Since its inception in 2009, RSA Residencies for Scotland has supported a wide range of artists at 26 venues across Scotland. The Royal Scottish Academy has a proud tradition of promoting excellence in contemporary art in Scotland. Led by eminent artists and architects the RSA support the creation, understanding and enjoyment of the visual arts through exhibitions, artist opportunities and related educational talks and events. Re-establishing themselves as a leading organisation for the visual arts in Scotland, the RSA have successfully garnered a reputation for the strength of their engaging and diverse exhibitions and the fantastic opportunities they offer both established and emerging artists.

www.royalscottishacademy.org

Uist Corrigan:

‘My work is mainly sculptural and focuses specifically on the use of wood and metal. Through my work I seek to new learn skills and techniques that otherwise might slip into disuse. This is approached in different ways, for example, I have recently completed a series of hand tools, learning along the way processes such as how to use a forge how to turn and shape wood and mould cow horn into spoons.  I have then used these tools in a performative walk across Scotland.’

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We are delighted to be taking part in the 2024 RSA Residencies for Scotland programme. RSA Residencies for Scotland is an artist-led scheme which provides valuable research and residency opportunities for artists. It forges important networks with centres of artistic excellence across Scotland, ranging from traditional residency venues to specialised production facilities.

Open to visual artists at all stages of their careers, the emphasis is on enabling a period of research, development and production, as well as on the acquisition and exchange of new skills and experiences. Artists can apply for funds of up to £5,000 and are responsible for managing their own residency, in cooperation with the partner venue.

This opportunity is open to artists who were born in Scotland or who are currently living in Scotland (and have been for at least 3 years consecutively).

The aims of the RSA Residencies for Scotland programme are:

• To enable artists a dedicated period of research, development and production
• To reinforce links with centres of excellence across Scotland
• To provide access to technical expertise and assistance to learn new skills and techniques
• To enable the exchange of ideas and practice

For further details and to apply, please visit the RSA website.

Deadline for submissions: Sunday 14 January 2024, 17:00 

Residency dates: to take place in 2024/2025

Launched in 2009, the RSA Residencies for Scotland programme is offered on a biennial basis. Previous recipients who have worked with Bothy Project are: Calum Wallis (2022), Becky Šik (2019); Bruce Shaw (2019); Hannah Imlach (2015); Uist Corrigan (2015); Sylvia Law (2014); Kari Stewart (2013) and Isla MacLeod (2013). And of course in 2011, Bobby Niven and Iain MacLeod successfully applied for a residency with Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, during which they built Inshriach Bothy and initiated Bothy Project!

Should you have any questions about the opportunity, please email info@bothyproject.com

The RSA Residencies for Scotland programme is administered and funded by the Royal Scottish Academy and supported by The Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust and the W. Gordon Smith & Jay Gordonsmith Trust.

Calum Wallis is the most recent Royal Scottish Academy, Residencies for Scotland recipient. Calum spent one month at Sweeney’s Bothy on the Isle of Eigg, during the winter of 2022/23.

During his residency, Calum spoke to BBC Radio Scotland on 14 January 2023 for their Out of Doors programme. You can listen back to this conversation on the Scotland Outdoors podcast: The Beauly Elm, The Alyth Genius and the Elie Sauna (Calum’s interview is at 1:05:45). The podcast also features our 2023 Cairngorms Youth Local Action Group resident, Isabel McLeish, who speaks about her project on Beauly’s ancient wych elm tree (Isabel’s interview is at 29:28).

Calum Wallis (b. 1993) grew up in Ross-shire, moving in 2013 to study Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone in Dundee, where he now lives. His practice asks questions of how humans relate to the natural world, posing them in the form of drawings made in, of and with the landscape. Borrowing, isolating, rescaling and repurposing natural formations, his drawings ponder the roles of memory and expectation in our experience of nature, and the deeper memory held within the earth. His drawing practice increasingly seeks to grow fresh arms, now encompassing kinetic sculpture, performance and printmaking.

Previous residents and recipients of the Royal Scottish Academy’s Residencies for Scotland award include Becky Šik (2019), Bruce Shaw (2019), Hannah Imlach (2015), Uist Corrigan (2015), Sylvia Law (2014), Kari Stewart (2013) and Isla MacLeod (2013).

Calum’s residency was supported by the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Charitable Trust.

Image 1 – main page – Tormore Canvas Walk, installed. Photo – Fergus Tibbs.

Image 2: 86 Bricks, 2021, graphite on paper and canvas, WAPS, Dundee. Photo – Ben Douglas.

Image 3: Tormore Canvas Walk. Photo – Fergus Tibbs.

We are delighted to be a taking part in the 2022 RSA Residencies for Scotland programme. It is an artist-led scheme which provides valuable research and residency opportunities for artists. It forges important networks with centres of artistic excellence across Scotland, ranging from traditional residency venues to specialised production facilities.

Open to visual artists at all stages of their careers, the emphasis is on enabling a period of research, development and production, as well as on the acquisition and exchange of new skills and experiences. Artists can apply for funds of up to £5,000.

Previous recipients who have worked with Bothy Project are: Becky Šik (2019); Bruce Shaw (2019); Hannah Imlach (2015); Uist Corrigan (2015); Sylvia Law (2014);Kari Stewart (2013) and Isla MacLeod (2013). And of course in 2011 Bobby Niven and Iain MacLeod successfully applied for an award with Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, and built Inshriach Bothy!

Aims of the residency programme:

• To enable artists a period of research, development and production
• To reinforce links with centres of excellence across Scotland
• To provide access to technical expertise and assistance to learn new skills and techniques.
• To enable the exchange of ideas and practice

Full application details can be found here

Image: Becky Šik, still from Mercury, 2021, HD video Commissioned by: Collective. Funded by: Creative Scotland, Edinburgh City Council, Baillie Gifford. Supported by: RSA, Bothy Project