In addition to those listed under the Projects menu, this webpage presents archive exhibitions ordered by location.

Basel

IAAB

International Artistes Atelier Basel Switzerland Residency 2001
Funded by the Christoph Merian Foundation
Basel, Edinburgh College of Art

Continuing research of water, the main research question was: Could I identify source [mountain] of rivers and streams in studying the water mineral content. Location one was Eiger, Eiger glacier and Aletsch Glacier,an expedition funded by Swiss Television, Zurich, who produced a feature film about project and my work at Aletsch Glacier and in Basel studio. Further rivers and streams were selected in Switzerland, including Rhine at Basel and smaller tributaries in Germany & Holland. Small samples were documented by associate, physicist in UK.

Instigated further research, visiting Herrischried, Institut Fur Stromungwissenschaften, Black Forest, Germany, concerned with researching and rendering observable those properties of water which mediate its life supporting functions influencing much of recent outputs and philosophy of water.[1] Through studying their thinking and publications, ie, Schwenk T. Sensitive Chaos, recognized how to proceed with own research to a degree through anthroposophic oriented scientific approach to water.

See also: im fluss

Bristol

swinging the lead

Curated by Denny Long
The Old Leadworks International Festival of the Sea 1996
Funded by The Henry Moore Foundation, Bristol City Council, Wessex Water, Abbey Life Investment, South West Arts

Voyage: Memories Across A Broad Grey Sea | An Exhibition of Contemporary Art on a Maritime Theme

Roger Ackling, Helen Chadwick, Marlene Creates, Anna Bush Crews, Tacita Dean, Annelies Egli, Hamish Fulton, Richard Long, Annie Lovejoy, Elizabeth Ogilvie, Veronica Ryan, Louise Short

Swinging the Lead is an exhibition of contemporary maritime art, part of the International Festival of the Sea, Bristol. Each work in the show has aspects which are specifically linked to water, the sea or this particular geographical area. The Festival will bring to Bristol, from all over the world, up to a thousand ships, workboats, fishing vessels and Yachts. In the Leadworks new works will be next to older ones, emerging artists and established ones. Juxtaposed outside in the harbour, old wooden hulls will be moored alongside fibreglass and steel vessels.

The shipping route to Bristol Docks is by way of the River Avon, with its second highest and lowest rise and fall of the tide in the world, flowing through the ancient carboniferous limestone gorge, spanned by Brunel's Clifton Suspension Bridge. Works in the exhibition consist of River Avon driftwood, sunburned jetsam, reclaimed and reused objects, washed up on the river bank at high tide. Walks linking coasts, coastline merged with body cell structures, ships' wooden figure-heads layered with images of landscapes from the past, wood with woods, past and present. The mysterious process of bottling a ship, the mesmerising play of light and movement on and within the water. the landing place of john Cabot in newfoundland documented, trading links and maritime history contemplated through blue glass and sugar. A sheet of lead recalls not only the nature of the venue, but the dry-dock which predates the site. The metaphorical seashore of our childhood explored and a poetic response to the broad grey sea, the smallest droplet of water sharing its heritage with the greatest ocean.

Deagu

Deagu International New Media Art Festival

Elizabeth Ogilvie representing UK
Curated by Young Dong You
Daegu Arts Center, Deagu South Korea 2006

The film Bodies of Water signals the conclusion of one body of work and initiation of new research in which the artist examines water & rhythm.

In it, the artist collaborates and performs with Joji Hirota, internationally renowned Taiko drummer, composer /performer. Research & collaboration for this seminal work has arisen through a common fascination for water. Hirota originates from an area of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido flanked by sea and mountain waters. Ogilvie spent her childhood, again amid sea & river, on the North East Coast of Scotland. They first met when invited to collaborate recently on a commissioned series of performances in Glasgow and plan to create a new work together in Japan.

The water cycle, from source to ocean to atmosphere, influencing the artist’s major installation, embraces great rhythms within which multitudes of organisms live, humans included. The inner world of every living organism carries the memory of this watery environment from the gateway of birth. In the case of rhythm, water must be identified as its very element.

(three screen video installation)

Edinburgh

the imagination of water

St Andrews House, Edinburgh 2003
Site specific installation commissioned by The Scottish Office Edinburgh for St Andrews House
Art in Partnership Agents Reiach and Hall Architects
GemLexSystems Engineer Thomas A Clark Poet
Commissioned by The Scottish Office for newly refurbished function hall in St Andrews House 2003

Central space: using architectural light focused on suspended cutout shapes reflecting Scottish Office activities projects large shadow of Scotland on opposite wall.

Lounge area: texts using glass panels with holographic film. Texts commissioned by artist related to Scottish landscape Poet Thomas A Clark.

waving at the tide

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra
St Brides Centre Edinburgh 1989

Elizabeth Ogilvie
Robert Callender
The Kosh
Roger McGough

flow

Curated by PACE Public Art Commissions and Exhibitions Edinburgh
BT Scotland Headquarters Alexander Graham Bell House Edinburgh Park Edinburgh
Installation won The Saltire Society Art & Architecture Award 2002
Alexander Graham Bell House Edinburgh Park

BENNETTS ASSOCIATES ARCHITECTS Winner of Architects of Year Scottish Design Awards for above, Edinburgh and London
Glass: HARAN
Arts Consultants: PACE Edinburgh
Further art work in building by Adam Barker-Mill Shauna McMullan and more

In addressing one of five atria, Elizabeth Ogilvie was keen to create an artwork that could be viewed from many angles yet did not monopolise the floorspace. This echoed Bennetts Associates aim to create offices built on a clear articulation of space: a series of open-plan offices that offered intriguing views and vistas. To this end, Ogilvie suspended over fifty slender shafts of glass from the ceiling. The shafts are arranged in seven rows, each row hangng a different height from the ceiling. The effect is a cascade of shimmering glass panels which can be viewed from the ground floor and the two upper storeys. In considering the theme of communication, Ogilvie introduced a binary code. Each glass panel is set with holographic film depicting the binary code.

When a breeze catches the glass causing it to gently sway, the holographic film changes colour from red, to green to blue.

— Susanna Beaumont

(permanent site-specific installation, opti white glass panels, holographic film, 40 panels each 400 x 150cm suspended in 20m atrium)

Glasgow

waterfall of time

Elizabeth Ogilvie & Joji Hirota The Scottish Flute Trio
St Mary's Cathedral Glasgow performances April – May 2003
Music performance installation commissioned by The Scottish Flute Trio
Funding SCOTTISH ARTS COUNCIL cross media fund Glasgow City Council St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral

The Waterfall of Time reflects Ogilvie’s philosophy of water. This collaboration celebrates Joji and the artist’s childhood memories of times spent at mountain waterfalls and the ocean and meditates on how water transcends time.

This work is the result of a unique collaboration between Joji Hirota, Elizabeth Ogilvie and The Scottish Flute Trio. Commissioned by the Trio these performances mark the premier of new work by Joji Horota. The Waterfall of Time Suites and a new installation by Elizabeth Ogilvie. Elizabeth Ogilvie will also be performing with water.

Helsinki

modernia taidetta skotlannista

Amos Andersons Konstmuseum Helsinki Finland 1978
Modernia Taidetta Skotlannista published by Amos Anderson Gallery
Curated by Lindsay Gordon, Scottish Arts Council

The Amos Anderson Art Museum arranges a large number of exhibitions on special themes, covering both contemporary and more traditional art. Most of the dozen or so special exhibitions held every year concern the visual arts, but applied arts, architecture and photography are also covered. The museum often invites young artist to display their works, and art from other countries, especially Scandinavia, is regularly exhibited.

Kyoto

nozomi

Kyoto Japan 2006
Nozomi Book Text Takaya Fuji Published Edinburgh College of Art 2007 ISBN

Artist water divining at site of mountain hut and at temple near Kyoto to trace underground streams below. These sanctuaries are linked through water's movement/rhythm. Works are space/time for contemplation.

Streams of Time
Work with a water diviner at both hut and temple to trace underground streams below. These two sanctuaries are linked through water’s rhythm/movement.

Outcome
Small interactive water installations and chart/map will be shown simultaneously in both venues and with water installation and documentation at Galerie Weissraum at end of November 2006.

Nozomi
The aim of Nozomi’s research is to transport ideas and related art productions between Japan and Scotland and in so doing analyse key questions of spatial understanding and perception in both contexts. Both the process of research, the questions asked, and the outcomes of the research seek to provide significant new elements of understanding in the debates that connect urban design and art practice. The research highlights the problems of trans-cultural projects whilst investigating new territory in the areas of perception and space.

Nozomi seeks to investigate ways with which to innovate by defining new areas of collaboration between visual art and architectural practice and out of this developing curatorial structures alongside platforms of presentation which reflect contemporary ideas in relation to problems of communication, space and form.

The key question or problem we wish to research is how we value each other’s formal systems outside of a scientific context, and whether we can make analogies between certain scientific contexts in Scotland and in Japan? For example, Joseph Needham’s work has been especially important. He has taken a long view of the processes that inform science in the East and suggested one look at these not only as a form with its own spatial organisation but also as system with its own contextual structure. He analyses these systems comparatively. Through Nozomi we wish to echo his comparative mode of research. We see further aspects of connection between the Visual Thinking of Patrick Geddes particularly in the worlds of contemporary art and architectural form in the West and East. Our research questions connect to existing models whilst asking the Nozomi group to propose new ideas for the understanding and representation of space.

The nature of our approach is deeply interdisciplinary and relates to fresh and innovative notions of the sustainable. Such territory can be seen as originating in our Enlightenment inheritance, and articulated through the conduit of Patrick Geddes and his work on the biological comparative. Biogenetic ideas of recent times are also signal in this respect. To that end we seek to use the example of Bruno Taut in the 1930s, taking his appeal for a visual understanding as a principal idea in promoting our research idea.

streams of time

Galerie Weissraum Kyoto Japan 2006
Funded by Edinburgh College of Art

The installation Streams of Time reflected the location of the gallery in central Kyoto, overlooking the river. This interactive work was “Water from the river or the river itself”. Autumn leaves floating on water surface added colour and reflected the time of year and the natural setting of the famous Kamo River. The yellow Gingko leaf reminded viewer of the more contemplative nature of work.

私の作品は人々に瞑想の場所／時間を与え続けます。
時の流れ

この作品において、私は中山庵と京都のお寺の二箇所で、水脈を探りあてる易者と供に地底の水脈を探します。二箇所の聖地は水のリズムや動きによって繋がり、関係性を築き上げます。

作品案:　インタラクティブに作用する小さな水のインスタレーションと供に、表や地図を中山庵とお寺の二箇所に展示。また2006年の11月には、同様の水のインスタレーションと、「時の流れ／S T R E A M S O F T I M E」の記録映像を Weissraum にて、展示します。

Köln

die tiefgrundigkeit des wassers

Elizabeth Ogilvie with Dirk Mross Water Diviner
Curated by art2b and Köln Kulturamt
Kunstroutekalk Köln, Deutschland 2004-2005
Supported by the Ministry of Architecture, Culture and Sport
Funded by Stadt Köln

Solo site specific installation and water divining project in collaboration with water diviner Dirk Mross. Four artists selected to make site works.

Commissioned by Cologne Kulturamt to produce site-specific work within Kalk, postindustrial district in central Cologne. The project, Kunstroute Kalk, was designed to draw attention to newly redeveloped area, central Cologne.

Research revealed an area recognized for ground water, which attracted manufacturing over centuries. Selected site in centre of former chemical industry, which utilized groundwater. New government building, Kalk Karre, now occupies area. Commissioned water diviner, Dirk Mross to trace underground streams below and around new architecture.

Research question: Is present regard purely for water’s functional role and if so, how might artist support a wider social consciousness re sustainable use of water.

Proposed a temporary site dedicated to celebration and understanding of water, working with international team of engineer, researcher, builder, various businesses, to design work, promoting public interaction and insight.

Outcome was built environment with interactive pool, using water, timber, paint, PVC, theatre lights. This was constructed within atrium of Kalk Karre, directly above central point of various underground watercourses. No mechanical devises were used in water, emphasizing philosophy of water and human connection, the antithesis of industrial area, which used water in process of manufacture.

Public encouraged to participate in art by taking up a stick and playing with surface of water. Chart displaying network of underground streams/water was also exhibited.

”It’s child’s play, perhaps, like skimming stones. But like much of the best art, mere description cannot convey the subtle power of Ogilvie’s masterpiece. For this surely is what we are experiencing: the culmination of a desire to make not a representation of the sea or river, but its sensual equivalent-an endless stream of changing sensations.”

Transcript of speeches at opening event by government officials and Dr Peter Brinkemper, author, critic, are available.

uber mn fluss

Deutzer Brucke Köln Deutschland 2007
Publication: Uber mn Fluss
Dr Peter Brinkemper art critic

This exhibition of installation art was conceived by artist/research fellow Elizabeth Ogilvie working with Art Space Nature, [ASN], MA artists, Edinburgh College of Art in collaboration with the Koln based artist Joachim Romer, composer Johannes Fritsch and his Masters students at the Hochschule For Musik Koln. ASN coordinator, artist Julia Martin, will also be involved in the planning and curating of the project. Frau Susanne Kieselstein is the project’s main associate/supporter from the Kulturamt, Cologne Council.

During the last few years, Edinburgh College of Art Masters students and groups of young international artists based in Germany have combined forces to work on two exhibitions in the Deutzer Brucke, Spaen, 2003 and Dudelsack, 2005. The latter, in particular, was received with great enthusiasm by the large German audience with reviews, interviews and a publication. Dr Peter Brinkemper, critic and writer, gave the main speech at the Private View which was a lively event with various performances and musical interludes.

These seminal courses in Edinburgh and Cologne have attracted students from all over the world, including from Germany, and are perceived as being at the cutting edge of the arts. A further group from various professions and countries will also be involved in the exhibition, including several artists from the galleries, The Clean Sisters, Osaka, and Weissraum, Kyoto. They join a team working internationally and from considerably diverse practices: visual artists, musicians, scientists, landscape architects, dancers, architects. Overall there are a total of forty contributors to the exhibition. Apart from the performers who will present work at the PV and during the show, each artist will be allocated a space to work with according to their ideas and needs.

Their initial research will involve this powerful, seminal river which has flowed through history and time, undoubtedly influencing their thinking as will the very challenging architectural space of the interior of the Deutzer Brucke and its history. And above all, it is both the idea of the river itself acting as a metaphor [“Water becomes an image of the stream of time itself, permeated with the rhythms of the starry world.” Theodor Schwenk ] and the bridge perceived as a potent symbol of connection, or bonding, which will stir their imaginations.

Any artistic engagement with the River Rhine brings with it a philosophy of the natural world in contemporary terms. Prominent intellectuals over the centuries [ including many Scots] have been compelled to create works influenced by its power, scientists worldwide have analyzed its contents and studied its behavior. Many German artists including Joseph Beuys have been swayed by its inevitable spell. Germany scientists too are seen as being at the forefront of research both for the water industry and from an anthroposophic viewpoint.

Meandering rivers are at the core of the whole cycle, holding the central position in a sevenfold process in which polarities are at work; contraction, expansion, gravity, levity, straightness and circularity. The rhythm of
its meanders is a part of the individual nature of a river, as seen when tracing the River Rhein from its origins all the way to the North Sea.

This exhibition promises to be an exciting and very stimulating event with new work exploring diverse forms of contemporary artistic practice; sound, light, performance, new media, dance, architectural interventions, etc. These will be site-specific works in response to the alternative space of the 430M long concrete interior of the Deutzer Brucke, spanning the Rhein in central Cologne, five minutes walk from the Cathedral. A publication will be produced after the exhibition.

Documentation about each artist and their concepts will be available in early March. Installation in the Bridge will begin on 16 March. Private View and Press View are on Thursday 22 March. The show will finish on the 4th of April. There will be performances by visual artists and musicians at the Private View. The Director of the Cologne Council Kulturamt, Prof. Georg Quander will open the event with speeches by the German writer and critic, Herr Dr Peter Brinkemper. These speeches will be published in the ensuing publication.
This project is supported by Köln Kulturamt, Edinburgh College of Art, Hochschule Fur Musik Köln and additional funders.

dudelsack

Deutzer Brucke Köln Deutschland 2005
International Exhibition of Installation Art
Project Manager Elizabeth Ogilvie in collaboration with artist Joachim Romer

Plymouth

the nameless waters

Plymouth Arts Centre 2000

A person devoting their study to water is a being in flux.

Elizabeth Ogilvie’s installations and whole current output refer to the global bodies and cyclical nature of all the world’s water – a celebration of the release, distribution, collection and evaporation of the oceans. She is also increasingly fascinated by the elemental substance of water as it runs through our lives. The scale and clarity of the work has evolved from an admiration for contemporary architecture and, in particular, the work of Tadao Ando, a master artist. But it is by the abstraction, simplification and refinement of design of such gardens as the ledendary Ryoan-ji that she has been most influenced. This stone garden performs the greatest feat by making us think of water when we see only stones. Contained in the rectangular plot is a profoundly simple view of the ocean, perfectly balanced, perfectly harmonious.

Within the new work’s quiet colours and spare language there exists a meditative quality and space for contemplation, creating a sanctuary for her audience.

Venray

into the oceanic

Curated by Joop Wismans & Marijke Cieraad
Odapark Foundation Center for Contemporary Arts Venray Netherlands 2000
Catalogue published Stichting Odapark
Exhibition support: Inalfa Industries, Venray Province, Limburg Frans Maas Venlo, ECA
Artist support: Stephen Lacey Gallery London

A major solo installation commissioned for Odapark and influenced by the elemental substance of water as it runs through our lives. Part of year long Great Britain Exhibition.

(water roofing materials decking bench perspex steel texts poet poet Douglas Dunn timber theatre lights electric fans)