Outside Edge

Kate Downie RSA | Helen Goodwin | Hongshen Ju | Professor Xu Yun

Outside Edge is a collaboration developed through a residency in Scotland between four artists with different backgrounds who first met in China. They each live, work, facilitate, teach and make art on opposite sides of the world: Xu Yun and Ju Hongshen between Kunming and Beijing, China, Kate Downie in Fife, Scotland, and Helen Goodwin in Brighton, England.

The connection began with Helen living in Kunming and Beijing for over eight years until 2007, meeting Xu Yun and then Ju Hongshen in Kunming. A residency in Scotland in 2009 introduced Kate and Helen, and Kate undertook a research trip studying contemporary and traditional ink painting in Beijing, completing the circle of practices. Their connections deepened through perceptions of environment and particularly a sensitivity to edges of landscape, both urban and rural.

Extremes of weather and geology shaped this place over deep time. To Kate it was like walking into a hanging scroll from the Qing dynasty - poetic, ancient and yet timeless. This was her vision – but one that resonates with many artists who explore the tension between romantic vision and a real place shaped by geology, weather and history. She vowed to return with artists of different traditions, to work collaboratively inspired by the place, each informing the other; exchanging knowledge and influence and a way of saying thank you for the learning and inspiration bestowed during her time in China.

These ideas, shared with Helen, with Xu Yun and Ju Hongshen, led to a collaborative residency in Carsaig, Mull, in September 2019, with support from the RSA Sir William Gillies Bequest Fund. This was an intense and exciting time, and a reciprocal residency and exhibition was planned to follow in China, in Qingdao, a coastal city on the Yellow Sea. Unfortunately the global Covid pandemic intervened, however, the four artists communicated and kept making work. Unable to go to Qingdao, in March 2021, they held their first virtual residency, working from home locations in Fife, Beijing and Brighton, meeting online daily, and creating over different time zones, with collaborative intention.

The work created in Mull and the subsequent virtual residency in Beijing, Brighton and Fife forms the content of this exhibition.