and professional development project for craft-designer-makers based in Scotland and in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
Bothy Project, Fogo Island Arts and Fogo Island Workshops are delighted to announce Cross Currents, a residency and professional development project for craft-designer-makers based in Scotland and in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The project has been generously funded through British Council Scotland and Creative Scotland’s Connect and Collaborate program, with additional support from Shorefast.
Cross Currents will explore the historical, artistic and social parallels between Scotland’s West Coast and Newfoundland and Labrador and Canada’s East Coast. These connections across the Atlantic include geology and landscape; fishing and seafaring, in their cultural and environmental guises; and connections of communities, Indigenous peoples, migrants, immigrants and settlers. Aspects of these parallels are present in Scotland and Newfoundland and Labrador, and offer a myriad of material for craft-designer-makers to explore, learn from and communicate through their practice.
Two Scotland-based practitioners will undertake a residency at Bothy Project’s Sweeney’s Bothy, Isle of Eigg, and two Newfoundland and Labrador-based practitioners will participate in a residency with Fogo Island Arts on Fogo Island. The four selected practitioners will connect digitally to build professional networks with each other, and to participate in a series of sessions with invited mentors. At its completion, the project will be shared widely through an online event.
The residency will assist emerging designers, makers and craftspeople wishing to explore the development of new, original products through batch production. It is intended for practitioners working in design, craft or other object-based practices, including but not limited to object and furniture design, textiles, woodworking, and metalworking.
Proposed work should engage creatively and critically with the residency themes and take the resources offered by Bothy Project and Fogo Island Arts/Fogo Island Workshops into account.
Cross Currents builds on work undertaken by Bothy Project in The Pioneers (2016), where six artists and makers designed unique and innovative products in response to off-grid living, and Fogo Island Workshops, which has forged collaborations between designers and local makers to create furnishings for the Fogo Island Inn (2010-). Both organisations are committed to excellence in design practice which is informed by place-based artisanal knowledge and skills.
Mentors
Two mentors of international renown to suit the selected residents will offer creative and professional guidance through online conversations. Blending creative and professional development, the mentorship and exchange components of the residency will encourage creative and conceptual explorations as well as discussions around entrepreneurship.
Residencies
Two Scotland-based practitioners will receive:
- Two-week residency at Sweeney’s Bothy, Isle of Eigg, in August/September 2021*
- Online conversations with fellow participants
- Online Mentor Sessions
- Participation in the online public event
A fee of £2000 is provided to cover the residency period, participation in online conversations with fellow residents and mentors, plus a travel allowance of £250.
*Please note Sweeney’s Bothy does not have workshop facilities, however meetings with makers on Scotland’s West Coast can be arranged.
Two Newfoundland and Labrador-based practitioners will receive:
- Three-week residency with Fogo Island Arts in August/September 2021
- Online conversations with fellow participants
- Online Mentor Sessions
- Participation in the online public event
A stipend of $350 per week is provided, as well as travel to and from Fogo Island, accommodation in a traditional salt box home, vehicle for on-island use, and 5 days of woodshop and/or textile production facilities access at Fogo Island Workshops, including supervision and support provided by a staff member.**
**Participants must have general understanding of wood and/or textile production equipment and safe practices for facilities access.
How to Apply
This residency is open to craft-designer-makers based in Scotland and in Newfoundland and Labrador. Applicants must propose a project in response to the residency theme that is scaled to the context and available resources of the appropriate location. Fogo Island Workshops are limited to wood and textile studios, but practitioners of all media are welcome to apply. Sweeney’s Bothy does not have workshop facilities, however meetings with makers based on Scotland’s West Coast can be arranged.
Please note there is no dedicated production budget. Production within the residency is welcome within the limits of available space and facilities but is not expected.
This project does not involve international travel, and practitioners in both locations will follow local COVID-19 guidelines.
Applicants are asked to submit a single PDF (max. 5MB) with the following information:
• Name, contact information, country of residence, nationality, website (if applicable)
• 2-page Project Proposal (250 words maximum), including any relevant diagrams, sketches or reference material
• Short biography and a brief description of their practice (200 words maximum)
• Detailed curriculum vitae (2 pages maximum)
• Portfolio featuring up to 10 examples of work (images must include relevant caption information)
Applications should be emailed to [email protected]
The application deadline is Monday May 10, 2021 (9 pm GMT / 5.30 pm Newfoundland).
Selection Process
Four candidates will be selected by an international jury including:
• Heather Igloliorte, Concordia University Research Chair in Circumpolar Indigenous Arts
• Irene Kernen, Director, Craft Scotland
• Nicolaus Schafhausen Strategic Director, Fogo Island Arts
• Katrina Tompkins, Production Manager, Fogo Island Workshops
• Lesley Young, Programme Coordinator, Bothy Project
Applicants will be notified of their status by June 1, 2021.
Schedule 2021
• 10 May: Application Deadline – (9pm GMT, 5.30pm Newfoundland)
• 1 June: Applicants will be notified of their status
• Summer: Selected residents meet digitally with mentors
• August/September: Residences take place
• Winter: Online event
About Bothy Project
Bothy Project provides creative residences for practitioners in visual arts, craft & design, music, literature and performance, as well as thinkers, researchers, and people local to each bothy. Residents are able to use their residencies to explore creativity, landscape and living simply.
Active in Scotland, its network currently comprises Inshriach Bothy in the Cairngorms National Park, Sweeney’s Bothy on the Isle of Eigg and Pig Rock Bothy which will soon be re-built in Assynt after nearly six years at National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh. Its spaces are bespoke, small-scale, and off-grid. 2021 will see the bothies operate as sentinels of communication with the best experience and learning generated by residents widely shared though a new public programme.
Bothy Project is a charity supported by its trading arm Bothy Stores which donates a portion of its profit each year to support artists’ mobility and access to the Scottish landscape.
About Fogo Island Arts
Fogo Island Arts is a residency-based contemporary art venue that supports research and production of new work for artists, filmmakers, writers, musicians, curators, designers and thinkers from around the world. Since 2008, FIA has brought some of the most exciting emerging and renowned artists of today to Fogo Island, Newfoundland, Canada to take part in residencies and to present solo exhibitions at the Fogo Island Gallery. FIA also presents programs in cities across Canada and abroad, including the Fogo Island Dialogues interdisciplinary conversation series, as part of its international outreach. Combining contemporary art, iconic architecture and social innovation in a singular setting, FIA is a world-class institution that is uniquely rooted in community. FIA is an initiative of Shorefast, a registered Canadian charity with the mission to build economic and cultural resilience on Fogo Island.
About Fogo Island Workshops
Fogo Island Workshops is a social enterprise based on a regenerative business model that employs only local makers and artisans who make things by hand using local materials. One hundred percent of the net surplus is returned to Shorefast to support Fogo Island, one of Canada’s oldest settlements. Our approach, first applied for the furnishing of the Fogo Island Inn, is to partner local makers with designers who collaborate closely to create design-conscious and joyful furniture, homewares, and textiles. Fogo Island Workshops is a division of Shorefast, a Canadian charity whose mission is to build cultural and economic resilience on Fogo Island, a small outport community off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
Funding
Cross Currents is a collaboration between Bothy Project, Fogo Island Arts and Fogo Island Workshops. It is part of the Connect and Collaborate program by British Council Scotland and Creative Scotland, with additional support from Shorefast.