FeedbackStudents home
Postcards from Italy
[enlarge]
Rebecca Cusworth, 'Hoodo', Documenting photograph, 2010. Copyright: artist.
Costumed performance at Campsie Glen, Scotland
[enlarge]
Rebecca Cusworth, 'Still from nine minute film', 2010. Copyright: artist.
‘My dear, my very dear mistress, I like to rock your child because I myself am a child’
[enlarge]
Rebecca Cusworth, 'Untitled (twig tent)', 35mm photograph, 2010. Copyright: artist
[enlarge]
Rebecca Cusworth, 'Untitled', Ceramic and fur, 2009. Copyright: artist
Every year the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) runs a scholarship to Florence for students graduating from Scottish art schools. Richard Taylor catches up with Rebecca Cusworth, a recent graduate of Glasgow School of Art, as she prepares to leave for Italy.
The residue of an unspecified compulsive ritual and journeying to no end
"My work questions the medieval notion of 'the witch'. Responding to a sexually neurotic church, I practice in a celebration of folklore and female sexuality. Pursuing my subject matter through the eyes of an ethnologist and with the enthusiasm of a child at play, I draw strength from the Arte Povera movement, indulging in the poverty of materials to produce drawings and sculptures... I seek to revive a feminine cultural principle in a world that has been centred on masculine ideals of the functional and the matter-of-fact, a environment that's left little space for the unknown: the imagined and mythical archetypes..."
Rebecca Cusworth, took a whole week off from her 9 to 9 final-year studio schedule, just before her dissertation deadline, to work on her application to the RSA. She has since been accepted as one of the scholars on The Jon Kinross Memorial Fund, and is to be given £2000 to live and study in Florence for the three months following September 2010. This sort of reward sets aside the more dedicated students, artists even, who respect before graduation the time it takes to draft an application to support making more work in the future.
Cusworth plans on using her opportunity as a "concentrated period of research" and this is more emblematic of architect John Kinross's experience: to soak up Florence's historical grandeur then return to the UK with an exotic experience to work with. Cusworth wants to use her time and freedom in the same way and really drive her work outside of its existing parameters:
"I want to focus more on the filmic process. Really get in to working on a smaller scale and not be entirely reliant on the studio as a context to work from - I want use the city as a concept to draw from and feed off... RSA has encouraged us to keep diaries and sketchbooks to inform the production of finished work, something they will then help to exhibit back in Edinburgh in 2011, and also take in as a part of its collection..."
Cusworth really does intend to push herself during the scholarship: this goes as far as 'winging it' so to speak, to turn up in the city like a nomad with sketchbooks and shoe boxes full of materials under each arm. Such objects she had on her person when turning up at the coffee shop in Glasgow for our interview, rising up the stairs and dumping her possessions on the table:
"I'm really keen to introduce elements of new-media documentation in my work: using a blog will be a good way to record and translate the scholarship as a solo-mission, a way of determining a cohesive approach to being scholarly once more, re-living an animosity and love for poverty in materials used... the diariesque will prevail!"
Just after August's interview Cusworth set off on her journey to Florence, via London to deposit her work for a graduate show in Shoreditch Town Hall:
"I aim to use the time during the journey to learn a bit more Italian. There'll be a group of us when in Florence, but I really want to focus on my own particularities - push myself whilst I am given the chance and get somewhere whilst there. I'm looking forward to seeking out the art scene, it seems very traditional but there's more under the surface I am sure."
The interview continues
So this is just as much an exploration of the city as it is about the self. Cusworth is set to use the calibre of mediums under her belt, tucked under her arms or hidden up her sleeves and relate to what she finds in any way possible using performance, experimental photography, printmaking and the sculptural object.
The story will follow on through journalistic experimentation as Rebecca shares her journey through a blog on Artists talking's Projects unedited. The interview is set to continue through the comment feature on the blogs, so keep up to speed with her findings, watch the interview process unravel and by all means join in!
The interview continues
So this is just as much an exploration of the city as it is about the self. Cusworth is set to use the calibre of mediums under her belt, tucked under her arms or hidden up her sleeves and relate to what she finds in any way possible using performance, experimental photography, printmaking and the sculptural object.
The story will follow on through journalistic experimentation as Rebecca begins her journey on Artists talking's Projects unedited. The interview is set to continue through the comment feature on the blogs, so keep up to speed with her findings, watch the interview process unravel and by all means join in!
First published: a-n.co.uk August 2010
© the artist(s), writer(s), photographer(s) and a-n The Artists Information Company
All rights reserved.
Artists who are current subscribers to a-n may download or print this text for the limited purpose of use in their business or professional practice as artists.
Parts of this text may be reproduced either in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (updated) or with written permission of the publishers.
Back to top