Salt
2022-23: operating at the intersection of art, science and ecology, SALT marked the start of a new body of interdisciplinary enquiry drawing upon Edinburgh’s coastal ecologies and connection to the global climate crisis. Centring upon the former site of Joppa Salt Pans – a production site for salt from the 1630s until 1953, together with areas around Seafield, the various projects developed a dialogue around considerations for coastal futures with the project culminating in an artist bookwork.
-
SALT
The first issue in a new journal series published by Art Walk Press. This publication includes chapters on the four SALT residencies produced in 2022-23 (artists Mahala Le May, Joanne Matthews, Tonya McMullan, Natasha Thembiso Ruwona) along with commissioned new writing in response to each, developed in partnership with MAP Magazine over the past year.…
-
Crude Floral
Dense with wildflowers, insects, pedestrians and people on bikes who use Seafield for foraging, dog walking, commuting, swimming, running and more, the area has been overlooked for development until recently unlike other parts of the city, possibly because of the stigma and smell attached to the nearby sewage works. McMullan is looking at plants along…
-
ENDLESS/BELLY
Curated by Natasha Thembiso Ruwona, ENDLESS/BELLY brings together varied art forms that interrogate myth, spirituality and memory in response to Black Ecologies. Its title plays with the idea that the sea is spatio- temporal and that it holds history, dis/connects geographies and is entrusted to carry lives. ENDLESS/BELLY suggests an excavation of Scotland’s role in shaping the Black…
-
Tasting Stories from the Sea
Le May is leading a series of participatory tasting sessions, discussion events and workshops, underpinned by collaboration with local community groups as well as by the artist’s research into modern salt-production technologies and historic salt industries, including at Portobello, Joppa and Prestonpans. Each event aims to celebrate and interrogate the emotional resonance of food and…
-
I looked out and saw plumes of salty air
As glaciers melt and heat evaporates water, the seas have changed. Matthews is testing speculative fictional environments in order to transform neoliberal apocalyptic narratives of doom and find hope in the dark. Weaving narratives from this parallel reality, Matthews is creating a salt world. Their work asks: how might bodies evolve to live with so much salt? And…