RSA 200: Moving Image Programme

Overview

The RSA200: Moving Image Programme has been curated by painter and filmmaker Ronald Forbes RSA to showcase moving image work by Royal Scottish Academicians and RSA award winners. Reflecting artists’ moving image practice in Scotland from the past and present, it includes work from the RSA Collection and work being made today.   

The Academicians’ Showcase set of films presented at Heart of Hawick are not thematic in structure, but rather they celebrate the diversity of types of moving image works produced by Academicians. This includes works by those for whom film is central to their practice, and others by those who only occasionally use the medium, offering a viewing experience that varies from light-hearted to complex and profound. 

Rachel Maclean RSA (Elect), The Lion and the Unicorn, 2012 (11:30)

Graham Fagen RSA, AuldLang Syne c/w The Slave’s Lament,2005 (6:58)

Ken Currie RSA, StoneCircle,2025 (12:00)

Kate Downie RSA, The Little Bridges of Perthshire, 2020 (1:55)

Jo Ganter RSA, Guitar Ellipses, 2020 (0:56)

Ronald Forbes RSA, Hello and Goodbye, 2025 (5:00)

In The Lion and the Unicorn, Rachel Maclean RSA (Elect) shines an irreverent light on Scottish-English relations, with the English lion and the Scottish unicorn debating the future of the United Kingdom. Found audio is lip-synced by the artist playing the wonderfully costumed range of characters.

In Auld Lang Syne c/w The Slave’s Lament, Graham Fagen RSA explores the complex relationship between Scottish and Caribbean history by juxtaposing two of Burns’s works, connecting the past with the present through musical reinterpretations, and performed as reggae.

In Stone Circle, Ken Currie RSA asserts that he had nothing in mind other than to simply shoot film, and insists that the images are random, fragmentary and entirely improvised. Instead, we the audience are creating a shifting reality.

In The Little Bridges of Perthshire, Kate Downie RSA explores the subject of the title by simply panning and tracking through a richly atmospheric series of pen and ink sketches.

In Guitar Ellipses, Jo Ganter RSA creates an engaging abstract geometric musical vision of a guitar theme that is as disciplined and succinct as a haiku.

Ronald Forbes RSA, in Hello and Goodbye, pays homage to Shakespeare’s seven ages of man, as animated disembodied men’s suits adopt the colours of the rainbow as they dance throughout their journey. The whole of life distilled into five minutes.

Running Time: 44 minutes

Banner stills from the RSA200 Moving Image Programme – left to right:
Oana Stanciu, Stai in banca ta/ Behave, Tim Sandys, North Platte, Ronald Forbes RSA, Only Make Believe, Tracy Mackenna RSA, Language, Listening and Belonging, Rachel Maclean RSA (Elect), The Lion and the Unicorn, Rachel McBrinn, Luigi Mecocci, via dei Velluti, Firenze, Edward Summerton RSA, Dighty Burn, Katri Walker, Rapture