Deadline for applications: 18 January 

Please see the RSA's website for full details and how to apply: https://f.mtr.cool/dlidyhmhpd

#printmaking #residencies #artistresidency #contemporaryprintmaking #royalscottishacademy #rsa

Open to artists at all stages of their careers and free to apply, the emphasis is on enabling a period of research, development and production, as well as on the acquisition and exchange of new skills and experiences.

We are thrilled to be a partner venue with the Royal Scottish Academy once again for RSA Residencies! Artists can apply for up to £5,000 to support a residency here- that can cover printmaking courses, studio fees, and materials.

Our studio workshops are supported by Fair Saturday Community Engagement Fund which supports creativity in the local community.

Our galleries will be featuring our annual Members' Exhibition - a true feast for the eyes that showcases the diversity and creativity of our studio members. Our onsite café, KUBA, will be open with the tastiest food in town!

We will also have building tours, and you can get creative yourself with our affordable printmaking workshops on Saturday 29 Nov which are suitable for all ages.

If you like something out of the ordinary, all of these works are available for purchase in-person or online!

This term, combined with the unsettling clown from the Paint advert, creates a layered symbol of unease. The clown stands in for the absurdity, unpredictability, and hostility of bureaucratic systems and social landscapes asylum seekers must navigate.

This external world is embodied by menacing clowns, a surreal but deliberate choice. Arif recontextualises the clown by referencing the local geography of Prospecthill Circus, where ‘circus’ colloquially names the area.

Through this hybrid fantasy, Arif stages a layered narrative of a mother and daughter adapting differently and unequally to an environment marked by indifference and hostility.

The work draws on the tragic figure of Heer from the Punjabi love story Heer Ranjha. Arif reimagines her as Heera, a displaced mother navigating life in a Scottish council flat with her young daughter after a flood destroys their home.

The exhibition becomes a meditation on the psychic and familial consequences of such displacements, especially for those still negotiating belonging in a place that promises refuge but often feels alien.

Arif reflects on the stark contrast between the global spectacle of Sony Bravia’s 2006 Paint advert and the overlooked realities of the community it disrupted.