Ettie Spencer - TOBACCO HOUSE
St Margaret's House, 151 London Road, Edinburgh, EH8 7TG. 01368 850712Also at Craigmillar Community Arts Centre, 58 Newcriaghall Road, EH15 3HS, and SWG3 Studio Warehouse, 100 Eastvale Place, Glasgow G3 8QG.
This installation incorporates issues of social inclusion, education, health and economics while transforming a derelict building into a visually arresting piece.
A crop of tobacco has been grown in a disused building in the heart of Edinburgh. With its history of harvesting by slave labour in the US, and being grown as a cash crop in Third World countries, exploitation and a bad smell sticks to this lushlooking plant. Yet, grown against an urban backdrop, it provides a rich visual texture and an opportunity for urban dwellers to engage in the therapeutic activity of growing things. Issues about displacement and forced migration in our globalised, consumerdriven world are further indicated in this work, as well as the ever increasing shift from rural to urban environments, and the disconnection that goes with this process.
This work reflects all those links in the modern context of temporary art installation, while engaging a particular social group young teenagers, for example vulnerable to the use of tobacco, in the construction and growing of the piece.
Responding to TOBACCO HOUSE, work by film maker Fiona Greig and sound artist Carlos Manzano will also be installed at each site.
See the project website for ongoing details, responses and discussion about this ‘live’ work.