VACMA: See Here - Emma Ainsely

I worked with musician John Phillips to create a new piece of work, a thirteen minute video with sound called ‘See Here’. We created the work through a process of iterative audio-visual jamming, layering sound, music and visuals during real-time jam sessions. Isadora software was used to facilitate the creation of the work. Audio-visual material was gathered and composed around Orkney. The final piece was shown at Neuk Perspectives, an exhibition by Neuk Collective in Edinburgh during July 2024. Neuk is a collective of Scottish neuro-divergent artists that John and I are members of.

This project helped me to re-focus on my collaborative studio practice with John Phillips. We have been delivering a series of participatory projects over the past seven years and this award enabled us to give dedicated focused time to creating new work and developing our practice outwith the framework of participatory projects. The funding bought us the time to focus on creating the work. It gave us focus.

This has opened up new areas of exploration as we take our practice forward and we have now taken on a new Wasps studio space in Stromness to support us as we develop things in the studio. We also attended the private view of the Edinburgh show where the work was shown and received positive feedback from show visitors.