Shona Macnaughton

Plan of the Principal Story

1 August – 19 October 2014

This year, as the fine art community reflects on the past 25 years of contemporary art in Scotland, we are delighted to focus on the upcoming generation in a series of new works by emerging artists co-commissioned with Talbot Rice. The works will be presented within Counterpoint, an exhibition which aims to expand critical and conceptual thinking about visual art in relation to other subjects of learning. The selected artists all have a strong performative quality within their practice, and the commissioned artworks will be accompanied by a series of live performances. 

Shona Macnaughton makes filmed and animated journeys and re-enactments that focus on the architecture of the city, employment, power structures and the abundance of marketing in contemporary living. For her Counterpoint commission she will create a new film, performance and digital model exploring the architectural power of the University of Edinburgh’s buildings. Using the original Robert Adam blueprint for the Old College site, the model will be a collage of the rooms that originally constituted Talbot Rice; named in the plan as Natural History, Logic, Instrument Room and the Professor's Room. Overlaying photographs from the current configuration she will refer to existing features of floor, walls and light, so that the space is recognisable as the one the viewer is within. The model will become a setting for the film featuring the artist as a ‘worker’ character within what appears to be a live security video; the camera focused back on the employee and the viewer now in the reversed position of surveying the conduct of the worker. Multiple mediated images, sculpture, furniture and props from the video and model will be displayed throughout the Gallery, re-referencing the visual artifice of the built environment and linking to Macnaughton’s interest in the artist as subject. 

Supported through the Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund.

Part of GENERATION, a landmark series of exhibitions celebrating 25 years of contemporary art in Scotland.

Mon-Fri, 10am-5pm; Sat & Sun: 12pm-5pm

Outside August: Tue-Fri, 10am-5pm; Sat,12pm-5pm