Artist in Residence Exhibition

From Thursday 13 March 2025

esK: ‘Cuiridh mi clach air do chárn -I’ll put a stone on your cairn’

IOU Creation Centre Walkway Gallery, Dean Clough , Halifax

Event information

Location Icon IOU Creation Centre Walkway Gallery, Dean Clough , Halifax

Costs Icon FREE

Artist in Residence

Find out more about IOU Artist in Residence Programme 

esK: ‘Cuiridh mi clach air do chárn -I’ll put a stone on your cairn’
A new exhibition from Artist in Residence esK (Stewart Knights) reflecting on their experience living at the IOU Hostel Hebden Bridge and their time in Calderdale

Over their time in South Pennines, esK has developed a love for the cairns (purposefully stacked stones) of the hills and moors.

“Memorials and compasses pointing towards the mishmash of ideas and histories that I have come to know and love whilst here in Calderdale”.

This has led esK to choose, for their final project as Artist in Residence, to create interactive cairn-like structures out of found and gifted objects. The exhibition explores how cairns could form in urban contexts using everyday materials. The original use of cairns and standing stones for rituals, navigation and memorial purposes are preserved in these interactive sculptures while also encouraging storytelling and play.

esK “Take this opportunity to see cairns as the new roadside archive, the meeting point of the town-square campfire, the way marker offering you a way out of the endless labyrinth of ginnels.”

Free Entry
IOU Walkway Gallery, Dean Clough, Halifax, HX3 5DJ
Monday-Friday: 8am-8pm
Saturday-Sunday: 9am-5pm
Free Parking at Weekends

 

Play Cairn How does the way we play change as we get older, and as the nostalgia of play as a child pops in and out of our adult lives? Enjoy playing carefully with this cairn, maybe even have a game of pong or snake!

Communication Cairn There are so many ways to communicate. Talking, using our hands, paying attention, sending a text. Please touch and play with this cairn and enjoy finding new ways of communicating with the cairn and those around you!

Cairn In-Transit What does it feel like to be between places, neither here nor there? What would you take with you and who could you count on for support?

Ceramic: Title: Cuiridh mi clach air do chàrn Medium: fired and glazed clay

Millers Grave Medium: watercolour Description: A painting of millers grave done during the beginning of my residency.

Title: Cairn of stories Runtime: 11 mins 15 seconds Decoration: There really is nothing better than a walk in the hills. All the senses alerted long after you’re down from the moors and back on the train home - fresh air! In this heightened state everything becomes significant and through this video you are encouraged to find your way through these interconnected tales and the sculptures which accompany them.