Collective is a

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

centre in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, Scotland. It is situated on

Calton Hill Calton Hill () is a hill in central Edinburgh, Scotland, situated beyond the east end of Princes Street and included in the city's UNESCO World Heritage Site. Views of, and from, the hill are often used in photographs and paintings of the ci ...

, in the former

City Observatory The City Observatory was an astronomical observatory on Calton Hill in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is also known as the Calton Hill Observatory. The site is enclosed by a boundary wall with a monument to John Playfair, president of the Edinburg ...

and City Dome site. It offers a programme of exhibitions, guided walking tours, audio walking tours, and events.

History

Collective was established in 1984 as the Artist's Collective Gallery and was located on

Cockburn Street Cockburn Street is a picturesque street in Edinburgh's Old Town, created as a serpentine link from the Royal Mile#High Street, High Street to Waverley Station in 1856. It is named after the then recently-deceased Scottish lawyer, judge and lit ...

in Edinburgh until 2013, when it relocated to

. It formed as a response to the artist-run

57 Gallery The 57 Gallery, later the New 57 Gallery, was an artist-run gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland, from 1957 until 1984. History The gallery was founded by a group of painters, with artist Daphne Dyce Sharp turning her studio at 53 George Street into ...

being absorbed into

Fruitmarket Gallery The Fruitmarket Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland. Since its opening in 1974, the gallery has become part of the Scottish contemporary art scene. After a period of closure to undergo a significant renovation, the ga ...

: "Dissenting New 57 members... formed Collective on the basis of the original ’57 constitution", as academic Neil Mulholland has written. Collective fundraised to restore the disused City Observatory site in partnership with

City of Edinburgh Council The City of Edinburgh Council is the local government authority for the city of Edinburgh, capital of Scotland. With a population of in mid-2019, it is the second most populous local authority area in Scotland. In its current form, the counci ...

. In 2015, Collective Architecture (no relation to Collective gallery) took over detailed design work of the site after

Malcolm Fraser Architects Malcolm, Malcom, Máel Coluim, or Maol Choluim may refer to: People * Malcolm (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters * Clan Malcolm * Maol Choluim de Innerpeffray, 14th-century bishop-elect of Dunkeld Nobility * Máel C ...

went into liquidation. Collective opened the new site in November 2018 as a centre for contemporary art. It includes the renovated City Observatory and City Dome, and two new buildings: the Hillside, an exhibition space; and the Lookout, a restaurant run by Gardener's Cottage. A new permanent sculptural work, ''Turns'', by

Tessa Lynch Tessa Lynch (born 1984 in Epsom, Surrey) is a British artist. She lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. She mimics objects and scenarios found in the urban landscape, charting the emotional impact of our built environment and the structures that sh ...

, was commissioned a part of the landscaping. Kate Gray was Director of Collective from 2009-2021. The current Director is Sorcha Carey.

Programming

Dineo-Seshee-Bopape-when-spirituality-was-a-baby-installation-view-2018

Since it was founded, Collective has supported the work of emerging artists and curators, which it continues through its Satellites Programme. Past participants of the Satellites Programme and its forerunner, New Work Scotland, include Rachel Maclean and Hardeep Pandhal. It hosted feminist academic

Silvia Federici Silvia Federici (born in Parma, Italy, 1942) is a scholar, teacher, and feminist activist based in New York. She is a professor emerita and teaching fellow at Hofstra University in New York State, where she was a social science professor. She al ...

in 2018. Since its move to Calton Hill, Collective has engaged with the history of the site through its ''Observers' Walks'', a series of audio walks created by artists including Ruth Ewan, Astrid Johnston,

Bedwyr Williams Bedwyr Williams (born 1974) in St. Asaph is a Welsh artist. He works across varied media including drawing, painting, writing and video.. Biography He studied at St Martins School of Art and Ateliers, Arnhem. In 2004, he won a Paul Hamlyn Awa ...

Tris Vonna-Michell Tris Vonna-Michell (born 1982) is a British artist who performs narratives and constructs installations through the layering of these narratives, photographs and mementos, presented using antiquated technologies and slide projection. Vonna-Michel ...

, Patrick Staff, James Hutchinson, and Catherine Payton. The City Dome at Collective has also hosted new work by artists showing in Scotland for the first time, including

Dineo Seshee Bopape Dineo Seshee Bopape is a South African multimedia artist. Using experimental video montages, sound, found objects, photographs and dense sculptural installations, her artwork "engages with powerful socio-political notions of memory, narration a ...

, Petra Bauer, James Richards, and Julijonas Urbonas.

References

External links

Official site
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