Develop your plans for the final steps in your promotional strategy for your final major project. Include written material such as an artist statement / project statement.

My promotion for my major project feels fairly straightforward and is based on what I have observed of other exhibitions and on what feels, to me, to be logical.  I will make use of the gallery in Leith who will publicise my exhibition through their website and on social media. Their posts provide a sense of a countdown to what is coming next in their gallery and continues as the exhibition is in progress. My own promotion starts with consideration of the context of my work and I have asked myself who might have a specific interest in a project which focuses on loss. With that in mind, I have sent a description of my work to staff I know at the hospice where Rebecca died and at the hospice which she raised funds for. I have decided that a promotional zine will include the charity logo and description. I have also sent details on my exhibition to my contacts at Pfizer who I worked with as part of a cancer Insights Panel, I will post updates on my personal website, via social media posts with images to highlight the gallery and my own work. To these basic steps, I will invite family, friends and fellow students to visit my exhibition. Thinking of those who don’t live nearby, I will make a video of my exhibition and will post a link to this video for those unable to attend in person.  I have also designed a poster to display in the gallery window. This forms the back page of the zine which I have designed to accompany my exhibited work.

I show images of a template of the zine. Am at an early stage of draft in using this medium.

Lastly, I want to make the wider OCA community aware of my work so will put up a forum post.  I have also joined Visual Arts Scotland group and will publicise my exhibition to that community. That group also acts as a showcase for Scottish graduates so will be a nice platform to celebrate my work with other Scottish graduates in the visual arts. A similar forum exists within the OCA and while these are not directly part of my promotion for my major project they show my next steps after my degree closes.

My Artist Statement

My inspiration stems from my struggle to understand and cope with loss following the death of my daughter. I use art to try and understand grief, how the photograph fits with the spaces close to death, to convey a sense of loss and to unravel memory close to the universal constant at the end of life.  I consider the photograph as a contrary and liminal object which is often used as a tool to try and freeze memory and fix our sense of loss but which, ultimately will fail in this purpose. I use my research and the creation of my art to surf the wave of our fear of death, to try and capture the sense between stillness and movement, truth and omission, rage and acceptance. In this, I am not always successful.  My work uses photography, video, found album images from the past and objects and installations I associate with loss.

My Project Statement

Art at the Edge of Death by Richard Dalgleish is a deeply personal and emotional exploration of the spaces between life and death. Inspired by my daughter’s eighteen-month journey through cancer to her death and by my own parallel journey as I watched her die and was compelled to embark on a period of learning and self-reflection in an attempt to comprehend loss.  The richness of my memory of my daughter, my engagement with her death and my gradual acceptance and understanding of grief means that my work is emotionally charged but with a palette which has relevance for the wider society. My daughter Rebecca does not feature directly in this exhibition but her being runs like a thread through this project.