Output details

Real Life and How to Live it in Auld Reekie / Real Life Parledonia

Real Life and How to Live it in Auld Reekie is a project constructed from nearly 45,000 discrete elements spread around the city in dozens of public locations during the Edinburgh Festival 2013. I engage the cities ‘festival’ population in multiple dynamic contexts, exploring situations where there would be no assumption of an 'Art' experience. Utilising a wide array of statistical analysis, I address the contemporary production and consumption of art, exploring identity - individual, collective, social, political, cultural while questioning the representation of the city and its host nation. This work reflects Edinburgh’s identification with of the enlightenment and high culture but also confronts uncomfortable truths referencing drug deaths and suicides, proposing a more authentic image. I establish this dialogue in public spaces, the street, bars, record shops, tourist shops, bookshops, parks and gardens. Site-specific conversations are initiated with 15 pertinent institutions/momuments where metal signs are installed discussing the complex identity of the location. For example 'Painters' on the railings of the Royal Scottish Academy on the Mound, 'Schemes' installed on the most expensive street in Edinburgh and 'Referendum '79' on the Royal High School (where the new Scottish Government was to be located if the 1979 referendum result had succeeded) I curated an event called Real Life Parledonia (ECA) which discussed some of these questions in a lateral, elliptical manner with 12 invited participants to an audience of 120. This project developed from We Love Real Life Scotland(Deveron Arts Huntly 2012 w/5000 word reflective essay) where I initiated a dynamic public engagement over a 3 month period mining the social/political/historical identities of a small town 'with and through' its population - itself informed by Real Civic Life(Knapper, Stockholm 2010) where the complex weave and influence of international identities are explored through a vernacular of painting and protest.