Our first artist-in-residence Sarah Calmus (UK) will spend two weeks in our countryside venue in a small village in the north of Småland. Following her stay, she will work towards a solo exhibition in mid-October in Stockholm.
Sarah Calmus is an interdisciplinary artist, artworker and founder of Studio Sumlacs, a socially-driven production studio. Interactive, multisensory sustainably produced experiences are central within Calmus’s practice, where works often draw focus on environmental concerns that build equity for participators and critique and explore the ecologies of ecosystems of varying scales. Calmus was shortlisted for the STV Digital Spark Award (2015), received VACMA funding from Creative Scotland & City of Edinburgh Council (2018), granted Connected Innovators, Resident Entrepreneur, and Participant and Alumni funding from Creative Informatics (2020-2023). In 2021, Calmus was shortlisted for the Creative Edinburgh Leadership Award, and was nominated to be the President of Visual Arts Scotland (2020-2023).
Calmus has also supported an extensive array of projects in Scotland in a myriad of
roles, some of which include; curating and programming with Visual Arts Scotland,
Hidden Door Festival and Applied Arts Scotland, installing exhibitions with Sierra Metro, Royal Scottish Academy, Custom Lane, teaching workshops for National Galleries of Scotland, Cove Park, Artlink and Edinburgh Council and mentoring through Studio Sumlacs.
Residency Focus statement
I hope to explore the rural ecologies of the local area through water, land and the immediate area. Exploring foraging through a physical and digital lens by collecting found sounds and film footage of the natural spaces that are unique to Västervik. Through the process of collecting and collating these field recordings and films into a patchwork of woven imagery and sound, I hope this will open up key moments that can be part of or inform a final work as part of my upcoming exhibition with Flat Octopus. I’m keen to continue with experimentations and vital practice development research on this residency, considering material explorations through screen-printed fabric sculptural works, projection, and participatory interventions in space. Connecting the East coast of Sweden and the East coast of Scotland is a key part of this body of work and I hope some of this thinking can crystalise whilst on this residency.
Flat Octopus 