Artists commissioned by Moving Souls Dance: Birth of Ondine

Designer for Ondine: Heidi Luker

Costume for Ondine and design for wall hanging: Heidi Luker

Collaborator for design and build of Ondine: Emma Parkins

Design of animal masks: Emma Parkins

Composer for Ondine’s song: Alex Silverman

Performer Ondine: Charlotte Miranda-Smith

Drama leader for Central Youth Theatre: Megan Parker

Assistant leader for Central Youth Theatre: India Birtwisle

Director of Moving Souls Dance: Virginia Wollaston

Moving Souls Dance have commissioned artists to design a sculpture made from sustainable materials to imagine the spirit of the River Avon. This group of artists will help to co-create the drama and music that will reveal the current health of the River Avon and their concerns will be embroidered into a wall hanging for future exhibition.

Moving Souls Dance is working in partnership with River Hope, Rubbish Friends and The Crowne Plaza Hotel Stratford Upon Avon

Alongside our time in the forest, all three of us have been reading The Lost Rainforest of Britain by Guy Shrubsole, a book that has shaped many of our conversations and ways of looking. Shrubsole reminds us just how rare temperate rainforest is — rarer, in fact, than tropical rainforest — covering only around 1% of the Earth’s surface. Much of what once existed in Britain has been lost or fragmented, making the remaining pockets all the more precious.

One of the defining features of temperate rainforest, Shrubsole explains, is the presence of epiphytes: plants that grow on other plants. These are not parasites, but organisms that use trees as scaffolding, absorbing moisture and nutrients from the rain, mist and damp air around them. In Britain, epiphytes most commonly appear as lichens, bryophytes — a grouping that includes mosses and liverworts — and ferns. The more of these you see coating branches or climbing tree trunks, the more likely it is that you are standing in a rainforest.

Winter has been an especially revealing time to notice this. With fewer leaves on the trees, epiphytes come into sharper focus: draped, clustered, quietly luminous against dark bark. They slow you down and reward close attention. Much of our work during the residency has been about making space for these quieter presences — the small-scale abundance that defines these habitats but is so often overlooked.

Together, we’ve been developing a deeper understanding of the temperate rainforest as a living system — resilient, yet acutely vulnerable. Spending long, cold days within these forests has sharpened our awareness of how much depends on care, continuity and attention, and how our creative practices might sit within that wider ecological context.

• The commission will be managed by D&G based visual art and craft organisation Upland and has been developed in partnership with Moving Souls Dance.
• The partners for this project are the Galloway and Southern Ayrshire Biosphere and RSPB Scotland.
• The commission will take place between December 2025 – September 2026.
• The artist will be contracted on a pro rata basis, in line with Scottish Artist Union rates of pay at a residency fee of £8000 with an additional fee £1400 for 4 days engagement work (see additional budget information below). Upland is Registered in Scotland as a Community Interest Company Limited by Guarantee No. SC350101.
• Artists based in Scotland can apply for this residency (see details below in ‘who we are looking for’).
• The artist is not expected to be on site for the duration of the residency. There is no permanent residency accommodation. Artists will work with the project partners to create a plan for when they will be on site and accommodation will be booked as required. Please note there is additional budget for accommodation and travel costs.

The residency involves four key elements:

• Research and development (on site combined with remote working)
• Creating and exhibiting new artwork (exhibition to take place in Dumfries & Galloway, site/location to be determined between artist and partners)
• 4 days of engagement work (i.e artist talk and workshops)
• Understanding the impact of climate change on the habitat, birds and their migration.

The deadline for applications is 9am Monday 6th October 2025.

Download the application form

The first participatory workshop led by Josh took place on 18th March 2025 with positive feedback from the participants. They explored the oakwoods, took clay impressions of the trees and created clay models which will be fired and exhibited in August. The second participatory workshop will take place near Glen Trool and will offer participants a walk to the Rufus Stone and glimpse the oak apple gall wasps and Shakespeare’s ink, warblers and redstarts and select lichens used for dyeing. Images, clay objects and artefacts inspired by this ancient woodland will be part of an exhibition curated by Josh Williams in August 2025.

The commission is funded by Moving Souls Dance and the Galloway and Southern Ayrshire Biosphere Partnership. It is being delivered by Upland in partnership with MSD, the Galloway and Southern Ayrshire Biosphere Partnership and RSPB Scotland. This residency is linked to our Artful Migration partnership with Upland, which will lead into a new artist in residence programme in 2026.

The 2023 artist in residence programme focused on the elusive nightjar in partnership with Forest and Land Scotland (FLS) and RSPB Scotland. The residency was awarded to Leeming & Paterson, whose work explored the landscape and human interactions with it in the context of climate change and biodiversity loss. The natural world formed the basis of inspiration for many of their collaborative images and projects.
https://www.leemingpaterson.com/About

The artists’ research took place at Lochar Mosses (approximately 4 miles from Dumfries), and they worked closely with Forest and Land Scotland, who enabled access to the site and supported the artists to view the birds in their natural habitat. The artists-in-residence were present during key conservation activities such as the ringing of birds.

The nightjar, one of Scotland’s rarest and most unusual birds, appeared to be thriving in Dumfries and Galloway, with the majority of the population nesting in South West Scotland. Due to their largely nocturnal habits, nightjar populations were estimated by counting the number of males heard singing, or ‘churring’, after sunset. The UK nightjar population had suffered historical declines due to habitat loss, and nightjars were amber-listed birds of medium conservation concern. Nightjars only stayed in the UK during the summer, spending their winters in central and south-eastern Africa. The birds usually arrived in the UK between late April / mid-May and mainly left in August.

During the residency there was the opportunity to tag some of the adult birds that migrated to the Lochar Mosses habitat. Little was known of the bird’s migratory journey, which provided an opportunity for new research with the project partners. The nightjar’s secretive behaviour and almost supernatural reputation—being only visible at night—added to the intrigue. The information to be downloaded from the birds when they returned in 2024 was expected to provide, for the first time, details of where these particular birds spent their winter period in southern Africa.

For Artful Migration 2021-2022, environmental video artist and filmmaker John Wallace created work based on the behaviour of the ospreys at Kelton Mains, Threave Nature Reserve (part of NTS Threave Garden & Estate). Based in Annandale, in the east of the region, he explored the lives of these rare birds of prey while also looking at the wider ecosystem that supported them, as well as their impact on people.

The 2020 residency built on a successful pilot that had taken place at WWT Caerlaverock in 2017–18, when Angela Alexander-Lloyd created work inspired by the annual migration of whooper swans from Iceland to the Solway Firth.

Artful Migration was established to honour the legacy of Ginnie Wollaston’s uncle George Clark and his brother John Clark, a keen artist who lived for many years in Gatehouse of Fleet. Ginnie wanted to give this legacy to Dumfries and Galloway in memory of both uncles, enabling artists to create work inspired by the unique environment and migratory birds associated with the region.

Angela’s video projection onto ice entitled Faileas more than met the challenge of the brief –and revealed to all of us the power that art has to encompass complex questions but to present them differently so that everyone can understand or have their own interpretation of the work. Faileas projected the figure of a woman onto block of ice in which feathers from the whooper swans were embedded. The female figure on a repeating loop bent down to drink a cup of dark molasses – a substance akin to oil consumption with a passive face of continual consumption – chilling!

The sound installation took the participant around the site of Caerlaverock down to the hide on the marshes to learn about the changes local farmers, business men and women and MPs had noticed that climate change had brought to the area.It was obvious that most had witnessed these changes and with Caerlaverock being at sea level the rise of temperature that causes the icebergs to melt and sea levels rise – there is a risk of flooding! We can stop this behaviour but do we have the political will to do something serious to change this? This residency was crucial to raise awareness of these issues, gather good PR for this partnership and for the potential powerful statements through art making that can help us to change our behaviour of consumption.

We will be looking for a three year funding support this project into the future in partnership with University of Glasgow and other international partnerships.

https://www.wwt.org.uk/wetland-centres/caerlaverock/

http://www.weareupland.com/projects/artful-migration-artist-residency/blog