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Raising the roof For ambitious outdoor arts festival, Roofless, the sky’s the limit Words: Anna Millar
I f you’re launching a brand new arts festival, you might as well think big. And that is exactly what Roofless is doing. Plotted initially in five locations, and bringing together professional artists with local talent, Roofless will spread its creative tentacles across Scotland, and ultimately to Europe over the next year. Highlights include French artist Olivier Grossetete working alongside hundreds of Ayrshire schoolchildren to create a gallus tower of cardboard building blocks; elsewhere, in Shetland this August as part of the project Engine Tuning (pictured), artist Sumit Sarkar will create a giant ‘condor’ constructed from a Land Rover. The Transformers-inspired robotic musical bird will receive and record music from the communities it visits, the recordings of which will be turned
into a musical performance by local sound artists, culminating in a celebration of music, performance, and film in Lerwick.
UZ Events director, Neil Butler, says the challenges and possibilities of the great outdoors have helped create an ‘exceptional programme’. ‘It’s just incredibly exciting to be working outside the restrictions of galleries, concerts halls and theatres,’ Butler told The List. ‘The artists we’re working with are really on top of their game. We want the community to be an intricate part of what’s being created – here the audience are fundamentally important and critical to making it work. They will own it. That’s what makes this so unique.’
See uzarts.com/roofless for more.
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ART SMARTS ■ Congrats to the National Portrait Gallery who join two other recently developed museums and galleries – and one new space – to compete for the UK’s Museum of the Year prize. Glasgow’s Riverside Museum also made the longlist but not, sadly, the shortlist cut. The winner will be announced on Tue 19 Jun and will receive £100,000 funding.
In other related news, Christopher Baker has been appointed as the Portrait Gallery’s new director. He takes up the position on 1 Aug.
24 May–21 Jun 2012 THE LIST 11