Travelling Gallery announces final section of 2023 programme

Travelling Gallery

Travelling Gallery is pleased to announce its season three tour, the final part of its 2023 programme.

Season three hits the road this Friday (15 September 2023) with the first stop at Edinburgh’s Calton Hill which launches the group show Take Care, exploring our relationship to the non-human things we care for in an often-isolated society. The season also takes a new approach to touring with environmental concerns and community partnerships at its heart.

Artists include Uma Breakdown, Gwenan Davies, Ellie Kyungran Heo, Laura Wilson, and Joy Baek with Sculpture Placement Group.

Working across a variety of mediums the artworks in the exhibition look at everything from the intimacy of baking, where artist Laura Wilson’s new video, You would almost expect to find it Warm, presents growing, gloopy, fresh dough as a living organism that is alive with yeast, to the humble house plant where Ellie Kyungran Heo’s moving image work, Plantarians: appendix, explores our care of house plants asking, “Why is it that we place a plant in a pot, constricting its ability to grow and occupy physical space?”.

Continuing our relationship to non-human things, artist Uma Breakdown presents their video game Animal Agency.The multi-layered click and point game invites the player to work with animal-like creatures to move between a number of rooms and spaces. Gwenan Davies’ paintings then explore our ‘in-between’ times as she observes the ritual and social function of the coffee break, turning a sea of abandoned coffee cups into a surreal landscape.

Finally,  Travelling Gallery collaborates with Sculpture Placement Group (SPG) to exhibit the sculpture, Here, My waiting by Joy Baek, from their Loan scheme. The SPG Loan scheme works with artists to extend the life-cycle of artworks that are currently in long-term storage, allowing people to care for and enjoy an artwork, often outside of a gallery context.

Launching in Edinburgh on Calton Hill this weekend, the exhibition will tour the following locations:

  • Stirling University, in partnership with Stirling University
  • West Lothian College, in partnership with West Lothian College
  • North Ayrshire, in partnership with North Ayrshire Council
  • East Ayrshire, in partnership with East Ayrshire Council
  • South Ayrshire, in partnership with South Ayrshire Council
  • Inverclyde, in partnership with RIG Arts
  • Dumfries & Galloway, in partnership with The Stove Network

Visit Travelling Gallery’s website for more details https://travellinggallery.com/current-exhibition/

Culture and Communities Convener, Councillor Val Walker said:

It’s brilliant to see that the final period of the Travelling Gallery’s 2023 programme will be launching at Calton Hill.

It is so important to make art and culture as accessible to all, and through our ongoing support of the Travelling Gallery, art is brought straight into the hearts of town centres across Scotland. I hope everyone takes the opportunity to pay the spring exhibition a visit.

Here in Edinburgh through our Citywide Cultural Strategy 2023-2030, we are determined that our residents will be able to easily access a variety of cultural activities.

Claire Craig, Curator of Travelling Gallery says:

The great thing about a group show is that you can include different artists working in a variety of mediums from across Scotland and beyond.

It’s been a pleasure working with this group of artists and I’m really excited to take their work on a tour across the Ayrshires and Dumfries and Galloway, allowing access to art for all.

Visiting the exhibition
The exhibition will tour in the Travelling Gallery to venues throughout Scotland, between September and November 2023. Venues will be added to the  Tour Dates  page as they are confirmed. https://travellinggallery.com/tour-dates/

Travelling Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in a bus, it is a national service with the exceptional ability to reach communities and people across Scotland. We recognise that art can change lives and we create fair conditions and remove barriers to allow access and engagement to audiences in their own familiar surroundings. The gallery space offers an open and welcoming environment for people of all ages, background, and abilities to discover and enjoy contemporary art.

Travelling Gallery is a much loved and respected visual arts organisation. 2018 marked its 40th anniversary and we take pride in the fact that Scotland is committed to taking art into its communities.

“If art is for everyone then surely Travelling Gallery is the best example of that.” Andrew Menzies, driver/guide.

Over the past forty years, Travelling Gallery has brought innovative exhibitions to every part of Scotland reaching hundreds of thousands of visitors and school pupils.

Travelling Gallery is a ‘not for profit’ organisation, regularly funded by Creative Scotland and supported by the City of Edinburgh Council.

Published: September 13th 2023