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Propositions for Art in Regional Historic Gardens

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Gayle Meikle

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Abstract

The work-in-progress presentation will offer propositions for working with Contemporary Art in remote rural and peripheral settings. The co-authors will focus on their current research on developing a contemporary art programme for Logan Botanic Garden, a specialist living collection located in the Southwest of Scotland under the custodianship of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. It is one of three specialist gardens in rural, regional locations across Scotland (Benmore to the North and Dawyck in the Borders). The garden is near the Mull of Galloway, Scotland's most southwest promontory, on the Irish Sea. The North Atlantic Drift provides milder environmental conditions enabling the garden moniker of 'Scotland's 'most exotic garden' where plants from South Africa, China, Mexico, New Zealand and Australia, amongst others, reside. The acquisition of plant life in the garden connects Plant Hunters with colonialism and transnational trading. Yet only 700 residents live in the surrounding area, with tourism increasing that population during the summer months. It is traditionally agriculture-based. However, change in food cultivation and distribution has led to a loss of employment and opportunities for agriculture in the area. The population is ageing. Those complexities are often connected to 'outposts', 'peripheral' and 'regional' places. Yet these 'outposts' have incredible agency to explore global urgencies relating to the Climate Emergency, 21st Century Rurality and imperial heritage. Our work-in-progress presentation asks how contemporary art curating can meaningfully engage with climate change and rural development whilst dislocating the centre.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Meikle G, Nicolson E

Editor(s): Jack M; British Art Network

Publication type: Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)

Publication status: Published

Conference Name: British Art After Britain; British Art Network Annual Conference

Year of Conference: 2023

Acceptance date: 09/08/2023

URL: https://britishartnetwork.org.uk/activity/conferences/british-art-after-britain/

Series Title: British Art After Britain As questions about statehood, democracy and (dis)unity rise anew in the year of a Coronation, British Art after Britain reflects on the influence of regionalisation since the historic moment of the Good Friday Agreement and founding of parliaments in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Converging with these pathways of self-determination, a decentralising agenda backed by lottery funds established new galleries and arts centres across the country at the turn of the millennium. As these organisations and their buildings approach their quartercentenary and with a renewed levelling-up plan incentivising relocation outside of London, this conference calls for a conversation about the changing provisions for art, its histories, and audiences outside of the metropolitan centre and amidst the challenges of economic and ecological permacrisis. Imagining futures beyond endurance, it asks how approaches to exhibition-making, collecting and curatorial work might negotiate, trouble and respond to the changing relations of Britain to its constituent nations and the world beyond. British Art after Britain is guest convened by Dr Marcus Jack in partnership with the Hunterian Art Gallery.

Series Editor(s): Jack, M


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