‘The Pot’ is an artwork by the artist Sarah Forrest currently showing in the Gallery 2 ‘TASTE!’ exhibition. This short video runs on a loop and focuses upon the artist’s hands as she throws a pot on a potter’s wheel. The text which appears on the screen gives the viewer a little more insight into the work: 

‘A few weeks ago I learned how to throw a pot. I had a real urge to make something tangible, something I could touch. I think its a reaction from having spent too much time at the computer’

Perhaps this is something that we all do nowadays – we are all experiencing too much screen time, whether it is a computer or looking at our smartphones first thing in the morning or last thing at night. What other creative things could you be doing with your hands? Whether it is making a nice cup of tea, a delicious soup or taking up a new craft such as sewing, knitting or painting, try out some of these activities for yourself and document/photograph/film as you go. This will help you see how you are improving week after week.

Check our examples below to get inspired!

Sarah Forrest (b. 1981 Dundee) is an artist based in Glasgow. After studying at Duncan of Jordanstone, Dundee, Forrest gained her masters from Glasgow School of Art in 2010, during which time she also studied at the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam. Forrest’s work has been presented at international film festivals and she went on to become a recipient of the 2017 Margaret Tait Award.

Forrest said, “I’m delighted to receive the Margaret Tait Award. Her work and approach as a filmmaker and writer has been influential for me, so to receive an award that celebrates her legacy is a humbling experience.”

Margaret Tait was born in 1918 in Kirkwall, Orkney. She qualified in medicine at Edinburgh University in 1941. From 1950 to 1952 she studied film at the Centro Sperimentale di Fotografia in Rome. Returning to Scotland she established Ancona Films in Edinburgh’s Rose Street. In the 1960’s Tait moved back to Orkney where over the following decades she made a series of films inspired by the Orcadian landscape and culture. All but three of her thirty two films were self financed. She wrote poetry and stories and produced several books including three books of poetry. She died in 1999. Perhaps the film ‘A Place of Work’ (1975) could be an influence on the work of Sarah Forrest as this film is a close study of the ‘everyday’. This was quite a groundbreaking format of film and very forward thinking for the time, in that Margaret Tait filmed around this house and garden from June-November 1975, and gave the viewer a real sense of being there.

Sarah Forrest’s 2012 film Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence was also shot on Orkney and captures her experience of traveling and living on the island.

The shortlist for the 2020/21 Margaret Tait Award are: Emilia Beatriz, Sulaïman Majali, Kimberley O’Neill and Hardeep Pandhal: https://luxscotland.org.uk/writing/shortlist-announced-for-2020-21-margaret-tait-award/