Thursday 19 August, 6:30 – 8:30pm
Join us to celebrate the launch of our new exhibition, Fire on the Mountain, Light on the Hill, by leading visual and performance artist Mercedes Azpilicueta! Originally from Buenos Aires, now based in Amsterdam, this will be her first solo exhibition in Scotland, which will also be a part of Edinburgh Art Festival 2025.
Azpilicueta’s work is committed to an exploration of care and resistance, often considering and revealing less well-known stories from history, and platforming the role of women who have made a difference in the past, and who continue to inspire in the present.
For this show at Collective, she brings these subjects together in a presentation centred on a major work entitled ‘Potatoes, Riots and Other Imaginaries’ (2021). This mixed media installation weaves together historic and contemporary themes – inspired by the artist’s research of the 1917 Potato Riots in the Jordaan neighbourhood of Amsterdam, and contemporary collective action in the form of Ni Una Menos – the feminist grass roots social movement in Argentina, in which Azpilicueta has played an active role since 2015.
Presented in Collective’s City Dome Gallery, the installation will be presented in an expanded form – featuring the central monumental human-scale Jaquard tapestry. Sculptural elements reference items of clothing, tools, or utensils associated with labour and a sound piece introduces whispered gossip and glimpses of songs from social demonstrations.
A newly commissioned performance with artist Janice Parker on Friday 22 August will be central to the presentation, connecting the themes of the tapestry to Collective’s site on Calton Hill.
Refreshments will be served; please check our access information here.