Fife Contemporary Art & Craft PROGRAMME
ARTISTS’ SPACE
TREAT STORE
Annual Report 2015-16 /fifecontemp @fifecontemp @fifecontemp
Support to artists Providing support to artists in Fife and beyond continues to be at the core of FCA&C’s activity: CPD events for artists 3 events were organised - Cultural Enterprise Cascade Workshop, annual Artists’ Forum, Heat Exchange II Symposium. These were attended by 109 people. Newsflashes 54 newsflashes were sent out to a mailing list which grew to 670 recipients by the end of March 2016, an increase on the previous year of just over 10%. Artists’ Grants A total of 18 artists’ grants were made, 5 Mentoring awards, and 3 Development Programme awards. These are co-funded by Creative Scotland, Fife Council & Fife Cultural Trust, and administered by FCA&C with Fife Cultural Trust. General advice FCA&C was contacted by 65 artists from Fife and beyond for advice on a wide variety of artistic matters.
“I thought the Symposium was WONDERFUL – you had such an interesting group of people presenting their work, and everything ran so smoothly.” Attender at Heat Exchange II symposium
Exhibitions & Projects FCA&C organised 5 exhibitions plus 1 which toured to 3 Scottish venues visited by 20,844 people
Portraits + Ran in Kirkcaldy Galleries to complement the Artists’ Rooms ‘Diane Arbus’ exhibition. It was seen by 5,877. Craft Generation In 2015-16, toured to Paisley Museum, Gracefield Arts Centre (Dumfries), & St Fergus Gallery (Wick). It was seen by 5,461. Robert Callender A2B Was FCA&C’s first exhibition collaboration with the Scottish Fisheries Museum & was seen by 3,842 visitors. Heat Exchange II The result of FCA&C’s first partnership with Craft in the Bay, Cardiff, bringing international enamel work to St Andrews Museum. It was seen by 1,974 people. Poetrytreat For StAnza 2016, 6 poets were invited to write a poem in response to a piece of work from treat Store’s new range. Shown at St Andrews Town Hall & seen by 1,361 people. Shelters FCA&C’s Festival of Architecture 2016 exhibition began in March 2016 at Kirkcaldy Galleries and was seen by 2,329 visitors.
“I really enjoyed this project, and writing the poem was a fun challenge. ” Nalini Paul, participant, Poetrytreat
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treat & Craft Development FCA&C worked with contemporary craft artists from across Scotland: treat Store’s 2nd online collection came on stream A new range of contemporary craft by 14 Scottish makers was featured in FCA&C’s 2nd treat Store selection. Other treat events 2 pre-Xmas events were organised, a Craft & Chocolate event at Iain Burnett (The Highland Chocolatier) & an Enamel Pop-up at the opening reception for Heat Exchange II, attended by 149. Culture Label The Scottish Collection ran on Culture Label’s website with the work of 7 Fife-based makers being featured (Gavin Burnett, Jane Keith, Kirsty Stewart, Syrah Jay, Claire Corstorphine, Claire McVinnie, Naomi Ellis) until late Oct 2015. Craft Pods’ Tour 2015-16 The Craft Pods toured to 4 Fife libraries with a display of bespoke shoes by London shoemakers, carréducker, & 4 Fife libraries with silver & iron spoons by Grant McCaig. They were seen by 30,183 visitors.
“There has been a good response to the items and information, a lot of people interested. Looking forward to the next subject.” Craft Pods’ Tour 2015-16 at Dalgety Bay Library
Participatory & educational events FCA&C organised people
134
12 participatory and educational events, attended by
Robert Callender A2B children’s events 3 workshops (cardboard construction and collage) were held in the summer at the Scottish Fisheries Museum, attended by 9 children. Methilhill Children’s Community Garden Residency Artist Claire Briegel worked at Methilhill Children’s Community Garden with 25 children between August & December. She focused on making art with food-related connections to what the children grew in their garden. Heat Exchange II 3 talks were given to groups during the exhibition (St Andrews University, DJCAD, Fife College), and 2 enamel workshops were led by Fife enameller, Caroline Finlay. The overall attendance was 84 people. Poetrytreat Meet the artist event was held for the poets and artists to meet interested members of the public during St Anza Poetry Festival 2016. Attended by 15 people. Shelters A series of short, informal gallery tours of the exhibition was started in March and will run monthly for the duration of the show. Talks about FCA&C’s programme The Director gave presentations about FCA&C’s work at Fife Cultural Trust’s first Pecha Kucha evening in Dunfermline, and about FCA&C and partnership delivery for the Creative Scotland Visual Art Review in Inverness.
Information Services & Digital FCA&C continues to try and integrate its various digital resources to work as efficiently as possible for the organisation and also the users. Website In its first full year, website traffic has increased to more than 4,000 over the original target set with 27,411 visits. Just over 60% of these are new users. Email Marketing Sign-ups to FCA&C’s regular emails (artists, Programme & treat Store) has increased by 392 over the year. This shows more than three-fold growth in the previous year. Social Media Social media followers and actions continue to grow with occasional advertising on Facebook & Twitter - Facebook 1,658 followers (approx total annual reach is 97,808, with some 7,466 actions); Twitter 1,253 (with approx 44,910 impressions annually & 3,044 actions). Instagram has now 382 followers. St Andrews Town Hall arts board The space continues to be used primarily as a noticeboard for local & national visual art & craft news.
“Beautiful new mailing list and website... looks fantastic! The newsflash is so much easier to read and digest now.” Newsflash recipient
FCA&C Staff Team Diana Sykes (Director) Devises programme, fundraising, liaision with outside organisations Susan Davis (Programme Manager) Administers programme, artists’newsflashes / mailing list, website, design, press/social media Arlene Keddie (Administrator) Finance, general mailing lists, office management Beth Lamont (treat Project Officer) Develops & manages all treat events including the online shop Replaced in March by Stefanie Cheong Find us at FCA&C Town Hall, Queen’s Gardens St Andrews, KY16 9TA T 01334 474610 /F 01334 749880 E mail@fcac.co.uk / www.fcac.co.uk Usual office hours: Mon-Frid 9.30am-5pm Photos courtesy the artists, Johnny Barrington, Jake Curtis, Julian Davis, Chris Park, Ann Gunn, David Robertson (Alamy)
Looking forward FCA&C celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2016. Over the decade we’ve promoted high quality visual art and craft to the public through exhibitions, artist residencies and the ‘treat’ branded craft initiative while supporting artists through our valued weekly newsflashes, professional development events and the grants scheme we administer. We look forward to continue working with our varied partners in Fife and beyond to highlight local and introduce national and international work to a broad audience.
Coming Up....
- Jasleen Kaur: first solo exhibition of this Scottish Indian artist, currently based in London; winner of the Jerwood Open in 2015 - Kate Scardifield Residency & exhibition: Fife will be one of the bases in Scotland for this Australian artist, who will make work in response to specific objects in Fife’s museum collections - Container Project: artist residencies & projects housed in containers situated at selected post-industrial sites around Fife