Aberdeen-based art collective STACK have been encouraging visitors to SPECTRA, to get creative and help to create their installation at this year’s festival.
STACK Collective, have been commissioned to present a specially created piece at the festival, as part of SPECTRA Commissions which invited artists from across Scotland to apply for funding to participate in the spectacular event.
STACK, a collective of early-career artists and designers, have been running artist workshops during the festival based on an anecdotal history of Aberdeen.
The art created in the workshops is then made into an installation using LED lights and Perspex and exhibited the following evening of the festival.
The installation will be added to throughout the festival and it will create a public produced artwork for all of Aberdeen to see and be part of.
The skills and energy of the artists and designers in the STACK collective will ensure that this project will create the purest audience participation installation that SPECTRA has ever seen.
Councillor Marie Boulton, Deputy Leader of Aberdeen City Council, said: “SPECTRA Commissions provides an exciting opportunity for emerging artists to show their work at a hugely successfully festival, attended by 35,000 people in 2016, and to integrate into a network of nationally and internationally renowned light and sound artists
“STACK have set themselves a huge task by creating this evolving installation but they are definitely up to the challenge, and the public are relishing the opportunity to see their work become part of this year’s festival”.
Laura Reilly from STACK Collective said: “Taking part in SPECTRA has allowed us to build on our existing skills in research, collaborative practice and delivering workshops but this is the first time we are doing so as part of a public art festival.
“Developing our piece, “Illuminated Archives”, around six full time work and study schedules has been a challenge but we have enjoyed the hard work and the stories we have to share from the Aberdeen City Archives are exciting and fascinating.
“We are really looking forward to seeing how the public interact with and illustrate these local anecdotes. Taking part in such a large-scale public art festival for the first time has helped our confidence grow both as individuals and as a group. We can’t wait to see how the “Illuminated Archives” develops over the course of SPECTRA.”
STACK Collective workshops are running Thursday February 9 - Saturday February 11, 6.30pm-9.30pm on the St Nicholas Roof Garden. The public are invited to drop-in and spend as much time “illustrating the archives” as they wish. The day after each workshop, STACK will select some of the drawings/illustrations made and they will then be shown the following night as part of the “illuminated Archives” artwork, creating a piece that will develop and grow over the SPECTRA weekend. Sunday night will see the final evolution of the installation displayed.