As part of the 2016 SGSAH Residencies Pilot, Matluba Khan joined the team at Deveron Arts in Huntly as their Thinker-in-Residence, which she discussed in two guest posts earlier in the year (read them here and here). This week we’re very pleased to have an insight from the opposite side of the residency with an post from Claudia Zeiske, Director at Deveron Arts.
Having Matluba with us at Deveron Arts was a great experience for all of us: our team, our community and our artists. She worked alongside the team on a daily basis, furthering her research on landscape architecture and community engagement and talking to local people. She also gave a talk about her work with primary schools in Bangladesh and as a highlight ran a workshop with us on how to develop a community garden by gathering community interest and impact.
Huntly, Aberdeenshire
Matluba became a full member of the team during her stay with us in Huntly, she cooked a delicious curry for a Friday lunch and brought her husband, a renowned Bangladeshi musician, to visit. Apart from all this, Matluba also connected us to her home University Department in Aberdeen and we managed to engage her supervisor for a talk at our event on the Psychology of Long-distance Walking during Edinburgh Arts festival.
For us the experience of working with a thinker-in-residence was very valuable. We had another person to bounce ideas off, and at the same time gained insight into a new field that we were unfamiliar with. The process of selection was also interesting. We had a choice of more than 20 applications, all of them of a very higher standard. Other candidates we met informally later on, one even came and gave a talk on her subject here and invited us to give a talk at the University of Aberdeen next year.
All in all, this project was very worthwhile for forging new connections, new networks and new insights. And in our case it was a great cultural exchange too. We already look forward to our next thinker in residence.
Claudia Zeiske
Director | Deveron Arts
A big thank you to Claudia for sharing her thoughts on the thinker-in-residence project. There’s still some time left to apply for this years SGSAH Doctoral artist-in-residence/internship programme, so check out the opportunities on offer and get your application in before October 31st!
SGSAH Blog 