Look Again launches new project space in city centre

Wednesday 20 February 2019

David Blyth and Hilary Nicoll
Look Again, part of Gray’s School of Art, has officially launched its new project and gallery space in the city centre to help promote and nurture creative practitioners from the region.

Look Again is Aberdeen's year-round art and design programme which aims to support creative professionals with opportunities and has secured a temporary hub on 32 St Andrew Street.

The unit, which is owned by Bon Accord Aberdeen, will host exhibitions leading up to the beginning of the annual Look Again Festival in June, providing much needed space in the city for artists and designers to showcase their work.

Hilary Nicoll, Associate Director for Look Again, said: "We are responding to a clear demand from the creative sector in the city.

"Look Again wants to be able to support more artists and designers to survive and thrive in the city, and one thing that we are crying out for is a central location for exhibitions and events to help us achieve this.

“We saw an opportunity with this space in which we could give artists and designers from the North-east a platform to feature their work.

“Bon Accord has always been great to work with and they were happy to help make this happen. It's a great location, right in the city centre."

Opening on Friday, the Look Again Project Space will launch with a collaborative exhibition by artist and course leader for Contemporary Art Practice at Gray’s, David Blyth, and Orkney-based artist Nick Gordon.

Their exhibition, titled Oral Suspension, takes the coastal culture of north east Scotland as its starting point, with a particular focus on folk traditions and fishing lore.

David commented: "The exhibition is the product of an ongoing dialogue between Nick and myself about oral traditions and storytelling from fishing communities in Aberdeenshire and Orkney, particularly those surrounding the Skate.

“We have met with fishermen, fishmongers and other ‘skateholders’, and the project weaves all this together to create a contemporary portrait of this uncanny fish of the North Sea.”

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