I’ve been taking photos for the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop over the last couple of months. I was down the the open evening at the new Sculpture Centre on Thursday evening. I’d seen around the inside of the building when it was nearing completion several weeks ago, and at that stage there seemed to still be a lot to be done. I’ve no idea how they managed it, but int the space of a few weeks, the building was completed, and the staff team have moved in. The new building is light and spacious, and has a wide variety of creative spaces. There are a number of individual workshops which have been snapped up by sculptors.
On top of organising moving premises, and planning several events around the building’s opening, the staff have been setting up the Sleep Trail exchange programme with China. Wang Xieda, the first artist to take part in the exchange, was at the open night. He’ll be based at the new Sculpture Workshop building for a month.
There was an exhibition of work by professor Bill Scott, the former chair of ESW, as well as a display of all sorts of artefacts form the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop’s history.
And during the evening there were a couple of young musicians keeping us entertained with plenty of upbeat jigs and reels.
There was a huge turnout for the evening, and some well known speakers, including Andrew Dixon, the chair of Creative Scotland, and Fiona Hyslop MSP, who is the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs.
The next event to celebrate the opening of the new building is the annual open day on 7th July.
The building is phase one of the project. The next step will be to demolish the old building, and create a courtyard around the space this frees up. I’m hugely impressed by what the team at the Sculpture Workshop have already achieved with this major project, and am really looking forward to seeing how it continues to develop.
