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Residencies

Home > Residencies > Testimonial

"We stayed at Hospitalfield for a month in the early Autumn of 2007 and, although a relatively short residency, it was an incredibly productive period.  The chance to have uninterrupted time to think, read, transcribe, draw, test ideas and make work was a luxury in itself but the tranquillity of the place seemed, somehow, also to re-sharpen the senses and make one more conscious of light, of colour, of the rhythm of the day and of the night.

The house is extraordinary.  The dynamic of the place is very much about the relationship between the landscape that surrounds the building and the internal architectural space which, when read together, reflect Patrick Allan-Fraser’s and his wife Elizabeth’s whole ethos:  to be conscious of nature and to make aesthetics an integral part of their lives.  Consequently nature is given visual form in the interior design of the house and the artefacts within it.  These same concerns are evidenced through language within the holdings of the Library and particularly in the writings of one of their ancestors. 

Much of our collaborative work has been, in the broadest sense, about the relationship between constructed ideas of nature and culture.  So the residency provided an ideal context in which to research, and the opportunity to use the Library as both a studio and a resource was invaluable.

Through close reading of the journals of Richard Parrot, a relative of Mrs Fraser’s, we came to know him as an antiquarian trying to understand the world through the study of astronomy, cosmology, theology, philosophy, aesthetics, the natural sciences and Classical antiquity; concerns echoed in Fraser’s own research.  Parrot’s journals became the inspiration behind much of what we did during the residency and a source for the work shown at the RSA, Edinburgh in July-September 2008 as part of an exhibition entitled ‘Research’.  One particular journal, compiled between 1740 and 1762 we found to be an incredible archive of information.  In it Parrot recounts experiences had and knowledge gained whilst doing the Grand Tour.  His writings in the battered, leather-bound journal were indexed alphabetically but occurred in an apparently random order under subject headings.  Some strange and poetic connections were made as ideas on the pages seemed to grow out of each other like rhizomes:  Memory, Meridian, Melancholy, Thunder, …  When facts were recorded that could not easily be categorised they appeared under the heading Curious Arts.  This was the title that we adopted for the sound installation at the RSA, which used found text, wall painting and edited sound recordings made of the out-of-tune harpsichord that sits in the elegant Drawing Room at Hospitalfield House.

The significance of the experience of the residency at Hospitalfield and the research undertaken there has extended way beyond the initial work in progress, presented at the time to other residents at the house; and beyond the resolved work presented to the public at the RSA.  It has gone on to inspire an installation that will re-introduce to the library some of the ideas discovered there, in the form of a wall text and limited edition book-work.  Without the opportunity of the residency, none of these art works would have come into being."

Susan Brind & Jim Harold

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