Collective will open its doors at 10am on Saturday 24 November. Join us for a first look at our new home, including the restored City Observatory and City Dome, new exhibition space The Hillside, and our new shop, Collective Matter.
To mark the opening our inaugural exhibition Affinity and Allusion will be on display throughout our buildings and grounds, bringing together artists whose questioning approach is central to our vision for a new kind of city observatory.
In the City Dome, Dineo Seshee Bopape’s new installation developed with guest curator Osei Bonsu, 〰️ [when spirituality was a baby] considers notions of spirituality, cosmology, astronomy and astrology. Klaus Weber has created a maquette for a new ‘nonument’ to contemporary Edinburgh. Fagman is the first work in our purpose-built exhibition space The Hillside, and is intended as a counter point to the existing patriarchal monuments on Calton Hill. In the City Observatory Library, James N Hutchinson’s new work Rumours of a New Planet draws together his research into the life, work and travels of historical figures connected to Calton Hill. A new Observers’ Walk audio guide, Time Capsule, by Catherine Payton imagines Edinburgh in 2168 when flooding has turned Calton Hill into an island.
Tessa Lynch’s new sculptural work Turns will be on display throughout Collective’s landscaped grounds. Tessa has worked in collaboration with the Rhubaba Choir to select a set of songs that resonate with Collective’s new home, including work by The Fall, Scars and Bedroom Athlete. The choir will perform in various formations around Collective at 1pm on Saturday 24 November, warming our new home with the joy of communal singing.
On Saturday and Sunday artist Catherine Payton will lead two drop-in family workshops. In The Foraged Paintbrush families are invited to make your own paintbrushes using foraged materials such as twigs, leaves, seed heads and moss. Keep your paintbrush for later or join us outside to make paintings of the weather on Calton Hill. The Recycled Aeolian Harp Orchestra is your chance to join an orchestra using plastic bottles, feathers and pens to make fabulous birds which, when held at just the right angle into the oncoming wind, will sing their own song.
Saturday 24 November
10.30am–12 noon, The Foraged Paintbrush (Free, drop-in)
Sunday 25 November
10.30 am–12 noon, The Foraged Paintbrush (Free, drop-in)
1.30pm–3pm, The Recycled Aeolian Harp Orchestra (Free, drop-in)
Later in the afternoon of Saturday 24 November we are delighted to present the first screening of Workers! at Filmhouse cinema. Workers! is a new film resulting from a long-term collaboration between Collective, Swedish artist and filmmaker Petra Bauer and SCOT-PEP, a sex-worker led organisation in Scotland. Find out more and book tickets here.
Our new panoramic restaurant The Lookout by Gardener’s Cottage will be open all day while hot drinks and picnic food will be on hand from the Kiosk.
Collective will be open 10am–4pm Saturday and Sunday. We look forward to welcoming you all.