The 2018 Look Again Visual Art and Design Festival got underway today (Thursday, June 14) when internationally renowned designer, Supermundane (aka Rob Lowe), unveiled his SuperAberdeen public artwork, which has been developed with local artists and schoolchildren.
For this project, Supermundane’s signature geometric style incorporates new patterns and forms made by the children of the Catherine Street Community Centre, who worked with Aberdeen-based STACK Artist Collective, resulting in a large and brightly coloured installation which celebrates the city.
Look Again animates familiar civic spaces with high-quality contemporary art and design, inviting the public to see Aberdeen through fresh eyes and ‘become a tourist in their own city’.
Crucially, the festival is not just about ‘art for art’s sake’ but is rooted in a strong commitment to deliver significant opportunities for artists and designers based in the region, with over 120 involved in developing and delivering work for the festival.
As Aberdeen considers its economic future, Look Again is laying the foundations for a new narrative in the City – a story which is about changing mind-sets and building awareness of the great potential of the region’s creative industries.
To celebrate Scotland’s Year of Young People, Look Again 2018, which take place from Thursday 14 to Sunday 17 June, will stage inspiring events and exhibit new works around the theme of ‘serious play’.
Festival director, Sally Reaper, commented: “We have an even bigger and better festival lined up for this year and are excited to be working with a host of local, national and international artists to really bring the city to life over the course of four days in June.
“What we are trying to do is to create a lasting legacy and a reinvigorated creative economy within the North-east and we believe this is a truly transformational time in the region’s history in terms of its cultural offering.”Highlights for the 2018 festival include –
- James Rigler – ‘A House in the Woods’ explores some of the diverse and contradictory strands of the gothic style, following an architectural family tree from Aberdeen’s Marischal College’s grand Gothic Revival to the Carpenter Gothic farmhouses of the American prairies
- Emily Speed – ‘Facades/Fronts’ will explore the transition to adulthood and the forming of one's identity.
- ‘Positive Geographies’ – an exhibition of new work by 2017 graduates from Gray’s School of Art. The exhibition will present film, installation, sculpture and performance art, proposing new perspectives on place in an expanding digital world, curated by Jon Blackwood
- Amy Gear – ‘Da Mooth O Da Cave’ is a large-scale, playful, interactive painting that allows anybody’s mouth to become that of the cave. This will give the landscape a voice, and explores the idea of place being made soil, sea and stone but also of people, stories and dialect
- Catrin Jeans – ‘Imagining Aberdeen’ is a project which aims to outline ideas to create a place where every child is happy, healthy and safe, and to determine barriers to this and how they might be overcome
- Ellie Turner – ‘Wonder Chamber’ is an immersive collection of magical and playful objects presented in an interactive sensory space
- Gabi Reith & Phil Thompson – 'Oor News' is a fun-filled Aberdeen newspaper, featuring monster stories from around the city to get people to Look Again at the city in a new, rich, playful manner, sharing stories about the city around the world
Look Again is delivered through a partnership between Robert Gordon University (RGU) and Aberdeen-based art curators SMART. Now in its fourth year, the 2017 festival recorded more than 35,000 engagements at its various sites across the city and on campus at RGU.
Libby Curtis, head of RGU’s Gray’s School of Art, commented: “We are thrilled to be celebrating the Year of Young People by joining forces with Look Again and reflecting its theme of ‘Serious Play’ to spotlight great visual art and design across the city.
“Right now in Aberdeen we are also reflecting on the significant value and importance of our creative energies. As a city of culture and invention, a city with a unique and distinctive identity, we are growing again through a renewed sense of purpose backed by the new Cultural Aberdeen strategy, which both Gray’s and Look Again have played a pivotal part in forming.”
The Festival is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland. Andrew Leitch, Creative Industries Officer, added: “The Look Again Festival of Visual Art & Design not only showcases the highest quality design to the people of Aberdeen and beyond but also provides a platform for the local creative industries.
“Look Again connects the city nationally and internationally and adds value to Aberdeen’s creative and cultural life.”