The Wandering Swallow Takes Edinburgh

It’s been a while since the last time I’ve blogged. A busy summer and a move to a new city has kept me quite occupied over the last few months. But, I think it’s time for an update and some new thinking and reflections before I go back to more focused posts. 

I’ve been in Edinburgh for the past two months, and have started my Master’s in Collections and Curating Practices. My number one focus has been school and that’s left me with little time to be creative. I’m going to be honest, I miss painting. I never thought I’d say that because before Covid hit, I would be the first to tell you that I couldn’t paint. But, I think the isolation of lockdown, especially the first time around, fuelled my creativity and allowed me to explore a side of me that I had never encountered. I miss my artistic process and the freedom of holding a spray can. I did manage to do one piece in Greece before I left, on the wall outside of my village. 

On another note, the research I have been doing for my course has definitely been eye opening and is helping to pave the path for my future. My interest in socially engaged art has become very prevalent in my work and I am learning new things everyday. Museums should be looking to have more accessible, inclusive art - especially the traditional institutions like the National Galleries of Scotland, which is the placement partner for the course. Young visitors’ engagement will only increase if there are more interactive, hybrid ways of displaying art. There needs to be a move past the stuffy academic way of presenting art to a public that may not necessarily have access to that type of language and understanding but still have an interest in what is exhibited. My next post will dive deeper into these thoughts but for now it would be beneficial to contemplate the question - Who is art for?, and What are we doing to make art more accessible?