Connecting Threads, the cultural strand of the £25 million Destination Tweed initiative, has announced six new artists in residence for 2025. The residencies are designed to celebrate and support the talented creatives that live and work in the south of Scotland and north Northumberland. The residencies are an important means of support to help ensure the continuing vitality of the region and its creative sector.
The six selected artists for 2025 are: Anna Chapman Parker (Berwick-upon-Tweed), Emily Cropton (Peebles), Georgie Fay (Galashiels), Sam Gillespie (Traquair), Jessie Growden (Hawick) and Miwa Nagato-Apthorp (Hawick).
The six residents work across a wide range of art forms and disciplines, including: drawing, printmaking, music and songwriting, performance, sculpture and video. The fully funded residencies offer these artists the opportunity to pursue a range of creative and research areas in response to the River Tweed and the Connecting Threads 2025 programming theme, Watery Commons.
River Culture Curator Tiki Muir says:
“We are very excited to be announcing our Connecting Threads artists in residence for 2025. There are many amazing creative people living and working throughout the River Tweed catchment area, so we’re delighted to be able to offer six opportunities to support local artists this summer. ”
“This year, our Watery Commons theme connects the local to the global: from the River Tweed to planetary water cycles. We’re exploring how the Tweed connects to urgent contemporary topics such as river health, biodiversity crisis, land ownership and access to water. There is a wonderful breadth of practice between the six residents and we’re really looking forward to supporting them as their works develop throughout the residencies in connection to the communities and habitats we engage with along the River Tweed.”
The artists in residence will be engaging with subjects such as:
- the ancient crossing points where ‘common’ people could once traverse the River Tweed
- phytoplankton, river access, enclosure and the right to roam
- the porosity of borders and boundaries, both in the body and the landscape
- global solidarities connected through folk traditions and song
- river tributaries and confluences as a way of thinking about dual heritage
- the combining of art and activism through mermaids and other queer mythological figures
Connecting Threads are also commissioning six writers to respond to the works of the six artists in residence. The resulting texts will be published online at www.tweedriverculture.org later in the year.
In order to celebrate the range of creative talent in the region, artists had to live, work or study within the River Tweed catchment area in order to be eligible for the residencies.
The six artists in residence were selected through a two-stage open call. The process was designed to minimise the amount of unpaid labour that artists are asked to undertake when applying for residencies and other opportunities. The first stage, an expression of interest, saw over 50 eligible applications, each with their own strengths. Following this initial stage, the Connecting Threads programming team paid 12 artists to put together more detailed residency proposals. Connecting Threads worked with artists Bint Mbareh and Jack Ky Tan as panellists to select the final six residency artists.
The residencies begin in June with an initial Encounters Week, during which all selected residents will spend time together with the Connecting Threads programming team along the River Tweed. The week involves the six artists living and working together and undertaking journeys, workshops, discussions and meetings with river specialists and communities of place and purpose. Thereafter, each resident has two months to undertake the remaining three weeks of the residency at their own pace. During this time, in conversation with the Connecting Threads team, each artist will develop a work to share during the Connecting Threads River Conference in October (dates tbc).