\\Project Announcement//

Fertile ground is delighted to announce a new project ‘States of living: Architecture, Object, Body’ with artists Alexandra McGregor and Louise Foreman. The project will support the development of new work, showcased in Aberdeen in January 2020. 

Architecture reflects states of rapid regeneration and new developments are often a sign of progress for the city. Where old collides with the new, the preservation of social and cultural histories is often lost or in ruins. This suggests that architecture is far more than bricks and water; these structures reveal the histories, hopes, power struggle and culture of the society we live in today.

Taking a critical feminist approach to architectural remnants in the city the artists will be digging into local and regional archives to inform the works, investigating the recorded material and objects left behind. The soap factory ‘Soapy Ogstens’ as it was known, once stood on the Gallowgate and is the point of encounter for Louise’s work. Alexandra uses a comb factory on Hutcheon street to situate connections between the Pictish stones in Aberdeenshire, where symbols of combs and mirrors were used regularly.

We'll be doing number of  reading groups and site visits with local organisations including Aberdeen Art Galleries and Museums, Aberdeen University and Aberdeen city and shire archives during the development of the work. Selected development and research will be available here. 

Louise Foreman:
Louise Foreman is an Aberdeen based visual artist and community worker.  She uses a broad variety of materials to expand and evolve her work including sculpture, printmaking, textiles, collage and environment. Her work has a firm basis in social, cultural and political critique.  

Louise Foreman

Alexandra McGregor:
Alexandra is an Aberdeen based artist working across performance, drawing and installation. Her practice is enveloped in the feminine and seeks to unearth historic residues relating to the role and essence of Women. Feinine rite and ideology are re – examined and reshaped in order to seek out and question the present and post female. Through performative explorations with body and object women’s positions and spaces are investigated through gesture, prop and garment.  

Alexandra McGregor


This project was made possible through funding from the Aberdeen City Council’s ‘Creative Funding Award.’