Richard Ashrowan, Sandra Johnston and Alastair MacLennan

Richard Ashrowan (b.1966) is a moving image artist who lives and works in the Scottish Borders. He works primarily with high definition film and video, creating immersive video installations, still photographic works on paper and written texts. His works have been exhibited at the Foksal Gallery and Fabrycka Sztuki in Poland, the Brukenthal Museum and Casa Artelor in Romania, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, An Tobar in Tobermory, The Atlantic Islands Festival, The SSA, The Forest Gallery, Selkirk, the Ruskin Gallery in Cambridge, and the Threshold Artspace in Perth. In addition he has works in public, private and corporate collections. An artist monograph of his recent work, ‘Lament’ has recently been published by Nowhere Arts. In 2010 he will be curating and exhibiting at both the Alchemy Media Arts festival in the Scottish Borders and the ‘Going Outward’ Geopoetics festival at Brantwood. He is currently engaged in PhD research at Edinburgh College of Art.

Alastair MacLennan
Alastair MacLennan was born in Scotland and has lived and worked in Belfast, Northern Ireland since 1975. His achievements as an artist have had a significant influence on performance art, nationally and internationally. Performing in diverse contexts, his works convey political, social and cultural conditions. His Actuations (performance/installations) seek to fuse interrelations. His works have (also) been presented as part of Black Market International (in Europe, America, Canada, Asia, Mexico, etc.,), by Trace Gallery, Cardiff, by the National Review of Live Art, Glasgow, by Le Lieu, Quebec, by Bone International Performance Art Festival, Bern and through NIPAF in Japan. He represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 1997.

He has works in private collections in America, Canada, Italy, Poland, Germany, Scotland, England, Ireland, Wales and in the public collection of the British Arts Council, England. He has received support for his works from national and international funding bodies, including AHRB (Arts and Humanities Research Board), Arts Council of Northern Ireland, University of Ulster, Arts Council of Canada and the Scottish Education Department. He won the Visual Arts Category of the Belfast Arts Awards (‘98) and is a recipient of a London Performance Award for outstanding creative achievement (‘88), in association with Dance Umbrella and Time Out Magazine.

MacLennan is currently Emeritus Professor of Fine Art, from the University of Ulster, Belfast, an Honorary Fellow of Dartington College of Art, Devon and an Honorary Associate of the National Review of Live Art, Glasgow.

Sandra Johnston
Since graduated from the MFA, University of Ulster in 1992, Johnston has produced site-reactive performance actions and installations. Awarded an Arts Humanities & Research Council- Research Fellowship (2002-2005), focused on issues of “Trauma of Place” -exploring creative interventions within spaces associated in public memory with violent events. Johnston has exhibited work at an international level since the early nineties including the Liverpool Biennial 2004, and Venice Biennale 2005.
Permanent post- appointed in 2005 Lecturer in Time-Based Art, University of Ulster, Belfast. Currently on a 3-year Leave Of Absence to undertake a PhD project, titled “Beyond Reasonable Doubt- A cross-disciplinary investigation into concepts of doubt, explored through consideration of improvisational art processes and systems of legal justice”.
Additional teaching experience- 2007/08 “Ré Soupault” Guest Professor at the Bauhaus University, Weimar, “Public Art and New Artistic Strategies” programme, Semester based on issues of “ART & COMMEMORATION”
Professional Activities- Since 1992, involvement on various committee’s of Artist-run collectives in Belfast- CATALYST ARTS, BBEYOND, and AGENCY.