Ailsa Morrant
'A moment to come'
'A moment too late'
'A treasured moment on Hope Street'
Bronze, copper, silver, steel, plastic, acrylic paint, latex.
9x4x2 cms
From series of 16 medals about
moments in everyday life
entitled
'Sensing every moment: a celebration of the ordinary'
Ailsa Morrant, 2018.
All text and images are the intellectual property of the website author, Ailsa Morrant.
Photo by Shannon Toft
About
My creative aim is to help enhance the way we live our lives through using and appreciating the materiality of the everyday as a tool to assist happiness and contentment.
I use jewellery expressively as it is a potent medium to explore and discuss the relationship and tension between materiality, materialism and fulfilment.
My work is gently activist, trying to prompt us to consider and discuss what we wear as jewellery, who makes it and how and why we wear it.
It is about what I can do to enable others to routinely reflect, express and celebrate their mindful, ordinary moments.
I like catching everyday moments: the fleeting, instinctive, subconscious ones that are connections with ourselves and with others.
They are the gap between us being and becoming.
The bit that is so difficult to grasp because we often rush past it.
Over before we are even aware it was happening.
Vital moments.
Both good and bad moments.
The ones that make us think, muse and connect.
Just Wear It - The value is in the connection
Flourish (Glasgow),
Welcome Home, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow
(2019)
Matchbox Findings: a spontaneous adornment kit
Matchbox Locket: Findings
The Bluebell is a national flower of Scotland
Transient social objects create moments
Sensing Every Moment
A celebration of the ordinary.
A portrait series of medals to everyday moments in life.
Handshake (dexiosis): organs of society
Society is vital and created by continuous, instantaneous, subconscious and instinctive connections with ourselves and others.....mostly occuring without direct physical contact.
When we do physically touch, as when we shake hands, our senses process the moment before we are even aware it has occurred.
We reveal ourselves for a split second.
You can not unshake a hand once shaken and the potential of what has been created is unknown.
I recorded and cast the palm to palm space of a handshakes.
Laid out in a sequence each forms was unique and they resembled small internal organs or the organs of society - forms made by a social ritualistic action of connection.
Handshake locket and brooch
A Good Life
a series of 4 photos
The language of jewellery is powerful even when the image of a piece is printed on paper and worn as in these photos. Initially a civic chain of office styled neckpiece was constructed from cast bone china clay handshake and medallions casts from hereditarty objects. The neckpiece was then photographed, printed and cut out. The paper representation of the piece was what was eventually worn like a celebratory, transient, paper garland.
Celebrating the moment
For spontaneousy expressing a momento vivere through adornment
Balloon ring
'In the moment and celebrate' kit brooches.
Portable pods to carry around the transient materials and objects that enable you to celebrate an everyday moment whenever it happens.
Or to collect and wear or display transient materiality from the moment while you are it.
Anticipate the moment
balloon ring brooches and kits
'POP' goes the moment rings
#Tekhne_logy: Mamoth Task
Working the land and masculinity are entwinned together but industrialisation and technology have disrupted this ancient connection and relationship, forcing new sociological patterns and perceptions.
Make a wish, hold a wish
Made from the detrius left on a celebratory dinner table this piece considers the fragility and transience of social and material status.
Tideline
The form, shape and objects of tideline reflect the cyclical interaction of natural forces and detrius.
Exhibitions
Exhibited work:
2021 #the_goldilocks_collection, Radiant Pavilion, Melbourne
2021 DLUG DLOG, Udstillingssted for Tekstil, Copenhagen
2020 Beige, Mette Saabye Gallery, Copenhagen
2019 OPEN, Royals Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
2019 Connections | Connessioni, Goldsmiths Centre,London; Lighthouse, Glasgow
2019 Flourish (Melbourne), Members Vitrine, Craft Victoria, Melbourne
2019 In the Drawer, Small Spaces Gallery, Melbourne
2019 Worn Debris Collective, Testing Grounds, Melbourne
2019 Getting Started Showcase Exhibition, Goldsmiths Centre, London
2019 Marzee For Starters - Collect, Saatchi Gallery, London; Frame/Schmuck, International Handwerksmesse; CODA Museum, Apeldoorn
2019 New Designers Exhibition, Diane Porter Gallery, Bristol
2019 Alight, Visual Arts Scotland, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
2019 Flourish (Glasgow), Welcome Home, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow
2018 Goldsmiths Craft & Design Council Awards Exhibition, Goldsmiths Hall, London,
2018 Degree Show, Reid Building, GSA
2018 New Designers, Islington Business Centre, London
2018 New Designers, Mission Gallery, Swansea
2018 International Graduate Showcase Exhibition, Galerie Marzee, Netherlands
2018 Playground, Kath Libbert Gallery, Saltsmills, Bradford
2017 #Tekhne_logy Exhibition, Project Space 1, GSA
2016 Mackintosh Reimagined Exhibition, Mackintosh Gallery, GSA
2016 Thinking Through Making Exhibition, Reid Building, GSA.
2016 New Dreams Exhibition, Clarke &Fyfe Gallery, Bourdon Building, GSA
2016 Buzzcuts Performance Arts Festival, Pierce Institute, Glasgow
2015 Portfolio Exhibition, Tramway, Glasgow
2015 Glasgow Goes Green Festival Exhibition, SWG3, Glasgow
2011 ‘Fire and Fibre’ Exhibition, Collins Gallery, Glasgow
#the_goldilocks_collection,
Nord Modern,
Radiant Pavilion,
Melbourne
(2021)
Flourish Glasgow
Welcome Home, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow
Exhibition by the GSA Artists in Residence 2018-19 who worked together collectively in the School for the year after a second, devastating fire destroyed the historic and much loved Mackintosh Building in the heart of the campus.
An exhibition of 2 parts, it is about our cultural and heritage connection with the city of Glasgow. It showed firstly in Glasgow (May 2019) and then, to connect with those in Australia who have a common ancestry, showed in Melbourne (Sept 2019) as part of Radiant Pavilion.
The bluebell is a national flower of Scotland and I wanted to send a bunch of bluebells as a greeting to Scottish descendants in Australia, metaphorically using my love of everyday social objects that facilitate and promote brief, valuable moments of contact between us.
The interviews with each Artist involved can be viewed on here.
My body of work is called 'The Value is in the Connection'
Flourish Melbourne
Exhibition by the GSA Artists in Residence 2018-19 who worked together collectively in the School for the year after a second, devastating fire destroyed the historic and much loved Mackintosh Building in the heart of the campus.
An exhibition of 2 parts, it is about our cultural and heritage connection with the city of Glasgow. It showed firstly in Glasgow (May 2019) and then, to connect with those in Australia who have a common ancestry, showed in Melbourne (Sept 2019) as part of Radiant Pavilion.
The bluebell is a national flower of Scotland and I wanted to send a bunch of bluebells as a greeting to Scottish descendants in Australia, metaphorically using my love of everyday social objects that facilitate and promote brief, valuable moments of contact between us.
The interviews with each Artist involved can be viewed on here.
My body of work is called 'The Value is in the Connection'
Members Vitrine, Craft Victoria, Watson Place, Melbourne,
I was a member of a small group permitted to work with retrieved, charred materials from the 2014 Mackintosh building fire - some constructed installations and others focused on paper works. The project culminated in a restricted access, escorted viewing, 24 hour pop up exhibition in the Mack gallery as the building was under restored. This was the last exhibition to be held in the gallery before the whole building was devastated by fire in 2018.
Mack Reimagined
The Mack Gallery, The Mackintosh Building, Glasgow School of Art, Renfrew Street, Glasgow
Profile
Current Status:
2023-Ongoing PhD, School of Design, Glasgow School of Art
Previous:
2020-2023 Master of Research, Innovation School, Glasgow School of Art
To view my master of research thesis please click here
2021-Ongoing Visiting Tutor, Silversmithing and Jewellery, Glasgow School of Art
2018-2020 Artist in Residency, Glasgow School of Art
2018 Oct/Nov, Hallmark Creative Studios Placement
To read my interview with Glasgow School of Art Archive during my Artist in Residency please click here.
Funding and Scholarships:
2023 School of Design, Glasgow School of Art Scholarship awarded on merit for PhD thesis proposal
2020 Digital Health and Care Innovation Centre Scholarship awarded on merit for Master of Reasearch thesis proposal
Education:
2023 Master of Research, Innovation School, Glasgow School of Art
2018 First Class BA (Hons) Silversmithing and Jewellry Design, Glasgow School of Art
2015 Portfolio Year, Tramway Visual Arts Studio, Glasgow
2001 Higher Art, Cardonald College, Glasgow
1992 MSc Public Health, Manchester Turner University
1983 Bachelor of Dentistry, Glasgow University
Awards, shortlists and nominations:
2023 Digital Health and Care Innovation Centre, Master's Alumini Annual Research Prize
2018 Peter Wylie Davidson Memorial Prize, The Glasgow School of Art
2018 Glasgow School of Art Chairman’s Medal for Design
2018 New Designers Hallmark Studio Award
2018 Mark Fenn Award, Association for Contemporary Jewellery
2018 Finalist for New Designers Business Design Centre Award
2018 Shortlisted for Jane Phillips Graduate Artist Award, Mission Gallery, Swansea
2018 Shortlisted for Visual Arts Scotland Graduate Artists Showcase
2018 Shortlisted for Galerie Marzee, Netherlands for International Graduate Showcase.
Institutional commissions, purchases & acquisitions:
2019 Glasgow School of Art Directorate purchased, ‘Sensing every moment: a celebration of the ordinary’ a portrait series of 16 medals to everyday moments
2018 Peter Wylie Davidson Collection commissioned, for the Glasgow School of Art archive collection, ‘A treasured moment on Hope Street'
2018 Glasgow School of Art commissioned, for the Chairman's Medal archive collection, A moment in Munich’, ‘A historic moment’ & 'A bittersweet Advent moment'
2018 Galerie Marzee acquired, ‘A moment in Munich’
2018-2020 Artist in Residency, Glasgow School of Art
2018, Oct/Nov, Hallmark Creative Studios Placement
2020-2023 Master of Research,
Innovation School,
Glasgow School of Art
2021-Ongoing Visiting Tutor, Silversmithing and Jewellery, Glasgow School of Art
