Lateral Lab

Founded in 2012, Lateral Lab pioneers cutting-edge responses to the environment through an ecocentric spirit of exploration, risk-taking and international collaboration. It supports young artists and public engagement in all its projects at home and abroad. We are a Scottish/UK based international cultural trust concerned with visual art and environment, established to continue the legacy of Scottish artist Robert Callender through his support of young artists and his lifelong interest and activity in Japan. We are a board of artists and curators with an excellent track record of staging exhibitions, educational opportunities, events, performances and also publishing while managing an exchange residency over the years for young artists from Edinburgh & Japan.

RCIRYA

Also founded in 2012, the Robert Callender International Residency for Young Artists offers opportunities to emerging artists graduating from Japan and Scotland at the start of their profession, developing new relationships and extending our network for the benefit and support of young artists. We offer a summer month to live & work in Sea Loft, an outstanding international studio situated on the beautiful Fife coastline and within easy reach of the city; and, a further month working in Japan in major art centres and the opportunity to exhibit in both Scotland and Japan. Residency artists who are involved to date: Joseph Calleja, Kaori Matsumura, Niall Stevenson, Masahiro Kawanaka, Melissa Lawson, Chieko Terashima, Patrick M Lydon & Suhee Kang, Nishiko, Stephen Kavanagh, Lotte Bosman, Paul Meikle, Yulia Kovanova, Russell Beard, and Luis Guzman.

 
 
 

2012

Exhibitions in Contemporary Art Space, Osaka, Japan

Art Shower | group show with artist in residence Joseph Calleja

Stratum | solo exhibition by Joseph Calleja in Weissraum Kyoto

2013

Contemporary Art Space, Osaka, Japan

Art Shower | group show with artist in residence Niall Stephenson

Shards of Zen | residency and public events at Sea Loft with Joseph Calleja and Kaori Matsumura

Lateral Lab interventions at Summerhall by residency artists Joseph Calleja and Kaori Matsumura

2014

West Ward Dundee established with Lateral Lab involved

Contemporary Art Space, Osaka, Japan

Art Shower | group show with artist in residence Melissa Lawson

Residency and public events at Sea Loft with Niall Stevenson and Masahiro Kawanaka

Proposition Void | Fettes Gallery, Edinburgh with Lateral Lab residency artists | Curated by Jake Bee

2015

Contemporary Art Space, Osaka Japan

Art Shower | group show with artist in residence Patrick Lydon

A2B | Robert Callender edition in a box published by Lateral Lab and launched at Sea Loft. Funded thanks to subscribers and Creative Scotland. Copies of A2B are now in the collections / libraries of the National Galleries of Scotland, Scottish Poetry Library, University of Dundee, University of Edinburgh, British Library, Bodleian Library Oxford, Cambridge University Library National Libraries of Scotland, Wales and Ireland among others.

A2B Exhibition | Scottish Fisheries Museum, Anstruther, Fife

2016

Residency and public events at Sea Loft with Patrick Lydon/Suhee Kang and Nishiko

The Final Straw | film screening, Patrick Lydon/Suhee Kang | Falkland Centre for Stewardship programme, talk and workshop

2017

Nomadic residency throughout Japan | Stephen Kavanagh

Residency and public events at Sea Loft with Stephen Kavanagh and Lotte Bosman

Art Spot Korin, Kyoto, Japan | Exhibition residency artists

Residency artist Paul Meikle with Satellietgroep, The Hague, Netherlands

Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh Lateral Lab Residency Artists interventions Nishiko and Lotte Bosman

2018

Robert Callender: Plastic Beach …poetry of the everyday | City Art Centre, Edinburgh

Lateral Lab curated major solo exhibition of work by Robert Callender and events and an exhibition of work and documentation by artists who have taken part in the residency

Fisheries Museum Anstruther & Lochgelly Centre, Fife | Fife Contemporary curated selection Robert Callender: Plastic Beach

Residency and public events and screenings at Sea Loft with Yulia Kovanova and Paul Meikle

2019

FRAG'M NT (T E R R A N O N - F I R M A) | Science Festival exhibition Presented by Summerhall, ASCUS Art & Science Edinburgh and Lateral Lab | Emerging from the social, geopolitical and environmental uncertainty of the 'Anthropocene' time period – Frag'm nt (Terra Non-Firma) brings together two recent recipients of Lateral Lab's Robert Callender International Residency for Young Artists, Russell Beard and Stephen Kavanagh. In this joint exhibition, they explore the space between order and chaos, growth and disintegration. The series of sculptural works charts the artists' ongoing experimentation with raw materiality.

Residency and public events at Sea Loft with Russell Beard and Tokumasa Matsubuchi

Artist in residence Yulia Kovanova | Odate City, Japan

As Coastline is to Ocean | Joseph Calleja, David Cass and Robert Callender at An Talla Solais Gallery Ullapool | Initiated & curated by Calleja & Cass in association with Lateral Lab

The Sound of Mull | a. rawlings, performance poet | Sea Loft Residency, performance and publication in association in association with Lateral Lab

2020

ways of thinking | Curated by Lateral Lab. British Council & Creative Scotland funded | Project manager: Tim Fitzpatrick | A mapping project threading across Japan. The project will plot 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.

Bringing together newly created works made in conjunction with these venues and sites throughout Japan during May - July 2020, the project as a whole will be recorded and published in map form, also available online, designed and accessible for Japanese and English-speaking audiences. The map form publication will be a guide-functional and a means of publicising the project- but also an enduring and beautifully designed document of the project, also available online, designed and accessible for Japanese and English-speaking audiences.

ways of thinking | Artist / art centre list:
Joseph Calleja, Kaori Matsumura, Niall Stevenson, Masahiro Kawanaka, Melissa Lawson, Chieko Terashima, Patrick M Lydon & Suhee Kang, Nishiko, Stephen Kavanagh, Paul Meikle, Yulia Kovanova, Russell Beard, Luis Guzman. Takaya Fujii, Yoshihito Kawabata, Atsuo Hukada, Shuhei Fukuda

Sapporo, Hokkaido | Tenjinyama Art Centre, Gunma | Concept Space, Tokyo | AIR 3331, Shizuoka | Masayoschi Suzuki Gallery, Osaka | Contemporary Art Space Osaka, The Branch, Chidori Bunka, Kyoto | Art Spot Korin, Weissraum Galerie, Tochigi | Tochigi Prefectural Museum, Kochi | Museum of Art, Fukukuoka | Studio Kura

Residency and public events at Sea Loft with residency artists

2021

Sixteen Ways of Thinking | Curated by Lateral Lab. British Council & Creative Scotland funded | Project manager: Tim Fitzpatrick

Sixteen Ways of Thinking is a new short film from Lateral Lab. It draws together the reflections, memories and imaginings of 16 artists from around the world and who came together during 2020 in a shared Lateral Lab and British Council project in art spaces across Japan.

The shared exhibition - under the title of ‘ways of thinking’ - was commissioned as part of the Cultural Olympiad and was intended to have run in parallel with the now postponed Olympic Games.

That series of exhibitions, and the difficulties of staging them at all, has given rise to this short film which, in turn, seeks to describe and locate a shared inner peacefulness and clarity of purpose as a very small counterweight to the turbulence of a year in a pandemic.

2022

Lateral Lab enthusiastically and wholeheartedly proposes Correspondence - A new national programme for emerging artists with an international outlook as impelled by human impact on nature in the epoch of climate emergency. The project is inspired by the influential thinking of anthropologist Tim Ingold, particularly by his recent book Correspondences.

Lateral Lab extends its support to emerging artists graduating from all FE institutions in Scotland for the first time

Kirsty Smith | Maya Reid | Scott Hunter | Kirsten Gair | Mhairi Fenton | Martin Crawford | Emily Atkins | Chloe Charlton + Emily Charlton | Johanna Saunderson

A copy of the text given to all artists and those involved in the project | Introductory online sessions for artists and our affiliates

Masterclass with Tim Ingold

Mentoring sessions with Luis Guzman

2023

Correspondence exhibitions responding to Tim Ingold’s text

Art Spot Korin | curated by LL assisted by Masahiro Kawanaka | This exhibition questions how we live together, and how we might answer the grown and urgent demands of the climate crisis and its consequent ripples in social, political and personal spheres:

Part 1 - featuring work by Emily Atkins, Martin Crawford, Portend Collective and Kirsty Smith - dwelling on relationships with landscape, object and story

Part 2 - featuring work by Maya El Nahal, Kirsten Gair, Scott Hunter, and Johanna Saunderson - reflecting on journeys, weather of body, in memory or material

Gallery Veta | curated by Correspondence artists with assistance from Luis Guzman, Espacio VETA and Lateral Lab

2024

ephemeral terrain | a virtual fundraising exhibition on this website: enter here

 
 
 
 

We would like to thank all the individuals, Trusts and Foundations for generously supporting our programme in the last eight years. They include: Creative Scotland Lottery Funds, Edinburgh College of Art/University of Edinburgh, Henry Moore Foundation, Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, The British Council, The Hope Scott Trust and a number of private funders.