Studio Somewhere Invites…

Alastair maclennan

here & now; workshop

Sat 5th November / 13:00 - 17:00 (UK Time)
In person workshop at Studio Somewhere, Tramway, Glasgow, G41 2PE

Studio Somewhere Invites… is a new programme by Take Me Somewhere which invites Glasgow based artists to nominate practitioners to deliver talks & workshops which they feel will benefit the local artistic community.

We are extremely pleased to welcome Alastair MacLennan, one of the UK’s most celebrated performance artists who has shown work in Glasgow since the 1970’s at platforms such as the National Review of Live Art. He was nominated for this programme by FK Alexander.

Here and Now

The workshop will engage individual, duo/trio and group works involving private/public and social/cultural considerations, using the whole group of participants as a teaching/learning unit, offering feedback and advice, if and as appropriate. Focus will reside in developing and activating concentration, intention, insight, innovation, flexibility, adaptability and being 'present', moment by moment. References will be from the 'art of life', negotiating actuality in the here and now, emphasizing fusion-interfusion-diffusion, embracing 'both/and' considerations, not either/or dualism. As well as ecology of natural environment, there's ecology of mind, body and spirit, interfused, three in one.. Our challenge today is to live this integration. Already we're late. Time we have is not so vital as time we make. Time is now.

About Alastair

Alastair Maclennan is a Scottish artist primarily known for his performance work, although his work embraces drawing, sculpture and installation. He established his distinctive form of performance art in the early 1970s and has performed and exhibited extensively since then, individually and collaboratively on an international stage.

MacLennan is best known for his distinctive form of performance art which he terms ‘actuations’, but his artistic practice embraces drawing, installation and the use of found objects, materials and artefacts, which are often combined within his actuations. He has performed and exhibited internationally since the early 1970s, individually and collaboratively. He represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 1997 and among his collaborations is his long association with the performance group, Black Market International.

MacLennan’s art is social and political, concerned with the inter-dependence of self and community, and it explores ethical-aesthetic values, including those of harmony and balance, and the necessity of spiritual well-being. Influenced by Zen doctrines, including sudden (often non-verbal) enlightenment attainable within ordinary experience, MacLennan’s actuations engage everyday realities in ways intended to open his audience to alternative ways of imagining and understanding everyday experience.

https://amaclennan-archive.ac.uk/

Image Credits: Alastair MacLennan Archive, DJCAD, University of Dundee.