Outset Scotland supported James N Hutchinson's week-long residency in Sweeney's Bothy on the Isle of Eigg in the summer of 2016.
Having already supported the Constellations Programme at Collective, Outset Scotland was especially pleased to make this significant residency opportunity available to James N Hutchinson at a critical moment in his long-term research project for Collective, entitled 'Rumours of a New Planet'. This additional support was offered as part of Outset Scotland's three-year relationship with the Bothy Project.
'Rumours of a New Planet' was an expansive and revelatory project that looks at secondary narratives hidden beneath the dominant narratives of Calton Hill. Hutchinson's research has involved travelling and gathering disparate strands of research drawn from the international excursions of nineteenth-century British scientists. His residency on Eigg afforded him the time and space take stock of a recent trip he had been on - based on an excursion through Europe made by the early career geologist Jessica Duncan in 1853 - and begin the process of weaving together the various scientific and art-historical narratives that he had unearthed.
Amongst other outcomes from this residency, Hutchinson also made a drawing of the surface of the water of Lake Garda and produced a piece of writing that considers narratives embedded in Eigg’s geology in relation to Bolca, a fossil site north of Verona. This piece can be read on the Bothy Project blog.
James N Hutchinson is an artist based in Glasgow who studied a PhD at the Glasgow School of Art. Exhibitions and curatorial projects include: Voices from the Archive, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, 2016/17; All That Is Solid Melts Into, with Jeremy Deller, Hayward Touring, London, 2013; Proposal For A Warehouse or Towards A Museum Of Reorganisation (Skye/Istanbul/Beijing), part of How to Turn the World by Hand, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, and PiST, Istanbul, 2011. He ran the self-initiated curatorial agency The Salford Restoration Office from 2006 to 2010, and is a member of Chapter Thirteen.
The Bothy Project was initiated by artist Bobby Niven and architect Iain MacLeod, who created their first art residency bothy – Inshriach Bothy near Aviemore – in 2011. Sweeney’s Bothy on the Isle of Eigg was realised in 2013, followed by Pig Rock Bothy, which sits in the grounds of the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, in 2014.
Collective is a contemporary visual arts organisation that brings people together around the production and presentation of new work. Established in 1984, Collective has been fundamental to the cultural vitality of Scotland by supporting new work by artists who are at a pivotal stage in their development. They provide artists with the opportunity to make new work and audiences the chance to see it first at Collective. Their programme of exhibitions, walks, events and off-site projects presents contemporary art in all its diversity. They create opportunities for participation, mutual learning and dialogue by opening out processes of art production, connecting with other fields and encouraging new developments.
