Ruth Ewan is a Scottish artist based in Glasgow, who focuses on projects looking at social movements and protests.

Early life

Ruth Ewan was born in

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

, Scotland, in 1980. She studied fine art at the

Edinburgh College of Art Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is one of eleven schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Tracing its history back to 1760, it provides higher education in art and design, architecture, histor ...

, graduating in 2002.

Exhibitions

*2006: Psittaciformes Trying to Change the World Studio Voltaire, London *2007: Ours is the world, despite all.

Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art (NGCA) is a contemporary art gallery which is based in Sunderland, England. The gallery focuses on producing exhibitions of new work by emerging and established regional, national and international artists. ...

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

*2007: Did you kiss the foot that kicked you,

Artangel Artangel is a London-based arts organisation founded in 1985 by Roger Took. Directed since 1991 by James Lingwood and Michael Morris, it has commissioned and produced a string of notable site-specific works, plus several projects for TV, film, r ...

London *2010: ''Damnatio Memoriae'', Arthur Boskamp-Stiftung,

Hohenlockstedt Hohenlockstedt is a municipality in the district of Steinburg, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is situated approximately 8 km northeast of Itzehoe. Hohenlockstedt was formerly known as ''Lockstedter Lager'' and was used as a training area ...

, Germany *2011: ''A Lock is a Gate,''

Art on the Underground Art on the Underground, previously called ''Platform for Art'', is Transport for London's (TfL) contemporary public art programme. It commissions permanent and temporary artworks for London Underground, as well as commissioning artists to create ...

, London *2011: ''Brank & Heckle'',

Dundee Contemporary Arts Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) is an art centre in Dundee, Scotland, with two contemporary art galleries, a two-screen cinema, a print studio, a learning and public engagement programme, a shop and a café bar. The director of DCA is Beth Bate ...

Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...

*2012: ''Ruth Ewan'', Kunsthall Charlottenborg,

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

*2013: ''A Revolutionary Advent Calendar'', MoMA,

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

Projects

A Jukebox of People Trying to Change the World

In 2003 Ewan began a project that is still ongoing to create an archive of songs that carry a message about changing the world. She used her own research, and that of other people. She invites participation from others, via a section on her own website. In April 2018, it was in the

Yorkshire Sculpture Park The Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) is an art gallery, with both open-air and indoor exhibition spaces, in West Bretton, Wakefield, in West Yorkshire, England. It shows work by British and international artists, including Henry Moore and Barbar ...

, Bothy Gallery, where some songs included references to Donald Trump.

We Could Have Been Anything That We Wanted to Be

Ewan created new clocks based on the French Republican Calendar which ran for 13 years from 5 October 1793. Each day was made up of 10 hours. The work is made up of ten clocks, and was commissioned for

Folkestone Folkestone ( ) is a port town on the English Channel, in Kent, south-east England. The town lies on the southern edge of the North Downs at a valley between two cliffs. It was an important harbour and shipping port for most of the 19th and 20t ...

's Triennial in 2011. There are two clocks which were made in addition to the initial ten, one red and one black. The red version is held by the Tate Britain, and the black by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.

Sympathetic Magick

In 2018, as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival, Ewan collaborated with magician Ian Saville to commission 16 political magicians to perform at various venues through the city.

Awards

* 2006:

EASTinternational EAST''international'' is an open submission exhibition that was launched in 1991 and curated by Lynda Morris at Norwich Gallery at Norwich University of the Arts. Applications from over 1,000 contemporary artists are received each year with appro ...

* 2008: Cocheme Fellowship, Byam Shaw School of Art * 2012: CREATE Art Award

References

External links

Ruth Ewan

BBC Open Air
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ewan, Ruth 1980 births Artists from Aberdeen Scottish women artists Living people