Artist Rachel Maclean transforms a vacant shop on Ayr High Street into an immersive installation.
Taking the form of a surreal life sized toy shop where nothing is for sale, this immersive artwork transports audiences into Rachel Maclean’s dark imagination and features her animated film upside mimi ᴉɯᴉɯ uʍop.
The work opens for the launch of JUPITER+ ,Scottish art park Jupiter Artland’s bold new programme supporting young people across Scotland through the exhibition of large scale public art commissions and ambitious creative learning programme across the country.
One of Scotland’s most acclaimed artists, Rachel Maclean’s work is a timely response to the crisis facing many high streets across the country. Occupying a formerly vacant shop on Ayr’s historic high street, at first glance, Maclean’s intervention appears like any other rundown shop, a familiar sight, but on closer exploration, this shop begins to reveal itself as increasingly uncanny and fantastical. An education programme for young people in Ayr coincides - every high school in Ayrshire is being offered the opportunity to participate in green screen workshops and create their own short films inspired by Rachel's.
Taking the form of a surreal life sized toy shop where nothing is for sale, this immersive artwork transports audiences into Rachel Maclean’s dark imagination and features her animated film upside mimi ᴉɯᴉɯ uʍop.
The work opens for the launch of JUPITER+ ,Scottish art park Jupiter Artland’s bold new programme supporting young people across Scotland through the exhibition of large scale public art commissions and ambitious creative learning programme across the country.
One of Scotland’s most acclaimed artists, Rachel Maclean’s work is a timely response to the crisis facing many high streets across the country. Occupying a formerly vacant shop on Ayr’s historic high street, at first glance, Maclean’s intervention appears like any other rundown shop, a familiar sight, but on closer exploration, this shop begins to reveal itself as increasingly uncanny and fantastical. An education programme for young people in Ayr coincides - every high school in Ayrshire is being offered the opportunity to participate in green screen workshops and create their own short films inspired by Rachel's.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Thank you.
00:22 Why hello!
00:36 Welcome to Mimi's store.
00:37 Come away in.
00:38 Hi, I'm artist Rachel McLean and this is my artwork, Don't Buy Me on Ayer High Street.
00:45 Fantastic.
00:46 Can you tell us a little bit about this artwork?
00:48 Yeah, sure.
00:49 As you approach it at first it kind of looks a bit like a disused shop, but when you get
00:53 closer there's things that don't quite add up.
00:55 So signs on the window that say "Don't Buy Me" and "Nothing Must Go" and you come inside
01:00 and it's a shop, an odd one, stocked entirely with Mimi dolls which on the one side look
01:06 kind of like conventional sort of young dolls but then they invert to reveal an old doll
01:11 underneath.
01:12 And in the back of the shop there's a storeroom or what kind of feels like a storeroom, staffroom,
01:18 that has a kind of TV propped up on the wall which features the doll Mimi and a kind of
01:24 narrative which plays out between her old self and her young self.
01:28 And you've exhibited in lots of different places, Scotland and Venice, Duke of Dortmund,
01:33 National Gallery of Scotland, all these different places.
01:36 How has it been to bring something to Ayer High Street?
01:38 It's great, I love it.
01:39 I think there's something about showing in a shop that's very accessible.
01:44 There can often be with galleries, I don't know, people bring assumptions to an artwork
01:48 that when you show on the high street and especially when it's kind of, it doesn't say
01:51 it's an artwork, you approach it and don't quite know what it is.
01:54 I think it means that people are very open to questions and also very honest with feedback
01:59 so I'm really excited to see what people make of it in Ayer.
02:02 Hi I'm Claire Feely, I'm Head of Exhibitions and Learning at Jupiter Artland and I'm here
02:07 to open Jupiter + Ayer, an incredible artwork by Rachel MacLean.
02:11 Great, and can you tell us a little bit about what this artwork is?
02:14 This is a new public artwork by the Scottish artist Rachel MacLean.
02:19 She has taken the idea of a high street shop and quite literally turned it on its head
02:23 and created an immersive experience.
02:26 People are free to explore it, encounter it.
02:30 There is inside a little surprise of multimedia installation and accompanying it is one of
02:36 the most ambitious free learning programmes in Scotland.
02:40 Our mission is for every young person in Scotland to have the wellbeing benefits of creative
02:46 learning.
02:47 We are doing that inspired by Rachel MacLean's practice.
02:50 We've built our own little film studio next door and we're inviting every school in Ayer
02:54 to take part.
02:55 Can you tell us a little bit more about this work, what the themes are, what people can
02:59 see when they go inside the shop?
03:00 This work is really rooted in the town of Ayer and the high street and it's a story
03:05 that's happening to a lot of our towns across Scotland.
03:09 Rachel's work addresses themes of identity, also consumerism, but it's in the vein of
03:14 the best Scottish satire where she takes a challenging subject and by turning it on its
03:19 head creates something that's joyful, inspiring and I think by creating this surreal toy shop
03:26 where nothing is for sale, it suggests new possibilities for culture and social exchange
03:31 in our town centres.
03:32 Can you expand a little bit about what's special about this learning programme in Ayer?
03:36 There's two elements to it, isn't there?
03:38 So the story of this artwork, it began five years ago.
03:42 Rachel was representing Scotland, she had a major show in the National Gallery in London
03:49 and we brought a group of young people from all across Scotland, from Orkney to Malague
03:53 and everywhere in between, to see that show, to meet Rachel and to come up with a new model
03:58 for a public artwork for Scotland, one that would really engage people and serve people
04:02 and especially young people and amplify their voices.
04:06 And they proposed to Rachel the context of a Scottish high street and how to reimagine
04:10 that as a public space where young people could really feel empowered.
04:14 So Rachel delivered this incredible artwork that literally stops people in their tracks
04:19 and then right next to it we're showcasing all of the creative skills that go into making
04:25 a work of this scale and ambition, particularly in digital.
04:28 So this free learning programme skills up young people with all of the creative skills
04:34 that they're going to need to start an exciting career in film, in media, in set production.
04:41 But you know, the future is there, so let's see what they do with it.
04:44 This work is entirely free.
04:46 We've been supported by so many people in Ayr.
04:50 Everyone on the high street has come by and helped us out.
04:54 So yeah, it's free, drop in, you don't need to book, you can spend as long as you want,
04:59 you'll meet the team, you can have a little nosy round.
05:01 It's going to be here all the way through Christmas.
05:05 The lovely thing is it kind of invites people back into the town in those dark winter months,
05:09 which we know in Scotland can be a little bit dreak.
05:11 And I think there's nothing like a joyful artwork to really kind of get things going.
05:17 [Music]