Ruth Ewan
b. 1980, Aberdeen, UK; lives in Glasgow, UK
Ruth Ewan, contributor to Bergen Assembly 2019, born in 1980 in Aberdeen, is an artist based in Glasgow. Solo exhibitions include Camden Arts Centre, London (2015); Tate Britain, London (2014–19); and Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2012). She has been featured in group exhibitions including Future Design, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2018) and Incerteza viva, Bienal de São Paulo (2016). She has created public commissions for High Line, New York (2019), Edinburgh Art Festival (2018), and Artangel, London (2013 and 2007).
Ruth Ewan’s solo exhibitions include Camden Arts Centre, London (2015); Tate Britain,London (2014–19); and Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2012). Her work has been featured in group exhibitions including Future Design, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2018) and Incerteza viva, Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo (2016). Ewan has created public commissions for the High Line, New York (2019); Edinburgh Art Festival (2018); and Artangel in London (2013 and 2007).
CONTRIBUTIONS
Asking Out, 2019
Installation, dimensions variable
Ewan’s current project Asking Out explores a particular educational method developed by an untrained primary school teacher, Muriel Pyrah, in Yorkshire throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. The project has been developed through extensive research at the National Arts Education Archive, based at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, as well as through a series of interviews with Pyrah’s former pupils and colleagues.
As a teacher, Pyrah invited children to literally ‘ask out’: ask questions aloud and engage in peer-to-peer, self-directed learning and criticism. Alongside this technique she encouraged a direct study of nature through the use of precise, descriptive language and detailed observational drawing, painting and sewing. In the context of Bergen Assembly, Ewan will present her research alongside developing the project further in collaboration with educational historian Lottie Hoare to reconsider what ‘asking out’ could mean today.
RELATED EVENTS
Introduction Days and Opening of Belgin
With contributions by Bergen, John Barker/Ines Doujak, Stacy Brafield, Capital Drawing Group, Banu Cennetoğlu, Laressa Dickey, Iris Dressler, Ruth Ewan, Magdalena Freudenschuss, Lottie Hoare, Julio Jara, Hiwa K, Nora Landkammer, Andrea De Pascual (Pedagogías Invisibles), Tomás de Perrate, Daniela Ramos Arias, Daniel Seymour, and Karin Schneider
•Talks, debates, performances, screenings, music, in English
•Belgin, Rasmus Meyers allé 3, 5015 Bergen
•Landmark, Kunsthall, Rasmus Meyers allé 5, 5015 Bergen
•Admission free
RELATED PLATFORMS