We’re delighted to announce Becky Little as the 2026 recipient of the Visual Arts Scotland Residency. Becky will spend one week at Sweeney’s Bothy in October 2026.
Becky Little is an artist and builder whose work is grounded in more than thirty years of working with earth. Her practice emerged from a long involvement with traditional buildings and craft skills, and has gradually expanded into sculpture, photography and writing.
Working across these disciplines, she uses making as a way of thinking and feeling her way into a place. Much of her work begins outdoors through walking, gathering and spending time with materials in the landscapes from which they emerge. She is interested in the relationship between nature and culture, and in how stories of land, water and people become intertwined.
Recent projects include River of Earth for the exhibition Earth Matters at Inverleith House Gallery, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and Earthbound Orkney, included in A Fragile Correspondence at the V&A Dundee. Through material portraits and place-based enquiry, these works explore relationships between people, landscape and materials, drawing on disciplines that range from geology and history to folklore and soil science.
Becky’s current project Parliament of Soils, developed through the Creative Collaborative Placement with the James Hutton Institute and LUNZ (Land Use for Net Zero), explores the voices and stories of soils within the River Eden catchment. Combining interviews, material portraits and poetry, it asks how creative practice might help us see and understand soils not simply as resources, but as living participants in the places we inhabit.
On Eigg, Becky will explore ways of listening with soils, plants and other earth-based materials, and spend time with the island’s eroding shorelines, weather and water to see what can be learned, not as a visitor, but as an artist.
Becky is the sixth resident to undertake the Visual Arts Scotland Residency. Previous residents include Olivia Priya Foster (2025), Sana Obaid (2024), Josie KO (2023), Lorna Fraser (2022) and Jo Pudelko (2021). Our ‘in discussion’ event with Josie, Lorna and Jo is available to watch here.
