Bobby Niven at Sierra Metro

After a bout of bad luck in Edinburgh post-graduation (or perhaps the mere realisation that the recession is in fact a reality) I am now decidedly determined to persist with this blog and not jump ship in pursuit of warmer climes (and home comforts). Whether this is a wise move remains to be seen. The strong work ethic I pride myself on has dwindled and so, in an attempt to re-kindle a little enthusiasm for the subject I spent five arduous years studying I have hired out some studio space and now return to writing, with a little more free time and post-festival resolve. No longer a blog counting down the final year of study, I take a new direction - to map the aimless life of an arts graduate and inject the situation with a little humour.

It was with this stoic attitude and in mind that I trudged my way through the snow blizzards in impractical footwear last Sunday to view Bobby Niven’s latest cinematic works at Sierra Metro. Neither the bus breaking down nor the dwindling light and impending snow shower dampened my determination as I finally reach Granton industrial estate and battled my way to the lighthouse - the site of Sierra Metro. Colder inside than out and certainly darker, I was greeted by one, lone member of staff huddled over an electric heater. Had I finally reached the end of the world? There is no denying that selecting Niven’s work for this location was little short of genius. His first film, Hermit’s Castle, a journey to Assynt examining the story of architect David Scott, left the damp, dark, empty interior of that gallery feeling like a five star hotel. Even the wooden benches morphed into deluxe armchairs as the desolate landscape engulfed us. The story goes (and I hope I’ve got this right) that the structure in the film was built by an David Scott in 1955 in an attempt to escape city existence, however, after a single night sleeping in his creation he mysteriously disappeared, never to be seen again.

Niven worked with both a cinematographer and a sound engineer to create this stunningly shot, eerily sonic piece. You latch onto a sound, or an image, some recognisable point of contact, only to have it whipped from under your feet. Is it a model? No it’s a castle. A helicopter? A bubbling stream? There is a constant play on what you know and what you think you know. Was it strictly necessary however to film this architecture with a fire burning inside it? What struck me most about this work was the overwhelming feeling that the viewer, through the eyes of the camera, was the first witness to the scene post abandonment 55 yrs ago. This illusion is shattered by this other, fire burning presence within the structure. It loses a little mystery, the notion of unearthing or rediscovering and lends, instead, a touch of 80s horror film to the set.

The second film was rather different yet equally disconcerting. More documentary in its formation, it tracks a little of the life of Galip Körükçu, an elderly potter living in Avanos, Turkey and the founder of… ‘The Hair Museum’ which houses over 16000 hair clippings obtained from women. Niven once again hones in on the uncanny nature of this gentleman’s practice - potter by day, collector of female hair by night (purpose unknown).

So what to make of Niven’s practice? Why does he focus on the local, historical views of highly specific people and places. Hermit’s Castle could be anywhere, yet it has its own resounding story. So too does Chez Galip. Each year Körükçu selects, at random, four contributors to the hair museum to take part in one of his pottery workshops. Niven sets the scene ready for the story to be told. Do these highly particular, singular histories have a space in contemporary art, so focussed are we know on the ‘we’ over the ‘I’? Perhaps we are finally witnessing a shift - the return to the personal - I shall investigate this theory further…

Nervous breakdown week one, maybe I should have started writing this blogg now so that the descent into slight hysteria could be fully appreciated without the post-dissertation lull! Feedback forms from mid term review - understandably mediocre, my reaction to criticism is certainly not. Reverted to a five year old self complete with foot stamping, tears and lots of snot. The whole thing is so totally frustrating and embarrassing, coupled with the fact that, despite six years undergrad education I still have no idea what I am going to do when this four months is finished. I’ve written to Sotheby’s and Christies, sent off endless application forms - New Contemporaries, New Works Scotland, Kinross scholarship fund (well, 3), and to be honest all I want to do is leave the country and lie on a beach for a year. I went to a careers meeting only to learn the alarming fact that 40% of art students are out of work for the year after their degree and most of the rest are working in bars (something I have been doing since I was old enough to pour a pint). My best friend left school at 16 and has gradually worked her way up the hospitality ladder to run managing gorgeous restaurants, another didn’t go to uni and worked for a wedding photographer before starting her own photography company. I however will have worked my way through the system, qualified for nothing other than …OAP barmaid! In a state of angry hysteria I started making a really crap installation with a lot of wires and, to top the whole thing off, while trying to rectify the situation, set fire to an overhead projector, who new that was even possible? Actually quite funny. What a muppet!

It’s been quite an exhausting few days, Thursday I took the excuse to pop to Glasgow and visit Tramway – amazing space! Not so sure about the film I saw there though, somewhere between artsy video essay and docu-drama, hmmm, reserving judgement. Then back to Edinburgh working at the Toby Patterson exhibition at the Fruitmarket. I love the Perspex maze, standing in it is a bit like being in some kind of early nineties videogame. His paintings layer themselves up around you; a web that you slowly and laboriously work your way round trying to separate one image from another. Gallery assistant work is not the most interesting of jobs, you spend a huge amount of time staring into space then pouncing on anyone who looks like they can be bullied into talking to you. If that fails there is always the task of shouting at small children as they head work-ward brandishing sticky hands. This exhibition has the added bonus of looking like a kids climbing frame! In summary, not much work made but got a few ideas now. I’ve found a nice shelf design, maybe I should make that first and then decide what to put on it!

Another Year... This time I WILL keep this updated (in the 13 week countdown). Progress on degree show ideas = 0. I started to make a research wall today to photograph - in a panic I started writing research directly onto the wall and soon realised that the quantity of blank wall space in relation to the lack of research to fill it was rather larger than anticipated. I've been mulling over the idea of doing something with pastel lights since I saw a girls performance in Prague where she moved white foam boards in front of pastel lights to create this weird cushioned, pulsating space. I think the memory was triggered by the Karla Black exhibition I visited at Inverleith House this weekend. The repulsively sticky, makeup colours in soft shades - like swimming in candyfloss! I'm bored of minimalist, monochrome text, on cheap photocopies taped to walls with masking tape. In Black's exhibition there was paint on the floor, foot prints in the plaster, mud, crumpled paper. If I remember rightly the fun thing about art at school was the legitimate mess. Now the studios look like offices, bring back the mess I say!

So I found a great book today 'The Poetics of Space' by Gaston Bachelardwhich analysis the house, once inhabited. A space that shapes all other life experiences, an organic space effected by what goes on beyond its walls. "Always a container, sometimes contained, the house serves as a portal to metaphores of imagination." There is a wonderful chapter discussing how a snow storm outside makes a house seem cosier, a hurricane makes it feel safer etc. By this train of thought I have come to the conclusion that the reason I can't get out of bed is not laziness, but merely the fact that the baltic circumstanses in my flat at the minute are resulting in an exagerated version of the symptoms described above, and as a result I should stay where I am or risk cutting off the 'portal to my imagination'!

Returning to this blog after a little time out I feel some documentation of a final year art student is in order. So 20 grand in debt I have returned to final year after a vague attempt at a summer trying to pay off some of the Prague indulgences (quite how I managed to spend so much when beer was still 70p a pint I will never know). So what did I do? I got the only summer job that would vaguely relate to my degree - gallery assistant. May I add that for this prestigious post you not only have a formal interview with not one but two members of staff, but you are also required to do a presentation on the artist. This would all be great if I then hadn't spent the summer as a glorified (yet underpaid) security guard - my most challenging role being to rugby tackle small children as they ran full pelt at priceless pieces of... well paper mache! And so I return to fifth year with the satisfying knowledge that this is what the last four years were about (five if you count the foundation year I had to do to get on the course in the first place), I am not officially a qualified bouncer.

I have now been back three weeks but avoiding the depressing task of admitting my waste of a summer, after all there isn't much creativity left in the brain after three months staring at a wall. So instead I spent the day napping and trying to read some books on Installation (more napping than reading it has to be said as we're all too mean to put the heating on in the flat so therefore the only place to read is in fact in bed). This may have been a more successful task had I not discovered that my library card has an extortionate fine on it which I am refusing to pay out of principle as I think these people should be legally obligated to let you know when the fine reaches more than the price of the book! I therefore refused to pay it and moved libraries in a fit of self-righteousness. This library however didn't have the long list of apparently popular and highly publicised books I was looking for so I had to contend myself with three of the ten. How I even thought I would be able to get through three when I read at the pace of a snail (and nap in between) was quite a mystery to me and so feeling most discontented I sat myself down and... looked at the pictures.

I had the wonderful idea of going into college this evening to potter around and maybe try my hand at a bit of paper mache myself in a lovely empty studio but oh no, it now seems that every art student has become a creature of the night, all feeling very smug that they are in past the obligatory 9 to 4 first yr hours and so peace was disturbed, people want to know what your doing (which I don't know), what you have been doing (I usually make something up that sounds a little more intellectual tht staring at a wall) and basically make themselves feel better that they are deffinately working harder than you (which they all are unfortunately). I am going to stomp home and start again tomorrow, I can probably come in at 9 and leave at 4 and avoid everyone in the studio that way.