Look Again Festival is back.
The celebration of contemporary visual art and design returns to Aberdeen from 7 - 16 June 2019, with the theme 'New Narratives'.
This year's programme seeks to re-activate vacant or underused areas of the city, supporting creative activity and discourse through ambitious, thought-provoking visual art and design installations and events.
Here, we've picked just a handful of commissions to keep an eye out for as the festival unfolds.
The Fourth Wall - John Walter
Acclaimed British multimedia artist, John Walter has been commissioned to engage with Marischal Quad - the second largest granite building in the world. The quad is a public space, yet underused, and is considered to be an architectural gem in the city.
Walter will animate the space with The Fourth Wall, a new Virtual Reality experience that tears up the rulebook about immersive space by applying techniques from collage and painting onto gaming and animation.
Participants will become performers as they don customised headsets for the augmented reality experience, making this commission as engaging as it is innovative.
LOCATION: Marischal College Quad, AB10 1AB
Love at First Sight - Morag Myserscough
One of the UK's most prolific designers Morag Myserscough will be working around the city’s historic Mercat Cross, thought to be the best example of its type in Scotland.
For Love at First Sight, the artist bridges design and art, using her signature graphic style to create a free-standing structure that will reference the history of the space as a meeting point. Myserscough draws from her family history, and the moment that her parents fell in love at first sight in Aberdeen.
She will be working with poet Jo Gilbert, who will produce text for the project through workshops with local groups. The completed structure will be animated throughout the festival with performance, poetry and music.
The artist’s mother, Betty Fraser, taught embroidery and textiles at Gray’s School of Art in the 1950s. An exhibition of Betty Fraser’s work will be exhibited at Aberdeen Music Hall, joining the Look Again Festival programme alongside her daughter.
LOCATION: Castlegate, AB11 5BQ
The Bill Gibb Line - Shane Strachan
The Bill Gibb Line is a spoken-word film and exhibition featuring new work by writer-performer Shane Strachan and fashion students from Gray's School of Art.
It explores new narratives across poetry and fashion, and is inspired by the Northeast-born fashion designer who was world renowned in the 1970s. This work is supported by filmmaker Graeme Roger of Wildbird and RGU Art & Heritage Collections.
LOCATION: Look Again Project Space, 32 St Andrew Street // AB25 1JA
Temple of Jackie - Jacqueline Donachie
Jacqueline Donachie, one of Scotland’s most prominent artists brings Temple of Jackie to Aberdeen.
This work is a mobile unit that will pop up in the city centre, also functioning as a DJ booth/soup kitchen/gathering space.
It was first commissioned in 2011 by Radar at Loughborough University, and was most recently exhibited at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh 2017.
LOCATION: Broad Street, AB10 1AB
Mobile 'Ploposal' Unit - Craig Barrowman
Scottish artist Craig Barrowman presents Mobile ‘Ploposal’ Unit, a huge head of architect Archibald Simpson, on wheels, housing a unit for the production of public art proposals.
Through conversations with members of the public, Craig will produce public art proposals to be displayed, as 2D images across the city.
LOCATION: Various sites across Aberdeen City Centre.
Look Again is a year-round programme that is part of Gray’s School of Art, at Robert Gordon University (RGU). It is supported by Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen City Council and Creative Scotland. Look Again Festival takes place from 7 - 16 June. You can find the full programme at lookagainaberdeen.co.uk.