Author: Arlene Brown

Green Arts Day 2021

Thursday 19August was Green Arts Day, and we were proud to take part and use our social media to talk about what we have been doing, and how we support the work of others.

This year, Creative Carbon Scotland encouraged the Green Arts members, like Fife Contemporary, to use Green Arts Day to focus on the theme, Just and Green Recovery, and share Culture for Climate Scotland’s 10 steps towards a just and green recovery in the cultural sector. These steps have been developed to help the cultural sector reach Scotland’s 2045 target of net-zero emissions in a way that is collaborative, inclusive and just.

We shared content on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and reminded our audiences that we are committed to being as environmentally sustainable as possible. We have our own Climate and Environmental Policy, with nine aims:

1. Minimise Waste
2. Minimise Energy Use and Encourage Renewable Energy
3. Encourage Accessible and Sustainable Transport and Travel
4. Develop and Implement Sustainable Purchasing Policy
5. Ensure the Effective Management of Other Resources
6. Meet or Exceed Legal Requirements
7. Control Pollution
8. Protect and Enhance the Natural and Built Environment
9. Promote Good Practice

We have been working on each of these aims to ensure that we are monitoring our carbon, making reductions, and advocating and helping others to do the same. As part of that we have launched a free, downloadable, Artists’ Environmental Resource, and a Sharespace for artists to share their own environmental practice. We also have a carbon statement, and a travel plan, to make sure that we place sustainability at the heart of our programme.

One of the things that 2020 highlighted is how we continue to bring our commitment to working towards being environmentally sustainable as an organisation into how we work from home. Many people made the switch to homeworking in 2020, and this is going to be a large part of how we work as an organisation going forward. Monitoring our carbon footprint at home is now part of our commitment to the aims and values of the organisation.

Fife Contemporary gains the Bronze Equality Pathfinder Award

During the lockdown months, the Fife Contemporary team – Diana, Susan, Stefanie and Arlene – took part in training and online workshops delivered by Fife Centre for Equalities to develop our skills, knowledge and understanding of equality, diversity and inclusion across all the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010.

Nina Munday, Chief Executive of Fife Centre for Equalities said:

“I would like to congratulate and commend Fife Contemporary on their Equality Pathfinder Bronze Award. Over the past year, they have followed through their commitment as a team to develop their skills in inclusive practice as well as their understanding of equality and diversity.  Fife Contemporary has always been very committed in advancing equality and inclusion.  As part of Equality Pathfinders programme, they will be able to evidence and share their equality journey with people of Fife.”

On This Day – 17 March 2011

Ten Poems from Hafez – Jila Peacock

On this day ten year ago, Fife Contemporary opened Ten Poems from Hafez as part of StAnza 2011. Iranian-born painter and printmaker Jila Peacock created a hand-made artist’s book of Persian calligraphic shape poems using words from Hafez of Shiraz, the metaphysical poet of Iran. Hafez was an inspiration for Goethe and much admired by poets such as Tennyson and Byron. Jila’s own English translations are accompanied by calligraphic shape poems from Persian script, which depict the animals mentioned in each poem to symbolise metaphysical truths.

I came late to Hafez, by Jila Peacock

I am a painter and printmaker working in Scotland but my childhood, is another country.

I was born in Iran in 1948 when my Iranian father, a London University educated doctor, brought his new English wife back with him to Tehran from post-war Europe.  Although English was my mother tongue, my parents decided to send me to an Iranian primary school, hence my first written language was Persian.

In the year 2000, forty years after leaving  Iran, I finally returned to my first language with the prime purpose of reading the metaphysical poets of  Persia in the original Farsi. Reading the Divan of Hafez for the first time, I found myself experiencing the poems in a thrilling almost palpable way.  As an artist, I began to try and give these poems visual form.

I was already aware of the tradition of figural calligraphy in Islamic art, and it seemed an obvious step to apply this ancient technique to the images in Hafez’s work. Choosing poems in which Hafez uses animal symbolism as a visual metaphor, I first produced simple drawings of the animals onto which I superimposed the written words.  I had been taught the basic elements of writing with a reed pen back in my Iranian primary school days.  Skilled calligraphy however, requires hours of daily practice over many years, but what I developed was the ability to fill a silhouette, with writing resembling a legible nastalique without the need for an evenness of script so obligatory in more general use. These were true shape poems, in which the outline and the shape of each image was made from words of the whole poem. I now had my template and began to choose more poems to transform. 

Also playing during the exhibition was the animated film of the work, ‘The Tongue of the Hidden’ made with director David Alexander for Channel 4 in 2007.

When the exhibition closed on 22 March, a display of work by the Primary 5 class of Lawhead Primary school, in response to the exhibition, went on display. The class visited the exhibition and completed a drawing exercise at the Town Hall. The class them returned to school to take part in a workshop which gave them a chance to try out printing skills.

On This Day – 11 February 2020 – Berlin Water, Valerie Coffin Price

Little did we know when we opened the exhibition on 11 February, that we would have to close the doors on 23 March as the world faced the effects of COVID-19.

Opening as part of the StAnza Poetry Festival 2020, Valerie Coffin Price responded to the waterways of Berlin and the poetry of Stephanie Green.

Berlin Water emerged out of Valerie Coffin Price’s visits to Berlin, working alongside German sound artist Sonja Heyer along the city’s waterways, and producing sketches and videos in response to Stephanie Green’s poetry from Berlin Umbrella, as well as the city, the water, its sounds and environment.

Valerie Coffin Price is a Welsh artist whose work responds creatively to the language of poetry and place. The poetic resonance of language and its connection to the environment drives her work, which is concerned with how environment is defined through language and cultural identity. Based in Cardiff, Wales. Her work responds to the poetic resonance of language and its connection to the environment. For the past 20 years she has been working with poetry and literature as inspiration, source material and content for her art practice.

Farewell to our longstanding Chair, Ann Gunn.

This autumn we thanked our longstanding Chair, Ann Gunn, for her great support as she departed Fife to fully establish her life in Edinburgh. As we welcome Wesley Rennison as our new Chair we asked Ann for a few words reflecting on her experience in charge!

13 years ago this month I took my first meeting as Chair of Fife Contemporary Art & Craft; so it is quite neat that this farewell appears in the November newsletter.  Inevitably, quite a lot has changed since 2007 and it has been interesting to look back and see what has happened.  Some change has been quite major – at that time one main funder was the Scottish Arts Council, soon to become part of Creative Scotland. The other was Fife Council and our main partners, Fife museums, were still part of the Council. They moved to trust status as Fife Cultural Trust in 2013, necessitating the development of new relationships and ways of working.

In contrast to these external tectonic shifts, I feel FCA&C has evolved gently. In 2007 we were just working out how to be an arts organisation without a venue of our own, meeting the challenges of creating an identity that audiences would recognise and running programmes with a wide range of partners in a variety of venues.  Over the years we have learned what works for our different audiences: curating innovative shows for our exhibition visitors; running creative projects for groups such as young carers; and developing events and resources for artists and makers.  In due course we felt confident enough in our identity to rebrand as Fife Contemporary, (so much easier to say!)

Some things have stayed the same over the years. The values of the organisation and the commitment to high quality art and craft have not changed, and nor have the dedication, creativity, commitment and resilience of the staff: Diana, Susan, Arlene and Stefanie.  It was a privilege working with them and with the changing members of the Board who came and went, and I look forward to watching, from a safe distance, what happens next.

PS all-time favourite exhibition – the Marzee Collection.

Lockdown Posts 2

We are missing so many anticipated exhibitions – and online content cannot replace the shows we didn’t manage to see before lockdown, which may never re-open to visitors. The minor grieving we experience for these, recalls how we feel about the many exhibitions we failed to make time or effort to see in the past.

A card for Sitting & Looking, produced by IC: Innovative Craft for the Dovecot Studios, with support from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation in 2010, was perched on a ledge in my office until we had to hurriedly vacate ten years later. This was an exhibition curated by furniture makers Jim Partridge and Liz Walmsley which I imagined invited the viewer to engage more deeply with work by simply slowing down and looking. The premise spoke to me of a shared belief in taking time to look in order to understand, but ironically, and to my continuing frustration, I missed the exhibition. Its title however remains a mantra.

During lockdown I have, through necessity and opportunity, been applying the principle of taking time and looking to nature rather than art. Less sitting and more walking in a rich coastal environment. As with art I privilege my intuitive and visceral responses allied to my knowledge and experience. While I’m prompted to refer to basic guides and question friends, I feel that concentrated observation provides most satisfaction and lasting understanding. I’ve avoided carrying anything that I can take photographs with on most walks, as that framing of the landscape brings a particular frame of mind which lessens a sense of openness to what is to be encountered. The photographs here document elements examined and remembered from a previous expedition in May.

I find myself however seeing aspects of nature through memories of artworks and artists that first made me take note and think about them. It does not reduce the experience but feels like bumping into a friend with welcome recognition.

Artists who primarily make their work within the landscape such as Andy Goldsworthy and Richard Long explore the properties and forms of materials they find. A small column of stones on the beach demonstrates the compliment of imitation and the broad audiences their practice has reached. I’m then reminded of the earliest functional arrangements of stones into a fireplace.

Hamish Fulton is another recognised as a ‘walking artist’ who brings philosophy and poetry to the descriptions of his carefully circumscribed walks which he exhibits afterwards in galleries. His approach has a rare quality of rigour and thoughtfulness. Returning to the same paths close to my home I think of the project he undertook with students in Japan. He took them on a walk up a mountain and then repeated the route each day for a week. At first they were rather puzzled and annoyed at what they thought was a lack of variety until they understood that each day the conditions and their experience of place were subtly different.

With many more regular walks I can appreciate not only subtle variations due to light and weather but also more significant seasonal changes. I spot a heron’s nest precariously built in a small pine tree that seems out of scale to the bird, and then watch the young and then emptiness returns. Also on the landward side catkins turn into leaves and a field of grasses matures into barley with green becoming yellow.

The uniqueness and joy provided by small and taken for granted elements of flora is revealed by Laurie Clark through her 100 Buttercups and 100 Harebells books published by WAX366. These sensitive and patiently made portraits explore the individuality of each flower. Buttercups are out now and I notice that yellow is the colour providing accents across the landscape. A couple of primrose patches early on were delicate but now a more vivid gold dominates through gorse, and along the shoreline bird’s-foot trefoil and silverweed arrive before the elegant yellow flags. Ochre patches of lichen decorate the rocks. Yellow is in the air as well, with the goldfinch and yellowhammer attracting attention through song as well as plumage.

Near the village, yellow pops up in the caps and floats of swimmers in the usually abandoned sea pool. Further along the coastal path, human interaction with the landscape continues through the evidence not only of the walkers’ tracks and detritus but also the local livelihoods of farming and fishing. Bob Callender’s fascination with and intimate knowledge of the coastline accompanies me. In marvelling at the colours and patterns of layers of smoothed pebbles I think of his early paintings celebrating the sculptural forms close-up.

Then I remember his later sculpture examining what the tide has washed up, from elegiac boat wrecks to the increasing threat of what made up his Plastic Beach. The tide brings us fragments of social history and geography.

Sea-washed bricks may still reveal the name and distance of the brickworks in which they were made from local clay. They immediately remind me of my delight in discovering a shared interest with Judith Burbidge, in her work cataloguing her collection of found bricks from across Scotland.

Uncertainty surrounds what will be displayed in the future and how, when and where we can travel to fully experience exhibitions. Locally we have a changing display provided by young artists who have experimented with wildlife painted on stones, colourful windmills and encouraging smiles drawn on wooden spoons. The slowing down effect of lockdown is an aspect worthy of maintaining in order to deepen our personal engagement with art. For those of us fortunate enough to have been able to practice looking within the natural environment we also need to continue that practice and find some of the inspiration artists have shared with us.

On This Day – Robert Callender – A2B

In 2015 Fife Contemporary presented A2B, an exhibition of work by Robert Callender (1932-2011), at the very appropriate Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther. It is a venue he’d known and enjoyed visiting with his wife and fellow artist Elizabeth Ogilvie. The exhibition shared its title and aim with the limited edition A2B box-work produced to celebrate Callender’s rich artistic legacy. The exhibition was subsequently shown at the Lochgelly Centre.

A2B

Spending summers at the remote Point of Stoer in the north west of Scotland, and ultimately based at a cliff-top home and studio in Kinghorn overlooking sweeping views of the Forth estuary, Callender made intense explorations of coastal environments, and shared his experience and discoveries through his work. With extraordinary skill he created the sometimes life-size fragments and skeletons of what appear to be wrecked vessels. From form to texture they have a magically convincing and weighty presence which belies the physical lightness of the card and balsa wood they are constructed from. At the opposite scale are his exquisite miniature models of boats and flotsam.

In drawing attention to human detritus brought in by the tide, Callender was one of the first artists to signal the damage being caused to the coastal environment, and he continues to inspire both audiences and fellow artists. The contrast between the initial wood and metal items washed ashore that prompted his Coastal Collection and the later Plastic Beach collection demonstrates the shocking prevalence of plastic in the contemporary world. When exhibited, the extensive assemblage of multi-coloured selected and re-created plastic objects still both amazes and dismays.

Lateral Lab

Elizabeth Ogilvie founded Lateral Lab, a Trust which aims to continue the commitment to the environment she shared with Callender, through promoting his legacy, developing new projects, and supporting emerging artists. Following on from his significant teaching role at Edinburgh College of Art, the Robert Callender International Residency for Young Artists provides opportunities for developing new work, international exchange, and networking focused on Japan. In 2018 Lateral Lab mounted a major solo show of Callender’s work at Edinburgh’s City Art Centre featuring the Plastic Beach, which also included a gallery devoted to the work of the Residency artists from both Scotland and Japan.

The Covid 19 pandemic has caused the postponement of ways of thinking, a series of exhibitions in Japan highlighting the residency artists’ work and successful exchange. A map will provide a lasting record of the project’s theme of people, places and how we connect through experience, geography and environment, capturing the cross currents that have, and can, create new understandings and practices.

Lockdown Posts 1

“…trying to stitch our future to our past… “ Arundhati Roy

Lockdown has provided Fife Contemporary Director Diana Sykes some thinking space and provoked reflection on past, present and future.

Changing Technology

In a long working life, I’ve experienced, struggled with, and explored ever changing technology.

As a child (in-spite of always being known / in trouble for talking) I hated using the phone and had to be dragged to speak to family abroad. When I had to use it professionally however, practice reduced the pain. In my first paid job as Curator/Driver of the Scottish Arts Council’s Travelling Gallery, I had the privilege of touring some of Scotland’s most rural and outlying parts which involved some major communication challenges. All correspondence had to be done via the Edinburgh base, so I had to suffer hearing my voice on a Dictaphone. Tiny tapes had then to be posted to a secretary who typed up the contents, by electric typewriter, then eventually on one of the first two computers which had to be shared by the whole office. A mobile phone would have made life easier and me feel safer on my travels but they weren’t yet available. Now that they are ubiquitous I cling to a basic un-smart model as my last defence against being available to all at all times…

Coping with Computers

Joining the Crawford Arts Centre as it became independent of St Andrews University, new skills were required to work with the single Mac computer we shared in the office. It had a whole megabyte of memory! An arrangement allowed us to print out material in a University department after carefully carrying our floppy disc along the road. When we got our own printer we had to add a further megabyte of memory to the computer for it to work and excitingly a second Mac. Eventually Macs had to be abandoned for the significantly cheaper PCs once it was acknowledged that everyone needed their own computer and our Macs had become inevitably outdated. Much later the old redundant Mac was gifted to someone who I think intended to turn it into an aquarium. If only we’d kept it and its packaging…

A Web for Arachnaphobes

Using the web requires continuous learning. An American student working on an exhibition with us in 1994 mentioned receiving an email from his mother – a term I’d never heard before and assumed referred to some US express mail system. Not long after, we were introduced to life online and selected our first ISP following some cursory newspaper research and on the basis of it being free. As with other organisations, our website has been through a number of transformations as its potential and technical possibilities expanded. In its latest incarnation our aim is for the site to evolve into a truly digital venue with spaces providing information of interest to support artists and widen audiences. Our first digital exhibition, Past Present, was originally toured to physical venues on a monitor, but now we have a more flexible sub-site for content created online. Early reporting to funders showed the cautiously increased use we made of the web but now we find it difficult to function at all when connections fail.

Digital Domination

Life in a pandemic has highlighted the value of digital communication beyond email with the boom in using platforms including Teams, Skype, FaceTime and Zoom facilitating both social and business meetings. As an organisation which declared Climate Emergency, we are conscious of the current improvements to the environment while travel is curtailed. Ever more valuable time is also saved and people geographically far apart can come together. Working on content around the Lines from Scotland exhibition which had to close, we’ve also become aware of how the online can provide different and deeper levels of information. We had already been planning an exhibition for our Craft Pods (self-contained display units that visit libraries and schools) which would have an online presence to enlarge the content and interpretation of the mini physical show and provide a lasting resource. This combination of physical and virtual now feels like the way forward for much of our programming and it’s very exciting to be prompted to think differently.

Mail not just Email

It should be acknowledged however than even an email has a carbon footprint and following the surreal and profound impact of the pandemic, we might even imagine a future catastrophe when the web breaks down. Also, digital relationships create a certain distancing effect and varied forms of contact remain a human need. Communication in person and the joy of receiving physical post are still to be celebrated.

Looking to the future, we welcome the contribution of student interns who have grown up in a digital world and remind us of the rapid changes over the last few decades. They have marvelled at the photographic slides in our archive (“Can I touch them?”) and one sheepishly asked to be reminded of where the stamp goes on an envelope…

On this Day – Shelters

As a project for Scotland’s 2016 Festival of Architecture we invited Bobby Niven of The Bothy Project to curate an exhibition on the theme of shelter. He had long been an admirer of the work of Lloyd Kahn whose iconic Shelter Publications imprint has introduced international audiences over the last 50 years to a multitude of self-build structures from traditional vernacular techniques to geodesic domes, sheds, converted vehicles and fantastical individualistic creations using whatever comes to hand.

The Exhibition

At Kirkcaldy Galleries visitors were met with a wall covered in a vast array of images from the books as well as a focus on the human stories behind a number of case studies. Tables and benches made by Fife’s Wood Monkey allowed browsing of the original publications with tiny versions and art activities available at a child-sized table. In an adjoining space some Scottish examples were highlighted including Kevin Langan’s 100 Wild Huts project. As part of this, a time-lapse film recording was made of a temporary hut built from foraged material at Braefoot Bay on the Fife coast. Also featured were the unique artist bothies Bobby designed as forerunners to his current Bothy business with its Bothy Stores distributing commissioned items specially designed for Bothy use.

Lloyd Kahn

In May 2016 we were thrilled to bring over Lloyd Kahn and his craft artist wife Lesley Creed from California to give a sold-out lecture in Kirkcaldy which brought together fans from as far away as Bristol. Many in the audience were attending a Scottish hut conference timed to coincide. Lloyd and Lesley celebrated his 80^th birthday with travels around Scotland including Eigg where they stayed in the artist Bothy. Many quirky Scottish buildings were photographed on the way.

Lloyd Kahn was to be featured in this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale. Cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic it may hopefully be re-scheduled and a new audience introduced to this inspired ‘non-architect’.

Click here to visit the original web page which includes free downloadable information sheets, and a link to the time-lapse film.

Recipes from HOTPOT [art, food + people]

It is hard to believe that in March ten years ago the Hotpot exhibition closed. This exhibition brought together a group of artists whose’ work was inspired by the emotional relationship between food and people. Along with the exhibition, a publication of six recipe cards, with recipes submitted by each artist, was produced.

• Tonia Lu, Chongqing Cold Fish Pot
• Ruth Archibald-Swaans, Potato and Chickpea Soup
• Gayle Chong Kwan, Fruit Crumble
• Alex Frost, Sausage and Lentil Casserole
• Alex Wilde, Tomato, Chocolate and Chilli Soup
• Rebecca Wilson, Shortbread with Rosehip Jam

This seems like the perfect time to share three of them. Let us know if you make any of the recipes, and it would be lovely to see some images! You can keep in touch with the FC team through social media, or by emailing us directly. Happy making!

March 2020 – Fife Contemporary On the Move

A month ago the Fife Contemporary world was a different place.

We had known for a few months that we would need to move out of our office base at the Town Hall in St Andrews for a few weeks while building work was being completed. We had been working to the plan of a partial move, taking a few essential files, and retaining access to the office when it was required. This would be happening soon, but not immediately.

Then we received the news that the work on the roof would take longer, and be more invasive than had originally been thought, so we now had to move out completely. When? By the end of the week….

The Town Hall has been the FC office base since 2006, and moving everything from it was a very big task indeed. Luckily, there was space at the St Andrews Local Office building, which could take four desks, plus all our associated files, but the huge task of packing and moving had to been done quickly. The van was booked, and the packing started. Diana and Susan sprang into action, boxing, packing and organising.

On the plus side, with little time, it was a great opportunity for a good clear out and long overdue declutter. Packing took three days, the move took two, and by the end of it, we should have been ready to start unpacking, and settling into our new office base.

But this was March, and half way through the move, we all became very aware of COVID-19, and what it would mean for everyone. Two members of staff fall into the ‘shielding’ category, so instead of laptops and boxes going to the office, they were diverted to homes, where home offices were being set up. And then the government encouraged us all to work from home if we can, so instead of settling into our lovely new office space, all four members of FC are now working from home.

It was hectic and it was unexpected, but it is working. Although we have always been able to work from home, the switch from doing it for a few days, to doing it full time, along with everyone else, has been a challenge. Like most people at the moment, suddenly having your home become your office can be disorientating, especially now when we are limited in movement.

Susan managed to snap a few pictures during the move, and has put them together in a movie, so you can see the emptying office at the Town Hall, and the rapidly filling new office space. Enjoy!

At the moment, we are unable to receive mail, or take telephone calls, as our office base is closed. You can keep in touch with the FC team through social media, or by emailing us directly.

On This Day – 12 September 2009 – The Marzee Collection

Galerie Marzee celebrated its 40th birthday on 9 June 2019, but 10 years ago today, The Marzee Collection exhibition opened at St Andrews Museum.

In partnership with St Andrews Museum and the Falkland Centre for Stewardship, Fife Contemporary Art & Craft brought part of the Galerie Marzee’s exciting collection to Fife.

Galerie Marzee in Nijmegen, Netherlands, celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2009. The gallery is the largest known gallery in the world, dedicated to innovative contemporary jewellery, and its director, Marie-José van den Hout, has built an extensive collection of international contemporary jewellery.

The jewellery selected for the exhibition was worn by prominent Fifers at a pre exhibiton dining event. The jewellery itself, and recordings of the event showing participants wearing it, was then shown at St Andrews Museum. 
The portrait photographs were taken by Edinburgh based Tricia Malley and Ross Gillespie of broad daylight.

Find out more about the artists in the exhibition HERE.

As part of the exhibition a short film was made of the project.  This shows the pre-exhibition dining event – a special lunch at House of Falkland for invited guests who all had pieces of jewellery chosen for them by Marie-Jose of Galerie Marzee – you can watch the film HERE.

To accompany the exhibition, Fife Contemporary Art & Craft produced a full colour catalogue, which includes images of the jewellery displayed and worn. The catalogue features the 12 portrait photographs taken by broad daylight, one of which still features on their website today.
You can buy the catalogue HERE.

On This Day – 21 June 2009 – Object as Muse

This emotional and thought provoking exhibition, presented by Fife Contemporary from The Crafts Council, ran from 9 May to 21 June 2009 at Kirkcaldy Galleries, and presented six different artists’ responses to the Asentamiento Dress by textile artist Julie Cook.

The Asentamiento Dress is part of ‘Duende: A time for healing’, a series that was developed by Julie Cook in collaboration with counselling psychologist, Lisa Isaacs.

Influenced by an expressive Andalusian culture and Flamenco song and dance, the Asentamiento Dress provides emotional catharsis to the wearer through the act of performance. Made from a cotton duvet with silk poultice and tapes it is worn as a dress that encompasses the whole body in warm, comforting duck down.

Instructions on how to wear the Asentamiento Dress

Object as Muse presented six pieces of varying disciplines in response to the Asentamiento Dress and its accompanying video performance piece.

Colette Bryce, David Birkin, Dunne and Raby with Noam Toram, Tamsin van Essen, Arabel Lebrusan and Susie MacMurray present a poem, a photograph, a film, six ceramic vessels, a silver mantilla and a drawing that was shown alongside the ‘muse’.

Through these very different works the artists explored rituals, neuroses, emotional and physical health and relationships, all of which were prevalent themes in Julie Cook’s work.

Celebrating 20 years + 3 years at Fife Contemporary

Last August we celebrated Diana and Susan being with Fife Contemporary for 30 years. This month, we celebrate Arlene being with us for 20 years, and Stef being with us for 3 years!

Sadly, we don’t have any photographs of them when they started – or none they will let us use!

Green Arts Day 2019

It’s Green Art Day! Fife Contemporary is proud to be part of the Green Arts Initiative, and you might have noticed the Green Arts Organisation logo at the bottom of our web page. That means that we are committed to being as environmentally sustainable as we can be.

With help from Creative Carbon Scotland we have already implemented a number of energy and waste saving practices which makes our office and programme sustainable, and we are planning on more in the future.

During last year, we focused on reducing our waste. Like most people we already think, ‘Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle’, and we have recycling bins in the office for any waste we can’t reuse. We extended this to ‘Avoid, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Dispose’, and thought of ways we could avoid creating waste, and how we then disposed of any waste we created.

Our ‘Think before you Print’ policy has reduced the amount of printing we do, and when we have to print, we make sure it is always double sided. We use scrap paper and old print material for making scribble pads for our own notes, and when that is being disposed of, we shred the notes to make packing material.

We recycle our office supplies as much as possible, reusing envelopes and boxes, as well as reusing files and folders instead of buying new ones. This has not only reduced waste, but has also saved us space when archiving.

Our office printers are monitored to make sure they are in good working order, and we recycle all our printer cartridges.

We are committed to reducing plastic use, and have already switched to using jugs and glasses of water when we can, and using the ecologically sound Vegware cups and spoons for all our events.

Our display equipment is reused for as many exhibitions as we can, even though our limited storage space can present us with challenges. When we no longer need an item, it is offered for use to another organisation or artist.

This year we are focusing on reducing our energy use, which means a change in the way we work, and our behaviour, in the office and beyond.

Our ‘Switch Off’ policy ensures that all unnecessary office equipment is switched off at the end of the day, reducing the amount of energy used, and when they aren’t needed (because of our lovely sunny Scottish weather), we switch off the office lights, and enjoy the natural light. We have also added a timer to our office heating, to prevent the area becoming over hot, and reducing our energy use.

The reduced heat is popular with the Fife Contemporary office plants, which help to improve the mental health of staff, and promote a healthier and more relaxed working environment. They also look lovely on our window-sill.

Next year we will turn our attention to reducing our carbon footprint by reducing our travelling. Come back next year and find out how we have planned and managed this.

Further information on Green Arts Day can be found at Creative Carbon Scotland.