ARTISTS TALKING

Matthew Dalziel and Louise Scullion are based in Scotland and have been working collaboratively for over ten years. Matthew Dalziel studied sculpture at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee. When he left art college he began to use photography in his practice. It was when he was living and working in Glasgow in the early 1990s that he met Louise Scullion. Scullion, a student of Glasgow School of Art’s Environmental Art programme, made sculpture and installation works which were often based on ideas rooted within the natural environment. They began to work together and soon found a practice which combined subtle shifts in light, air and water in works such as Sargassum, The Gifted Child and Wing at the CCA, Glasgow in 1995, Endlessly, a video projection as part of a solo exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh in 1997 and Water Falls Down at Manchester Art Gallery & Museum in 2001.

Commission practice

Over the years Dalziel + Scullion have combined photography, video, sound, installation and sculpture in a variety of temporary and permanent works. They have established a practice that allows sensitivity and attention to detail on both small and large-scale commissions. In 1997 they completed their first major public commissioned work, The Horn. This was commissioned by Art in Partnership and part of a series of public art projects lining the M8 corridor between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The Horn is mid-way between the two cities, near Harthill, and as its title suggests, it takes the form of a large metal horn shape that sporadically transmits random audio messages. This particular commission had a long drawn out process that lasted over five years. As could be expected with any large public work, The Horn attracted both positive and negative criticism. However, it still stands tall, just next to Polkemmet Country Park and it continues transmitting. Dalziel + Scullion continue to make work in the public domain as well as work for gallery contexts. They have undertaken a number of commissions including Path a seven-metre-wide and ten-metre-high curtain for Saddlers Wells Theatre, Rain an outdoor pavilion in Newtown, North Wales, and in 2003 they installed The Ontological Garden at the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital.

Unique studio set up

For a number of years Dalziel + Scullion worked from a studio in their home on the Scottish coast north of Aberdeen. Here, they lived and worked close to a landscape that inspired their work. In 2001, they were given the opportunity to change their studio base. The University of Dundee offered them, for a three-year period, a new studio set up which changed their working pattern and has had an impact on the scale of their practice. Funded by University of Dundee’s Knowledge Transfer Fund, and supported by business and contract specialists of the University’s Research & Innovation Services, Dalziel + Scullion act as an environmental art practice based within the School of Fine Art. Their studio itself comprises three interconnecting rooms: a storeroom for tools and works; a design room with computers and graphics equipment; and a meeting room which also functions as a room in which to assemble smaller works or to make maquettes. In addition to this physical space, they have a project assistant and an administrator. In this sense, Dalziel + Scullion have developed a physical and practical base that echoes the set up that many architects and design professionals work within.

The collaborative nature of both Dalziel and Scullion’s own working relationship is now supported within their established studio environment, as well as under the umbrella of a larger working institution. Dalziel + Scullion reflect that “the University has been a stimulating environment to be in, where we could tap into other people’s areas of specialist study, as well as receive technical support from IT staff and of course the art college’s library has been a constant and invaluable source of information.”

Practice and research partnership

The University of Dundee endorses Dalziel + Scullion, primarily, as working professional artists, rather than as academics. The emphasis was on support for them to continue and expand their practice. What makes this arrangement between the host institution and the artists particularly special is that a mutual respect of individual professional imperatives has been reached. Dalziel + Scullion’s main focus remains as professional artists in which they develop their artistic concerns and body of work, as well as to build on, and expand, exhibition and commission opportunities.

The University, like any academic institution, has a primary commitment to furthering pedagogy as well as new knowledge in specialist fields. Therefore, Dalziel + Scullion are not merely brought in as academic researchers, although as they point out “within our studio practice, we are seen as contributing to the overall Fine Art Research programme of the University. We also carry out one day a week teaching within the Fine art school where we are each responsible for a group of about ten undergraduates. We are also involved in the assessment procedures for various graduate and postgraduate courses. Within the University there are a number of artists teaching, each of whom have very different forms of practice – so students are aware there is no one way of being an artist.” However, their contribution is seen within a broader context of art professionalism. It is important that Dalziel + Scullion are ‘out there’ working in the real world. Through doing this, they are actively contributing to new notions of artistic practice within the field of academic debates, as well as arts practice in museum, gallery and public domains.

Money matters

The physical base and administrative support that the University of Dundee provides for Dalziel + Scullion allows the artists to be more focused, as well as take more risks. In addition, there is added financial security from the University. Dalziel + Scullion explain that “our wages, as well as those of our assistant and administrator, are paid for by the University, but these in turn have to be paid back through finances made by our practice. This gives us a great deal more security on a month-to-month basis, but doesn’t allow us to get too comfortable as the pressure is always on to keep things flowing!” They continue: “with regards to commissioned work, the fact that the finances for these are via the University makes our cash flow situation a lot less stressful than when we were self-employed. But all of that aside, trying to make a living in the visual arts is pretty tough, we are constantly evaluating what we are doing and trying to keep a balance between commissioned projects and works that evolve out of studio research.”

The Ontological Garden

One of Dalziel + Scullion’s most recent public art commissions is The Ontological Garden which they made for the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital. This is a series of stylised trees (a Scots Pine, a Rowan and two Silver Birch) that are made out of fibreglass, metal and plastic for an enclosed courtyard within the children’s hospital. Dalziel + Scullion were part of a large commission programme that involved over fifteen artists to make work for both inside and outside the substantial new hospital building.

The Ontological Garden sits within a physically difficult space; as an internal courtyard there is no public access due to health, safety and privacy concerns – many of the hospital treatment rooms look onto the courtyard. The brief stipulated that whatever was to go into the space had to be low maintenance, therefore a traditional planted garden would have been problematic. Dalziel + Scullion’s garden not only circumnavigates this problem, but also fulfils the design brief to provide works which can be enjoyed by people of all ages. Dalziel + Scullion spent some time working on the aesthetic design of the trees which balance a reference to computer game graphics, as well as botanical features of familiar trees within the Scottish landscape.

From maquette to installation

Like many artists who work site-specifically, each new work that Dalziel + Scullion develop possesses new practical challenges in terms of production. After the submission and acceptance of their initial design for The Ontological Garden, together with a budget and projected timescale, they had to research new materials and put together a team of engineers and fabricators to help them realise the project. As they point out, “beyond the initial period of creativity there follows a much longer period of management, diplomacy and tenacity. There is a lot of planning involved to make sure everything comes together”. Their skills in this area of working have come through years of experience in working on large-scale projects. They are aware of the processes involved in using subcontractors and working within a building programme schedule, but also strive to maintain attention to detail.

Dalziel + Scullion emphasise that “these types of projects could not be delivered without the assistance of contractors and fabricators; any difficulties that emerge from this are usually down to poor management and communication.” Within the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital Commission, there was an extremely complex system of art steering groups, architectural and engineering teams, and site project managers. One of the roles of art commission agency, PACE, was to project manage all of the artists involved in the project. They had to ensure that communication between all of these groups occurred and that the artists were working to an agreed timescale and budget. This was no mean feat; the commission as a whole, as well as for Dalziel + Scullion, encountered a number of problems. Dalziel + Scullion point out that the practical problems which they experienced were largely due to the fact that they and their fabricators had never made this type of work before. The construction of each tree in The Ontological Garden involved a number of different contractors to make each of the unique elements such as galvanised steel frames, fibreglass tree forms, as well as sourcing miniature billiard ball berries for the Rowan Tree. “Unlike other companies who, once they have done their research and development, go on to exploit this for the next few years, we (foolishly) do not, but we are trying to get better at this and find new ways of incorporating ideas which we have already found solutions to their complications”.

Dalziel + Scullion are pleased with the new work at the hospital. “We weren’t sure how the stylisation would be in ‘real life’ but the characteristics of the trees can still be read and within the context of the children’s hospital it works well; it has the right balance between something that is appropriate and engaging to children yet still enquiring enough to appeal to adults. They also look exactly like the models we made in the studio!”

When asked what, if any problems, they had encountered whilst working on The Ontological Garden, Louise Scullion remarked that they were “too many to list, but like labour pain, they all seem to fade from memory after the birth.” Perhaps this is just as well, as Dalziel + Scullion continue to make challenging work in new collaborative situations and places. Their latest commissioned work is a new collaboration with composer Craig Armstrong; Dalziel + Scullion are making short films for Armstrong’s fifteen one-minute scores which will be shown at a live performance for the opening of the new concert theatre in Perth in 2005.

Links

For more information about Dalziel + Scullion’s work visit: www.dalzielscullion.com

The writer

Jane Watt is an artist and researcher based in London. She has made site-specific work in the public realm for over ten years. She has completed a number of temporary and permanent commissions including projects for the Edinburgh Dental Institute, Royal Aberdeen Children's Hospital and Forces of Light Festival in Helsinki. She has exhibited widely in Britain and abroad including solo exhibitions at the Economist, London, Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth and Damasquine Gallery, Brussels. She is currently working on a large commission project in Cambridge for Land Securities and Christ's College.

In 2002 Jane Watt completed a PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University which examined the practices and processes of artists working to commission. In her current role as Research Associate at ResCen (Centre for Research into Creation in the Performing Arts) at Middlesex University, she facilitates written and evaluative outcomes. Jane also lectures in Art History and Theory at University of Roehampton.

Jane Watt

Jane Watt is an artist based in London. She has a PhD in the process and practice of artists in public art commissions.

jane@janewattprojects.com