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Aelyn Beyln Book launch and Line Magazine event this Wednesday 18th May

ECA News Release:

AEYLN BELYN BOOK PUBLISHED TO COMMEMORATE ARTIST RESIDENCY IN BERLIN

ECA is delighted to announce the publication of a new book to mark Aeyln Belyn, November 2010's 10-day artist residency of students working in Berlin with artist Katie Paterson.

Designed by ECA alumnus Thomas Carlile, Aelyn Belyn is a full-colour publication, available to download for free from Wednesday 18 May. The publication will be launched that day with a small reception from 6pm at ECA (Wee Red Bar). The book launch coincides with contemporary art magazine LINE's multi-disciplinary event held to mark their first birthday.

In November 2010, thirteen students and staff from Edinburgh College of Art's Painting and Intermedia programmes initiated and undertook a temporary residency project in Berlin, presenting their work at Matthew Bown Gallerie under the collective exhibition 'Aelyn Belyn'.

Aelyn Belyn emerged from discussions between artist Katie Paterson (also current John Florent Stone Fellow, ECA), Karen Forbes, Professor of Art and Year 3 and Year 4 students to set up a residency-situation which would enable a variety of site-related projects; artworks, events, interventions, and happenings, where the emphasis was on place, locality, time, context and space.

Aelyn Belyn emerged from discussions between artist Katie Paterson (also current John Florent Stone Fellow, ECA) and Year 3 and Year 4 students to set up a residency-situation which would enable a variety of site-related projects; artworks, events, interventions, and happenings, where the emphasis was on place, locality, time, context and space.

Berlin was chosen as the location for the residency, for its complex layering of historical and contemporary culture, and the richness and diversity of its spaces: green space, urban space, day-life, night-life, from metropolis skylines to barren and uncontrolled landscapes. Amongst the openness of its citizens and the plethora of artistic, performative, underground, and guerrilla activities, the artists could carry out fieldwork in an unselfconscious way.

Each day, individually and as a group, the artists explored sites from colour towers and observatories, to dance halls, forests, runways at disused airports, abandoned funfairs and listening stations. They explored Berlin with a psychogeographic approach which encouraged wanderings, journeys, and meanderings. Artwork formed through this direct experience of the city, and the shift of awareness and heightened responsiveness created through being in unfamiliar territories.

Final artwork was brought together in an exhibition at Matthew Bown Gallerie, a common thread emerged as that of translation; passage and displacement between people, thoughts, forms, objects and things.

Aelyn Belyn provided a crucial interruption, a situation outside of the studio and the artist's familiar surroundings. The memories and experiences are a continuing influence. This book brings together important elements of the group's Berlin research.

Talking about the residency, artist Katie Paterson says: 'This was an entirely different way of working for me - very spontaneous. The amount of energy that everyone put in and the collaborations that emerged were remarkable. After 10 days, the artists on this residency produced art work to a really high level and each artist responded in unique ways to each of the locations in Berlin that we visited'.

Faith E. Limbrick, one of the final year Intermedia students participating in the residency says: 'This was a great opportunity to have an exhibition at such a prestigious gallery in Berlin, to benefit from the advice of Katie Paterson and see how the relationship between an artist and a gallery owner works'.

Karen Forbes: 'The students and Katie made a fantastic response to many different aspects of Berlin, developing exciting, immediate work which builds on a record of high-level investigations of cities led by the School of Art at ECA'.

The Aeyln Belyn book is available to download for free from Wednesday 18 May 2011. More information about the residency is available on the blog
For further press information and images please contact: Catherine Bromley, Press Officer, Edinburgh College of Art, Tel 0131 221 6089 or 07843 626 042; Email c.bromley@eca.ac.uk
Notes to Editors:

Katie Paterson, graduated in 2004 with a First Class Honours degree in Tapestry (now Intermedia Art). She subsequently completed her postgraduate degree at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. Working with scientists and engineers, she employs industrial research and production methods to create works of great poetic resonance. For example, in ¡®Light bulb to Simulate Moonlight¡¯, she worked with specialists to create a moonlight equivalent to the now widely used 'daylight' bulb. In this work, the artist provides a quantity of bulbs sufficient to provide a person with a lifetime supply of moonlight. Katie has had solo shows at Modern Art Oxford, PKM, Korea, James Cohan Gallery, New York, and has participated in group shows at Tate Britain and Haunch of Venison, London, and has upcoming shows at Cornerhouse, Manchester and Ingleby, Edinburgh.

Aeyln Belyn took place from the 5th-15th November 2010.The exhibition was on Sunday 14th November 1-3pm at Matthew Bown Gallery, Keithstrasse 10, 10787 Berlin. The participating artists were: Jessica Argo, Rachel Barron, Rachael Cloughton, Manuela de Laborde, Claire Ferguson, Hazel France, Rachel King, Hannah Knights, Faith E. Limbrick, Claire MacCrory, Katie Paterson, Grace Sherrington and Peter Skibinski and Chelle Tomes.

Edinburgh College of Art (www.eca.ac.uk) has an international reputation as one of the most successful art colleges in the Europe. Founded in 1907, but with a history dating back to the 18th century, the College is home to around 1,700 full-time students studying a range of programmes across art, design, architecture and landscape architecture at undergraduate, postgraduate and research degree level. The College is an academic partner of the University of Edinburgh with which we will merge on 1 August 2011.

View online:
http://www.eca.ac.uk/index.php?id=1665