Selected Exhibitions, Events & Curatorial Projects

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Robert Callender
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Joseph Calleja
Kaori Matsumura
Niall Stevenson
Masahiro Kawanaka
Melissa Lawson
Chieko Terashima
Patrick M. Lydon
Nishiko
Stephen Kavanagh
Lotte Bosman
Paul Meikle
Yulia Kovanova

City Art Centre, Edinburgh, Scotland

Scottish artist Robert Callender (1932 – 2011) was driven by his interest in the craft of making and in the environment – particularly the coast, the sea and those who worked on it. A prodigious and technically accomplished output of paintings, work in three dimensions and printmaking is complimented by his writings – succinct prose and poetry on maritime and environmental themes. Focusing on a selection of the artist’s work, this exhibition addressed environmental concerns, ways and means of recycling; issues that underline the enduring and absolute relevance of Robert Callender’s ideas, particularly his later work which took a distinctly ecological turn with his significant installation Plastic Beach.

The exhibition also featured work by 12 artists who have taken part in the Robert Callender International Residency for Young Artists, including Joseph Calleja, Kaori Matsumura, Niall Stevenson, Masahiro Kawanaka, Melissa Lawson, Chieko Terashima, Patrick M Lydon, Nishiko, Stephen Kavanagh, Lotte Bosman, Paul Meikle and Yulia Kovanova.

David Cass
Joseph Calleja
Robert Callender

An Talla Solais, Ullapool, Scotland

Artists David Cass and Joseph Calleja started on a simple footing for this exhibition, picking the topic of coasts & coastlines principally because of the gallery’s location; but also – as artists drawn to water – they wanted to mark Scotland’s Year of Coasts & Waters.

The artists took the physical coastline as their starting point, beginning illustratively but gradually evolving. Thanks to Lateral Lab, they were permitted to include key artworks by the late coastally-concerned artist Robert Callender alongside their own. The works created for the show were just as much a response to Callender’s as they were the topic of the coast, not least in their use of found objects; a nod to the papier-mâché facsimiles that make Plastic Beach. If Callender’s works are reformed fragments of salvaged (man-made) sea debris, then Cass and Calleja’s are repurposed splinters from unknown homes – perhaps saved from decades more damp and discolouration – for they each source their materials from abandoned spaces, flea markets, salvage depots… acts which see the peripheral brought centre stage.

Throughout the creation process Cass and Calleja came together to cross reference ideas and explore forward avenues, yet ended up taking a completely different look at the coast. United in their materiality and examinations of edges, angles, borders, boundaries, they each created artworks discussing metaphorical coastlines; artworks which stand at the edge looking out, or indeed, looking in.

Banner image: Calleja | Trio above: Cass, Calleja, Cass + Calleja collaboration

Sixteen artists consider the theme of ways of thinking across five Japanese venues

Studio Kura
Paul Meikle, Yoshihito Kawabata, Yulia Kovanova, Kaori Matsumura

Art Spot Korin
Patrick M. Lydon & Suhee Kang, Niall Stevenson, Joseph Calleja & Clare Ghigo, Luis B. Guzmán

The Branch
Nishiko, Takaya Fuji

Chiodori Bunka
Melissa Lawson, Stephen Kavanagh

Kamoe Art Centre
Masahiro Kawanaka, Russell Beard

ways of thinking was Lateral Lab's two-part project to coincide with the UK in Japan 2019-20 programme. Part one was an exchange residency between Lateral Lab in Fife, Scotland, UK and Zerodate Art Centre in Odate, North East Japan; part two was a mapping exercise to capture, locate and document where and how the creative energy of the past years of Lateral Lab's residency programme made its presence felt in the places and through the relationships and networks that have developed, grown and connected with others to affect and sustain positive change. Both elements contribute to the international legacy of Tokyo's hosting of the Olympics by marking and continuing the process of artistic environmental endeavour in a Japanese and international context. 

The extensive but modest mapping and site-specific element of the project shared the work of Lateral Lab's artists and collaborators from Japan and Scotland with audiences in both countries, through new works and interventions for public sites across Japan including in Tokyo, Odate City, Nagoya, Yokohama, Shizuoka, Osaka, Kyoto, Toshigi, Hiroshima, amongst others. 

ways of thinking plotted people, places and how we connect through experience, geography and environment, capturing the cross-currents that have, and can, create new understandings and practices. 

Cultural exchange is increasingly important in these challenging times and Lateral Lab continues to be fully committed to enabling and supporting the exchange process for individual artists and host organisations; promoting and strengthening the international networks that evolve from them.

Lateral Lab enthusiastically and wholeheartedly presented a set of exhibitions titled Correspondence – a national programme for emerging artists with an international outlook as impelled by human impact on nature in the epoch of climate emergency. The project was inspired by the influential thinking of anthropologist Tim Ingold, particularly by his recent book Correspondences.

Drawn together from across Scotland, the work of these artists share a striking resonance that holds critical value for our times. Informed by scientific method and enquiry, and concerned with environmental issues, this group works across film, installation, photography, print, sculpture, and textiles. Initially brought together by Lateral Lab, a cultural trust that supports contemporary creative responses to the environment through an ecocentric spirit of exploration and international collaboration, the group showcases recent projects, with connection and ecologies as central themes.

Part one featured work by Emily Atkins, Martin Crawford, Portend Collective, and Kirsty Smith, dwelling on relationships with landscape, object, and story.

Part two presented work by Maya El Nahal, Kirsten Gair, Scott Hunter, and Johanna Saunderson, and referenced journeys, whether of the body, in memory, or material.

As a whole, the exhibitions questioned how we live together, and how we might answer the growing and urgent demands of the climate crisis and its consequent ripples in social, political, and personal spheres.

Espacio Creativo Veta, Santiago, Chile

Banner image above: Kirsty Smith