Visual Artist Anna Shirron Weir used her VACMA bursary to purchase a new piece of equipment that supported Anna to experiment a new dimension to her practice.
Anna's work is available to view via her website and you can also check out her YouTube channel.
Anna Shirron Weir is a Visual Artist. After graduating from her degree in Painting, Anna went on to complete a Master of Fine Art in 2010 after which she has concentrated on large scale paper cut installations.
Her work concerns itself with pattern and detail, looking at the idea of ‘beauty’ and ‘ugliness’ – using materials, patterns and motifs that may normally be considered purely decorative to depict more challenging subject matters.
The year that Anna applied, the VACMA had recently undergone a change to the bursary scheme. She had previously thought about applying for the scheme but had always been unsure if it was right for her and how it could fit with her practice. But following the change it became clear how the bursary could apply to her creative practice.
She says, “My work is not expensive in terms of materials, but my work is instead time consuming. The change of criteria made the funding much more accessible to my type of art making.”
“During Covid I was looking at ways that I could work from home whilst furloughed. I was looking to start a project that I could do specifically working from home around my young family, and ways that I could adapt my practice to work around these challenges and give me an opportunity during that time to try something new.”
The funding enabled Anna to purchase equipment – a GoPro 9. She had previously explored time lapse to document a project the previous year but the opportunity to learn to use the GoPro properly would allow for more variation in how she could document her practice and would enable the film and documentation of the work to become as much of a piece of work as the paper cut out itself.
Anna says, “I bought a GoPro 9 as I had started to explore video in my practice prior to Covid but hadn’t had time to fully explore or learn a new piece of equipment properly. I was keen to buy this equipment during this period where I had the time to learn to use it properly, and then use it as a tool within my practice and explore a different avenue within my work”
Anna was keen to explore ideas that could be exhibited publicly but knew there would be a high chance that public work could not happen due to restrictions. Instead, she created an installation ‘The Shed’ in her garden during lockdown 2021.
“I had an idea to use my garden shed to create the project. I had previously had a project with an installation in my shed that had been a bit of an experiment - I wanted to develop that further and do something more with the shed. The project ended up being called ‘The Shed’.”
Anna created a paper cut installation based around her shed. She streamed the installation for 4 hours a day for the duration of the 6 weeks of the project and uploaded the videos every day to her social media pages. This way it allowed people to follow what she was doing, from the installation of the work to the deterioration of the work over time. During the installation period, Aberdeen had a period of extreme weather with heavy snowfall, and it was interesting to see how many people started following the updates to see how the piece was standing up to the weather.
Anna explains, “Due to the nature of materials used in paper cutting the work itself does not have the longevity in the same way as the documentation of the project does. The documentation demonstrated the degradation of the paper cutting through this period of harsh winter weather.”
She adds, “I had to stop and consider the time of day I was filming, the weather, who might be viewing it online and at what time I was most likely to catch people who might be looking at it in order to gain a bit of momentum.”
Anna was able, through the project, to explore more effective documentation through film, sound and light, to better capture, or add a further dimension to the work she produces.
Anna describes the impact the bursary has had on her practice:
“VACMA had a big impact. I came out of it having successfully tried doing something totally different within my practice. Being able to use a new piece of equipment that I could continue to explore.”
I learned that there’s real value in spending the money on the best available tech and equipment at the time. This not only gave me more options in terms of how to film the piece, but it has also future proofed the films I hope to create going forwards as I have bought into the newest technology available at the time.
I also learned the importance of always having a back-up plan and was glad I had planned for the scenario where there was another lockdown.
Long term, the experience you get gives you lots of benefits going forward.”