Arlanda airport – waiting for the plane to Riga where I am on a three week “experimental art” residency – I have no idea what to expect!
I am excited to be embarking on my first proper residency – other ’residencies’ have been self initiated, this is an established programme that I applied for. I even received a small project grant from my local council – where I have taken leave from my job as arts educator to do the residency.
I find myself thinking back to the Goat Island summer school that I attended in 1996. Maybe because I am travelling with clothes – warm clothes as I have been warned that it’s cold in Riga, and in the old factory/industrial building where we will be living and working – a sketchbook, computer and camera, but no materials, which is how I arrived in Glasgow for that project. The summer school was performance based so perhaps I will find myself making performance/live work on the residency. I know that we (six international artists) will be be doing somethings collaboratively, that there are some guest workshop leaders, and after reading an email earlier this morning I know that there will be some outdoor activities.
It is probably a good thing that the last few weeks (months) have been so intense, I have not had time to overthink what I might be doing. I am excited to see what happens!
