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Arkade Studio Residents - Organisations
Open Road
We Are Here Scotland
We Are Here Scotland
Our passion is to tell stories and help you tell yours.
We achieve this through our own events, cultural projects, productions, community work and talent development, and we can help you with yours. We can produce large scale national productions, as well as guide your community through storytelling projects of the past, present and possible futures. We’re also here to offer advice, mentoring and training. We’ve worked with organisations from the National Theatre of Scotland to Scottish Communities Climate Action Network and have gathered together a few examples of the work we’ve undertaken below.
We Are Here Scotland
We Are Here Scotland
We Are Here Scotland
We Are Here is a Community Interest Company with an aim to amplify the voices BPoC (Black People and People of Colour) in particular Artists and Creatives who reside in Scotland with opportunities to share their work, connect with each other, and have their voices heard within the wider art community. The presence of BPoC artists and creatives working within Scotland's creative industries are significantly underrepresented.
This must change.
From visual arts, music, dance, poetry, photography, and much more, our stories need to be heard. The conversation has to start somewhere and we hope this space will provide you with a sense of community, inspiration and motivation, whilst also reaffirming the importance of BPoC representation within the arts in Scotland.
Elev8 Arts
We Are Here Scotland
Elev8 Arts
Based in Aberdeen, Elev8arts C.I.C. deliver and develop art projects connecting artists to the public, community, business or the third sector. We are here to work with artists in ways which benefit our communities and are always looking for good people to work with to make that happen!
Arkade Studio Residents
Maja Zećo
Ica Headlum
Jenny Hood
Maja Zećo [maya zecho], originally from Sarajevo and now based in Aberdeen, is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans performance art, sound, video and installation. As she works in different geographic and institutional contexts, her works are often site-specific and relational, negotiating personal and group narratives of identity and history. She has exhibited internationally. In 2019 Maja obtained a PhD in fine art, on sound and performance art practice, based at Gray’s School of Art (RGU) with the support of the Sonic Arts Programme at the University of Aberdeen.
Jenny Hood
Ica Headlum
Jenny Hood
Working primarily in photography and digital collage, her work undertakes explorations of a range of preoccupations, including the construction/deconstruction of the self, both online and off, the tensions in our relationships with the non-human world, and seeking often missed details of the every day.
Under her ‘Corvid Eyes‘ remit she has completed site-specific outdoor and indoor collaged ‘paste ups’ across Scotland. As a working moniker, ‘Corvid Eyes’, describes a ‘magpie’ method of working- collecting a miscellany of imagery from a variety of historical and contemporary sources, to be reassembled into new narratives of sorrow, joy, and the absurd.
As a creative practitioner she also offers a range of workshops, and has worked in partnership with organisations across Aberdeen city and shire, including Elev8 Arts, Creative Learning, Aberdeen Performing Arts, The Barn, The Fife Arms, and many more.
Ica Headlum
Ica Headlum
Lachlan Wilson
Originally from London Ica Headlam is Creative Practitioner who moved to Aberdeen in 2004.
In late 2017 Ica started to independently produce and host Creative Me Podcast a fortnightly show that explores creativity, art, and culture in the North East of Scotland, with an aim to draw a wider focus on Aberdeen's creative community. Ica moved into All In Ideas in August 2018.
He is also the founder of We Are Here Scotland a non-profit organisation that aims to amplify the voices of Black and People of Colour artists and creatives across Scotland. The organisation's work is rooted in anti-racism practice, mentoring, project development, and creating events that further highlights the work and achievements of Black and People of Colour artists and creatives.
Ica is a strong advocate for representation across Scotland's creative industries and values the importance of open and honest dialogue.
Lachlan Wilson
Alan Davidson (Kitchen Cynics)
Lachlan Wilson
I am an oil painter working at Arkade Studios. My practice concerns the emotional relationship one has with the landscape as an urban person in the present day. Many of my compositions come from views from vehicles or buildings which represents the distance I feel from the actually existing landscape, as well as my anxieties, insecurities and self-consciousness about it, and about being a landscape painter that has such a distanced and alienated relationship with the landscape itself.
Alan Davidson (Kitchen Cynics)
Alan Davidson (Kitchen Cynics)
Alan Davidson (Kitchen Cynics)
Alan Davidson trained at Gray's School of Art many years ago, winning first prize in the Contemporary Art Society's 'Interior Motives' exhibition.
For a few decades he abandoned his artwork in favour of music, recording as Kitchen Cynics.
Since taking a place in The Anatomy Rooms he has gradually returned to oil painting, collage and illustration, and now splits his studio time between art and music.
Michael Hautemulle
Alan Davidson (Kitchen Cynics)
Alan Davidson (Kitchen Cynics)
Within my practice, I employ a broad range of media to explore the concept of time –
time rendered finite and limited through the act of measurement. Whether measured geologically, astrologically, by my lifetime, or through societal perspectives, I investigate how the omnipresence of death and the pressure of limited time imposes and instills values. What constitutes productivity, progress, pleasure, beauty, and value in the face of mortality? How do I, within my impermanency, consume or have my time consumed? In this exploration, my practice spans sculpture, film, audio, drawing, painting, writing, embroidery, performance, and installation. I often use contrasting elements to create open-ended allegories; allegories that quizzically point to what is perceived as virtue and vice rather than defining what they are.
My current area of research focuses on the relationship between the notion of Heaven, utopia, and fantasy; both as a verb and as a genre.
Karoliina Wright
Karoliina Wright
Karoliina Wright
I am inspired by the constant change and fluctuation, according to set patterns, traditions and passed-down knowledge in nature. There is something soothing in the constant state of change and order that the natural world lives by. I look for pattern and movement in my surrounding and use my work as a way to respond to it.
Miles Benzies
Karoliina Wright
Karoliina Wright
Explorations at time of writing (23-01-24):
Letterforms - simple resonant/reflective phrases - photographs of people around me - see time as an ingredient - economy of line - simplicity - acceptance - health - the process included in the piece - light and the opacity of different materials - archiving - calcium carbonate and how seashells grow over time - natural materials - synthetic materials styled as natural materials - artificiality - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Materials/tools most used at time of writing (23-01-24):
Audio:
Digital: Sound recorder (phone + dictaphone), laptop keyboard as musical keyboard, digital audio workstation, retro computer game music samples,
Analog: voice, drum machine.
Visual:
Digital: Scanner, various imaging software, mirrorless camera, phone camera, mono laser printer.
Analog: Paper, ink (fluorescent, biro, archival, permanent), repurposed packaging, point and shoot camera, 50mm prime lens, colour photo film, torch, found seashells."
Jim Ewen
Karoliina Wright
Andrew Meechan
- Once upon a time joiner and carpenter.
- Four undergraduate and one post-grad late bloomer years at art school.
- Jumped head first into music venue ownership and management with Dr Drakes and then occasional music promoter as 'Arkade Projects'.
- Established, as Director of, art charity All In Ideas SCIO in 2016.
- Founded The Anatomy Rooms and manage Arkade Studios therein.
- Multi-layered arts practice across drawing, object making, sound art and experimental music.
- Ambient electronica made as solo musician Two Back Joe with one album release ‘Everything Breathes and Moves’.
- Drummer in, and manage, clash reggae band Titans.
- Creating unique environments that enable artists and musicians still a passion. Funding applications to do so not so much.
Andrew Meechan
Mary Butterworth
Andrew Meechan
Andrew is an artist and researcher interested in media and how we interact with it.
They studied Contemporary Art Practice at Gray's School of Art as an undergraduate before moving to post-graduate research in Psychology at Robert Gordon University. Their research mostly focuses on how extreme groups use emerging social media platforms for discourse, communication, and recruitment.
A significant portion of their undergraduate work focused on video and instillation work. After graduating they have been experimenting with different ways of making artwork, including returning to abstract painting and printmaking.
They have been involved in several projects around Aberdeen. Including collaborating as a supporting artists during the Wonderland Festival (2022) to produce a set of instillations modelled on sensory spaces. For three years they edited a section of the University of Aberdeen student newspaper, The Gaudie.
Mary Butterworth
Mary Butterworth
Mary Butterworth
A self-taught artist, painting professionally from her studio in Aberdeen at Arkade Studios. Featured in numerous North East galleries, including the family run Butterworth Gallery, Mary is celebrated for her atmospheric paintings and night scenes. Her work often explores contemporary spaces that serve as havens for reflection and solace, highlighting the dramatic interplay of light. Mary's artistic signature lies in her rich palette, profound depth, and the emotional resonance that permeates her creations, making her distinctive style instantly recognisable and sought after by private collectors world wide.
Over the last 10 years, she has dedicated herself to nurturing the local arts scene, contributing not only as an artist but also as a producer of various art projects, charity fundraisers and independent projects as founding director of Elev8arts C.I.C. Mary passionately believes in the profoundly human need for creativity and expression. A graduate in psychology and philosophy from Edinburgh University, this academic background is seamlessly woven into her works, with a keen interest in wellbeing, psychological response and the dynamic interplay between spaces and emotions.
As she continues to explore themes surrounding emotional spaces in both natural and urban environments, her recent journey delves into the meanings and associations within objects, most recently focusing on themes of memory, decay, comfort, and loss. Mary's art not only invites viewers into mood driven realms but also encourages contemplation of our environment and the intricacies of and the human experience.
Cat Bramblethorn
Mary Butterworth
Mary Butterworth
Cat is a basket maker living in the North east of Scotland.
Having a love for nature and the outdoors she spent her early life being in the woods or along the coast.
She studied Conservation Biology at Aberdeen University where her love for plants and animals grew. She now uses her passion for nature and Art to weave functional sculpted baskets at her workshop in Aberdeenshire.
Bramblethorn Baskets are handmade using a mix of local and Somerset grown willow. They are all unique as she loves to explore a variety of shapes and the effect different willow varieties have on bark colour and texture.
She is a member of both the Scottish Basketmakers' Circle and The Baskermakers' Association