THE SILENT ARCHIVE
INVERLEITH HOUSE
9th FEBRUARY - 12th MAY 2024

I'm delighted to have work in the Silent Archive, a group show at Inverleith House. For the past few months I've been looking into the collections held in RBGE's herbarium, library and archives, and the result is a series of new prints ('Footnotes'), and 'preliminary research', which engages with the books, cuttings, specimens and other information and biographies held within.

"Painful truths, surprising revelations and fresh perspectives on humanity’s complex relationships with the botanical world emerge from our exhibition Silent Archive.

International artists reveal RBGE’s archives in new ways, challenging us to discover hidden narratives and hear long-ignored voices that are preserved in our collections. Significant works that tell stories of scientific discoveries, colonial histories and cultural heritage are displayed for the first time. Plant artistry, photography, music and more help convey how these archives shape our view of history, whose past they represent and how they might inspire change."
The Silent Archive

I'm absolutely thrilled and honoured for Belonging to be recognised for this...

Absolutely thrilled to be longlisted! James Cropper Wainwright Prize!

Boundary Layers, my film essay about Ravenscraig, the former site of Europe's largest steelworks, is part of A Fragile Correspondence Scotland+Venice, Scotland's Collateral event for the 23rd Venice Architecture Biennale, 20 May – 26 November 2023, _docks_cantieri cucchini, S. Pietro di Castello, 40, 30122 Venice.

Delighted to be having a show at the CCA, with Annalee Davis, April 9th - May 21st, 2022, info below...

exhibition info


e-invite

I'm delighted to say that my next book, be/longing: understories of nature, family and home, will be published by Canongate in August 2022

...any news will usually be posted on instagram or even twitter

Beyond chuffed to have become a Guardian Country Diarist. My first entry, about the lovely peewit, is here

radio
BBC Radio 4 Outsiders, Life, Still
Five writers on how a year of lockdowns has changed their relationship with the nature on their doorstep. This is nature writing for the ordinary, overlooked and not-so-great outdoors close to home.

What happens to nature writing when our access to the great outdoors becomes restricted? We asked writers to reflect on their personal experience of the past year and tell us about their small journeys into the outside world. Those patches of ground, water and sky close at hand which somehow seem more precious now that our access to the outdoors has become so strictly rationed.

In episode four, the artist and writer Amanda Thomson records the natural year unfolding around her Highlands home, which forms a jarring disconnect with the news cycle drifting in from the world beyond. Parts of this piece had their origin in another essay, 'Still, Life', which was commissioned by the Willowherb Review for the Aerial Festival.

books
microbursts, by Elizabeth Reeder and Amanda Thomson (2021)
A Scots Dictionary of Nature Amanda Thomson (2018)

anthologies
The Wild Isles, An Anthology of the best British and Irish Nature Writing edited by Patrick Barkham (2021)
Antlers of water: Writing on the nature and environment of Scotland edited by Kathleen Jamie (2020)

writing online
Still Life Aerial Festival
ox-e'en, Willowherb Review

University of Westminster, Marylebone Road, London, 7 - 9th February 2014

Just presented a paper 'becoming art in a becoming forest' at this really interesting multi-disciplinary conference examining how nature is being understood in contemporary cultural and artistic production.

Delighted to say that my essay in darkness there are no landmarks has been long listed for the 2017 Notting Hill Editions Essay prize

I've work in an exhibition at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh: 8th November 2013 - 26 January 2014, organised by the lovely Cape Farewell folk.

Sea Change

Jan Davis has written a great report on September 2013's Impact8 International Print Conference which was held at the University of Dundee, for IMPRINT magazine (Vol. 48 No. 4), which is the journal of the Australian Print Council. Jan talks about some of my work, and the paper I presented at that conference. It's a really nice journal about printmaking. A link to Imprint's website: IMPRINT

I'll be presenting a paper at the Impact8 International Printmaking Conference: a celebration of interdiscipliniarity and exploration through the medium of print @ the University of Dundee, Scotland, from the 28th August - 1st September 2013. More info. about the conference here:
Impact8

I will have an article based on elements of my PhD research in a special issue of The Geographical Review looking at geographically oriented creative expressions, and edited by Sallie Marston and Sarah de Leeuw, coming out in 2013

Glasgow Women's Library is celebrating 21 years and I am one of the 21 women artists to create an edition of prints, inspired by the items and artefacts from GWL, to mark the occasion. The group show takes place at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow from 22nd September - 13th October 2012, details as follows:
21 Revolutions CCA, 350 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, G2 3JD

I have an article in the latest Performance Research journal: 17:4 On Ecology

I'm presenting a paper on 'The Making of Place' at the above conference, which is taking place at Wilfred Laurier University/ University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, May 28th - June 2nd

I'm presenting a paper entitled Walking as Markmaking at DRAWING OUT: 2012: a transdisciplinary conference and collaboration between RMIT Melbourne & The University of the Arts London, taking place at the National Gallery, Chelsea College of Art and Wimbledon College of Art, 28th - 30th March 2012.

I've been involved in a joint project with another artist and philosopher, and anscientist. Funded by Edinburgh Beltane via ASCUS - a group dedicated to setting up art/science collaborative projects - and with an end point in the realm of public engagement, the project uses scientific and artistic approaches to birdsong to investigate place and spatiality, and the communication of such information.

The exhibition accompanying the project is on at ASCUS, Unit 34, St James Centre, Edinburgh, Scotland until the end of February - 10am - 6pm except Tuesdays...

The blog accompanying the Project can be found at
a dissimulation of birds

The video Craws 1 will be shown as part of this conference, which runs in Edinburgh, 7th - 10th December, at the InSpace multimedia lab, 1 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB

I was recently invited to contribute to the Ashden Directory's New Metaphors for Sustainability: metaphors for the continuation of life, and my entry can be found here

The Directory and blog is a great source for information about environmentalism and sustainability and the arts

Over the last decade, Cape Farewell has been exploring cultural responses to climate change drawing together artists, scientists, cultural theorists, writers and others in a series of expeditions, conversations and different outcomes. This year's Scottish expedition is around the Inner and Outer Hebrides, and I have been delighted to have taken part, sailing on the leg from Skye, via Canna, Mingulay, Vatarsay and Barra to South Uist. Details of the expedition, as well as a blog can be found at Cape Farewell Scottish Expedition 2011

I've three digital pieces in a group show at Latitude 53 Gallery, 10248 - 106 Street Edmonton, Alberta T5J 1H7 CANADA, from 23rd June - 23rd July 2011

There's a nice review of the show in
The Edmonton Journal

And also at
vueweekly

One of my installations and books is included in a summer reading room, at the Centre for Book and Paper arts in Chicago: the world as text

June 16th - August 12th 2011

Centre for Book and Paper Arts
1104 S. Wabash Avenue, Suite 200
Chicago, Illinois 60605 USA

Solo show at the Bakery Gallery, Davenport, Iowa - opening Thursday 14th April, 6pm - 8pm, show runs 14th April - 7th June (great bakery too!)


Check out www.thebakerygallery.blogspot.com and curator Joseph Lappie's website: pepticrobotpress.com

A solo show at the Tent Gallery, Edinburgh College of Art, 30th March - 7th April 2011, opening 30/4/11, 5pm - 7pm

... a collaborative interdisciplinary learning workshop for researchers took place at Dundee Contemporary Arts in November 2010. This 5 day practice-based experimental methodologies workshop involved 10 artists, film-makers and experimental geographers - we'll be producing an on-line Creative Practice Primer...

SEVERAL FORESTS
new works and works in progress
Academy Gallery
Moray College, Elgin
Opens on the 15th October 2010

In May 2010 I'll be participating in an international symposium and workshop at the University of Edinburgh, "A week-long training workshop dedicated to developing a diverse range of craft skills associated with audio, visual and site-specific methodologies..." Organised by Michael Gallacher at the University of Edinburgh, it will It will involve hands-on practical workshops led by leading academics and creative practitioners from the sonic and visual arts.

Check out
michaelgallagher.co.uk/experimenting-wi…

A series of digital prints, "haste can do nothing with these hills" in a show looking at the links between art and the geology of Scotland
University of Aberdeen
Meston Building
Kings College
Aberdeen

an etching in RSA's Spring Open, 2009: Small scale works by contemporary artists and architects
The Mound, Edinburgh 18th April - 20th May

Work in Case-by-Case basis, a print and mixed media show which opens 6th March at Lloyd Dobler Gallery, 1545 W. Division 2nd floor Chicago,IL 60642

www.lloyddoblergallery.com/news.html

I've work in an interesting group show at Dominican University's O'Connor Art Gallery
January 28 - February 28, 2009

Opening Reception
Wednesday, January 28
4-8pm (extended opening!)


"Exhibiting artists include emerging and established internationally recognized and Chicago-based artists: Conrad Bakker, Jason Lazarus, The Franks, Nicholas Frank, Amanda Repo Taiwo Thomson, Carrie Schneider, Carey Lin and Andrew Coppersmith

The exhibition features work that explores the social, political and emotional being of the artist. While some works meditate on material and existential aspects of a committed practice, others comment on the art world itself."

The O'Connor Art Gallery is located 7900 West Division, River Forest, Illinois.

link to the gallery website is: www.dom.edu/departments/artDepartment/g…

press release about the show:
www.dom.edu/events-news/media-releases/2008-12/article_0009.htm

Delighted to say I've been awarded a grant from the Arts Trust of Scotland to attend a Banff Arts Centre masterclass in January 2009

In January/ February 2009 I'll be at the Banff Arts Centre, Canada attending a 7 week Masterclass - 'Road Show: Travels of the Artist' led by artist, writer and curator Ken Lum

September - October 2008 I was on a three week residency at Ox-bow, in Saugatuck, Michigan, USA

Two of my prints are in a great group show at Western Exhibitions, 5th July - 16th August 2008, with a reception on the 12th July, 6-9.

westernexhibitions.com/current/summer08…

School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Gallery 2 and Project Space
847 W Jackson
2nd & 3rd floor
Chicago, Il, 60607
USA

April 25th - May 16th 2008

Exhibition hours; Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 6pm
Extended viewing; April 30th & May 16th, 11am - 9pm

Opening Reception
April 25th 2008, 9pm - 11pm


www.saic.edu/g2_projectspace