Press Release
Exhibition
Harbour Cottage Gallery, Kirkcudbright, DG6 4LB
28th April – 3rd May 2025
Open Daily 10:30 am – 5 pm
Visual artist Alice Martin presents The Art of Eternal Connections, a follow-up to Eternal Connections (2022) which was a collaborative project in partnership with Historic Environment Scotland (HES), Alice Martin, the Muslim Scouts of Edinburgh and AMINA – The Muslim Women’s Resource Centre. Eternal Connections centred around three fragments of medieval Islamic glass in the care of HES and encouraged conversations around Scotland’s Muslim communities.
This new project builds upon the original and takes it in new directions. It focuses more specifically on creative practice to reflect identity and connection across time and place.
The reference for The Art of Eternal Connections is the same as the original project with HES also providing support. The glass shards were uncovered in the late 1990s at Caerlaverock Castle near Dumfries, Scotland, and would have come from a drinking beaker containing an inscription band with Arabic script calligraphy. Two of the three fragments can be combined to read part of the word ‘eternal’. The glass beaker would have been produced in Syria or Egypt and is thought to date to the 12th and 13th centuries. Both countries were important glassmaking centres.
For this project, new links with Egyptian glassblowers in Cairo were forged with the assistance of Seif El Rashidi, Director of The Barakat Trust. The glassblowers produced various physical reconstructions of the beaker. These objects were the centrepiece for a community glass painting workshop at the Wigtown Book Festival in September 2024. A selection of newly designed beakers from the workshop participants will be exhibited at Harbour Cottage Gallery in Kirkcudbright. Also on display will include hand-painted artistic interpretations of the previous digital recreation, coloured glass beakers, information boards in both English and Modern Standard Arabic, interactive 3D models, a handling section featuring 3D prints and laser cut puzzles, a video of glassblowing and animated fragments and research files.
“Bringing these art activities to Dumfries and Galloway, the location of the excavated fragments, was an integral part of the work,” says Alice Martin. “I’m really excited to be able to reach new audiences,” adds Martin.
Supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
Contact
Alice Martin
Visual Artist
Stirlingshire, Scotland
Email: alicecmartin@gmail.com
