This year’s Scotland’s annual visual theatre and film festival, Manipulate, produced by Puppet Animation Scotland (PAS), took place in its usual February time slot but was on line rather than on stage because of Covid-19 restrictions. This meant that the PAS multi-city outdoor installation and artwalk Restless Worlds had to be postponed but new Covid allowances this Spring mean that it can be rescheduled with new dates.
Taking the form of eight kinetic sculpture installations, Restless Worlds will open at Edinburgh’s Lyceum where the artworks will be displayed in the venue windows. From there they will move to Aberdeen where they will be presented as a multi-venue artwalk before being flitted down to Glasgow.
Puppet Animation Scotland’s director Dawn Taylor said “Restless Worlds was born out of a desire to utilise the extraordinary skills and vision of our community of artists to create a unique cultural experience for Scottish audiences during the pandemic. We are so excited to finally be able to share these works with the public after having to postpone our original plans due to the lockdown.
“The installation features both leading Scottish artists and exciting emerging new voices, who between them have an extraordinary range of backgrounds, including puppetry, sculpture, filmmaking, object theatre, photography, generative design and theatre. After so long without access to theatres and galleries, Restless Worlds offers audiences a really unique and distinctive covid-safe arts experience – part exhibition, part storytelling, and something you can enjoy at your own pace as you wander around the city.
Inspired by Boccaccio’s 1353 novel The Decameron, where ten strangers shelter together in hiding from the Plague, finding their way through the quarantine by telling each other stories, this series of works will be created by some of Scotland’s leading puppeteers, sculptors and animators. This list includes Shona Reppe and Tamlin Wiltshire with Still Life with Willow Pattern; Lucas Chih-Peng Kao and Katanari with Creaturium: The Lost Ones; Chell Young with Trials of Bliss; Guy Bishop presents The Diktat Synthesizer; Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre and novelist Heather Parry bring Apple Eaters; Gavin Glover has A Rock and a Hard Place; Jessica Innes creates Mr Holdcroft while Samuel Watterworth challenges with Here We’re Not.
Tickets for Restless Worlds are now on sale and available from the manipulate festival website with prices from £7 to £5 or pay what you can. A ticket purchase gives access to Audio or BSL files streamed direct to phones, along with a guide to the artwork locations.
Edinburgh dates 21st April to 2nd May
Aberdeen dates 6th to 16th May
Glasgow dates tbc
Irene Brown
Radio Summerhall Arts 