Migrations: A field study of adversity

George Lakoff writes of metaphors, understanding and experiencing one thing in terms of another, that they are a form of “embodied thinking”, a discursive tool by which abstract concepts, thoughts and feelings are grasped and understood through the concrete and the everyday. Sometimes addressing traumatic events not directly, but at a slant, defamiliarizes in very insightful ways.  And so it is with Derek Robertson’s thoughtful exhibition, Migrations: A Field Study of Adversity, which employs the conceit of birds migrating—their lines of flight across borders, the dangers attendant on their journeys, their vulnerabilities, and also their will to survive against the odds – to address some of the difficult issues around the plight of refugees from which we, in our comfortable homes, might routinely avert our gaze.

DJCAD Degree Show 2022: Textile Design

Located in the Crawford building, the Textiles corridor warmly welcomes visitors. In front of large open windows, Alexa Gibson’s immersive sculpture Mellow in Yellow invites visitors to stand amongst her brightly designed, hanging textiles. The eight-foot-high pieces of fabric have been mono-printed in various intensities of yellow hues. Natural light cascades into the room and lands on the sheer fabric, activating the electric yellow, radiating a warmth that Van Gogh himself would be envious of. Visitors joyfully walk between the fabric as through trees outside; a moment of contentment usually found outdoors has been brought to life inside.

DJCAD DEGREE SHOW 2022 – FINE ART + ART & PHILOSOPHY

Between the 21st and the 29th of May 2022, we once again come together to celebrate the work of the graduating art students of DJCAD. Each student has created works that inspire and challenge our response to the world around us.

Ill Feelings

In her debut book, Hattrick addresses with gusto the poorly understood condition of ME/CFS with which both she and her mother live. Her title plays on the ambiguities relating to this ‘medically unexplained’ illness, whose very labelling continues to be contentious and divisive. Hattrick unpacks the ways sufferers feel ill, but also the feelings they have about being ill and about the attitude of others towards CFS….

How to burn a woman

In her second full-length poetry collection, Claire Askew searches for security and self-assurance within a heavily patriarchal world where institutional power reigns over individuals. Here is fiery free verse that captures beautifully the uneven forces of female empowerment and misogyny. The resolution to this tension is searched for through deftly poetic explorations of dysfunctional relationships, exploitation of the natural world, and interpretations of Salem witch trials.

DJCAD Art, Design & Architecture Degree Show 2022

DJCAD Art, Design & Architecture Degree Show 202221 – 29 May 2022 The Duncan of Jordanstone Art, Design and Architecture Degree Show returned amidst much excitement this weekend following a two-year pandemic hiatus. Now accompanied by an online version, this showcase of graduating student talent is staged within DJCAD’s studio and exhibition space, organised into three Read More

DJCAD DEGREE SHOW 2022 – FINE ART

For the first time in two years, DJCAD opens its doors to warmly welcome visitors in-person to their renowned and much anticipated Degree Show. An eclectic showcase of ambitious and exciting bodies of work from this year’s Fine Art graduates. What strikes me most is just how much there is to see. The work is dispersed throughout the college and adjoining Cooper Gallery, and it is easy to spend hours in each area of the building perusing through paintings or immersing yourself in an installation.

DJCAD Degree Show 2022 – Online Showcase

As Dean of School, Professor Anita Taylor points out in the introductory video, this year’s graduates have studied in extraordinary times. Yet by browsing the contributions the constraints of lockdown are quickly forgotten – the quality of work is outstanding, the only evidence of Covid-19’s impact is perhaps an increased presence of social themes in the work, with mental health, isolation, body image, and nature connection all featuring heavily.

A General Practice

“Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown”, Virgina Woolf’s manifesto for a new kind of fiction, starts with a small, seemingly innocuous figure who teases her, “Come and catch me if you can”. A General Practice presents a tableau vivant of brief encounters between doctor and patient in a clinic in the forgotten back streets of an unnamed French city, “tucked away behind a row of bargain shops and fast food outfits”. In its imaginative attentiveness to place, suggestion of character, and its sensitivity to the passing of time, the world that we enter in these pages is luminous with the lives of those forgotten, ignored or made invisible.