Hosted as part of An Lanntair’s Hebridean Book Festival, Faclan, Confluence of North opens in the art centre’s Main Gallery on Saturday October 23, presenting a creative collaboration between Scotland and Japan with an artist-led exchange project between four artists in Scotland and four artists from Spirit of North in Japan.
The Scottish artists involved are Gillian Macfarlane, Su Grierson, Inge Panneels, Kyra Clegg; and from Japan, Maruyama Yoshiko, Asai Mariko, Maruyama Tokio, Takizawa Tatsushi. The collaboration has also led to a series of exhibitions and events engaging additional artists and audiences in both countries.
Focusing on new working structures and processes, the project has connected artists from Northern latitudes separated by geographical distance, since 2013. It aspires to a global network through which northerners from across the world, and anyone drawn to the north, can build a ‘northern philosophy’ and understand the northern cultural ‘spirit’.
This is based on the idea that ‘North’ is always conditional, a direction rather than a location, and that our ideas about it can be fundamental to how we see and relate to our own life and culture.
Confluence of North contains both newly commissioned and pre-existing artworks from digital media to silk prints to watercolour to glass works. A final publication will also connect artists with audiences in both countries.
FREE to attend, the exhibition opening of Confluence of North takes place on Friday, October 22, 5pm-7pm, and the show will run in An Lanntair’s Main Gallery until November 27.
A Confluence of North online symposium with the Scottish and Japanese artists involved will take place on Sunday 24 October. Please check An Lanntair events for further details.