Fife Contemporary Art and Craft

Fife Contemporary Art & Craft is the new incarnation of the organisation formerly known as the Crawford Arts Centre. From a base in St Andrews Town Hall, FCA&C organises a range of high quality contemporary visual art and craft activities including exhibitions, educational activities, craft retail and other projects with different partner venues across Fife.

The principal partner is Fife Council and FCA&C is working closely with the Council in developing its business plan to best complement the Council’s own services. Artists and makers in Fife are also to be consulted to find new ways of providing them with support.

In St Andrews FCA&C exhibitions are included in the programme of St Andrews Museum, Kinburn Park. The first exhibition made for display in Fife Council Museums, Past Present has just opened at St Andrews Museum. To recognise this new partnership FCA&C and Fife Council Arts Development commissioned Louise Fraser, Sally Pattrick, Andrea Sayers and Marie Louise Wrightson to make new work in response to the rich collections of the Museums Service. For Past Present the artists have researched and interpreted a whole range of artefacts held in Fife: from archaeological spindle whorls to a Polish military forces collection, from the tools of the linen trade to things made of linoleum and coal. References to the way in which artefacts are stored, handled and displayed have also been included in some of the resulting work.

Museum curators acted as guides, introducing the artists to the collections and helping them in their research. The artists have then used their skills in painting, photography, sculpture, jewellery and animation to create work which is a gift for the present and the future. They have also worked with senior Fife school pupils to help them go through the same creative process of making art based on museum objects. Following the St Andrews showing (16 Sept – 12 Nov) the exhibition will tour to Kirkcaldy Museum & Art Gallery from 9 December to 21 January.

A digital version of the exhibition is being created by Evie Milo for display at venues around Dunfermline before becoming available as a website. This is supported by the Digital Resource Development Team, funded by the Scottish Executive Regional Development Challenge Fund, through the Scottish Museums Council.

Popular children’s holiday workshops were delivered this summer both at St Andrews Museum and at the Byre Theatre. An exhibition of French and Scottish children’s art has now been installed at the Byre by FCA&C until 9 October to celebrate the 10 year alliance between St Andrews and Loches in the Loire Valley. This will be followed by Spotlight, an installation of magical light based work by recent Grays School of Art graduate Dawn Hynd from 19 October to 21 November. The Byre is also the host of some FCA&C craft cases which have been tempting their patrons to buy innovative craft over the last few months.

Craft retail will also be developed before Christmas at FCA&C’s base in St Andrews Town Hall. The foyer is being transformed into a craft and arts information space. Further partnerships are being discussed with the Fife Arts Co-operative based in Newburgh and the Lochgelly Centre among others.

Along with Fife Council’s essential support, increased funding from the Scottish Arts Council shows there is great potential for the visual arts and crafts to thrive and grow in Fife.