RSA200 Moving Image Programme:
Academicians’ Showcase
The Academicians’ Showcase Packages One and Two are not thematic in structure, but rather they celebrate the diversity of types of moving image works produced by Academicians. This includes works by those for whom film is central to their practice, and others by those who only occasionally use the medium. Each programme offers a viewing experience that varies from light-hearted to complex and profound.
Part One
(Running time: 47 minutes)
Dalziel + Scullion RSA, Raven, 2025 (19:00)
Wendy McMurdo RSA, Olympia, 2011 (5:12) (Also in Seeing and Believing)
Edward Summerton RSA, The Landscape Artist, 2021 (8:17)
Tracy Mackenna RSA, Gaps and Slippages, 2017 (4:23)
Kate Whiteford RSA, Wings of Desire, 2018 (9.42)
Dalziel + Scullion RSA’s film, Raven, follows a pair of ravens over the period of a year, absorbed in the elements of their island home. These intelligent, mischievous and darkly beautiful birds appear as emissaries from the past and the future. Filmed on the island of Lewis where Dalziel and Scullion live, this work beautifully melds the physical and the spiritual.
In Olympia, Wendy McMurdo RSA observes the movements of a beautifully engineered skeletal humanoid robot, where the separate fully realised head articulates to the sounds of the aria Olympia from Offenbach’s opera Tales of Hoffmann.
In The Landscape Artist, Edward Summerton RSA performs as the landscape artist, spending eight minutes trying to start a petrol-driven lawnmower.
In Language, Gaps and Slippages, Tracy Mackenna RSA employs a creative toolkit of self, voice, sound, drawing, writing, film in a visually fast-moving sequence that causes the viewer to flit between different types of understanding.
Kate Whiteford RSA was motivated to produce Wings of Desire when she was intrigued to learn that Emily Bronte kept - and was inspired by - a rescued injured hawk. In celebration of this, she uses aerial imagery to present the landscape from the human and from the bird's-eye perspective.
Wendy McMurdo RSA, Olympia, 2011 (still)
RSA200: Celebrating Together is a national programme marking the 200th anniversary of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture.
The RSA200: Moving Image Programme has been curated by painter and filmmaker Ronald Forbes RSA to showcase moving image work by Royal Scottish Academicians and RSA award winners. Reflecting artists’ moving image practice in Scotland from the past and present, it includes work from the RSA Collection and work being made today.
The full programme has eight packages of moving image work on six different themes, with work by 26 artists.
Banner Image: Stills from the RSA200 Moving Image Programme - left to right:
Oana Stanciu, Stai in banca ta/ Behave, Tim Sandys, North Platte, Ronald Forbes RSA, Only Make Believe, Tracy Mackenna RSA, Language, Listening and Belonging, Rachel Maclean RSA (Elect), The Lion and the Unicorn, Rachel McBrinn, Luigi Mecocci, via dei Velluti, Firenze, Edward Summerton RSA, Dighty Burn, Katri Walker, Rapture.
