Exhibitions & Screenings

2020

The Stove Network, Dumfries
Substitute & Index
14 February, 2019
Part of On the Move curated by MIMC
Revolutions Per Minute Festival, Massachusetts, Boston, USA
Passage
31 January – 2 February 2020
SSA|VAS Open Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
Lumen & Passage
22 December 2019 – 30 January 2020
Curated by CutLog Artists Moving Image

2019

CCA, Glasgow
Substitute & Index
7 December, 2019
Part of On the Move curated by MIMC
Filmhuis Cavia, Amsterdam
Substitute & Index
6 December, 2019
Part of On the Move curated by MIMC
Pix Film Gallery, Toronto
Substitute & Index
15 November, 2019
Part of On the Move curated by MIMC
Hosted by Stephen Broomer and AdHoc screening collective.
Star and Shadow Cinema, Newcastle
Substitute & Index
4 October, 2019
Part of On the Move curated by MIMC
Bideodromo International Experimental Film and Video
Festival
, Bilbao, Spain
Index
10 September, 2019
San Diego Underground Film Festival
Lumen
22-25 August, 2019
Project Arts Centre, Dublin
That Apart and Folding In
29 August to 19 October, 2019
Two films in collaboration with Sandra Johnston for her solo exhibition Wait it Out
Supernormal Festival, Braziers Park
Substitute & Index
2 – 4 August, 2019
Part of On the Move curated by MIMC
Edinburgh International Film Festival (Black Box), Scotland
Lumen
21 & 26 June, 2019 (in Communicating Contact)
Borders Book Festival, Melrose
Substitute & Index
13 – 16 June, 2019
Part of On the Move curated by MIMC
Laterale Film Festival, Cinema San Nicola, Cosenza, Italy
Lumen
7-9 June, 2019
Crossroads, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA
Lumen
6-9 June, 2019
Chicago Underground Film Festival, Chicago, USA
Lumen
7 June, 2019
Braziers Mini Indi Film Festival, Braziers Park, Oxfordshire
Dead Metaphor and Index
24-27 May, 2019
Fracto Film Encounter, ACUD Kunsthaus, Berlin
Substitute
23-26 May, 2019
New York Independent Film Festival, USA
Substitute
5-12 May, 2019
Duns PlayFest, Duns
Substitute & Index
2 – 9 May, 2019
Part of On the Move curated by MIMC
Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Hawick
Substitute & Index
2 – 6 May, 2019
Part of On the Move curated by MIMC
Spectral Film Festival, Wisconsin, USA
Substitute
4-6 April, 2019
Revolutions Per Minute, Boston, USA
Lumen
2-3 February, 2019
FLEX Florida Experimental Film/Video Festival, Tampa, USA
Lumen
7-10 February, 2019

2018

Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
Cubiculum Umbrae
29 November, 2018
Glasgow University, Scotland.
Of the Excellency of Wheate
Part of The Occult Turn, curated by Leontios Toumpouris
September 2018
Ann Arbor Film Festival, USA
Cubiculum Umbrae
In Disasters of Peace
March 2018

2017

Directors Lounge, Berlin
Five Angels
27-29 October, 2017
Summerhall, Edinburgh
Alchemist
2 August – 24 September, 2017
San Diego Underground Film Festival, USA
Five Angels
25 August, 2017
Northwest Film Forum, Seattle
Cubiculum Umbrae
Part of Disasters of Peace (curated by Kamilla Kuc & Sam Jury)
28 May, 2017
The Horse Hospital, London
Cubiculum Umbrae
Part of Disasters of Peace (curated by Kamilla Kuc & Sam Jury)
20 May, 2017
Dokufest, Kosovo
Five Angels
8 & 12 May, 2017
Platform Festival, Perthshire
A Landscape Symphony in 22 Movements
25 March, 2017
Experiments in Cinema, Albuquerque, USA
Five Angels
18-23 April, 2017
4th International Festival of Experimental Video, Valparaiso, Chile
Speculum
11-16 April, 2017
NOFEST, at Unza! Milan, Italy
Speculum
8 April, 2017
Glasgow Short Film Festival
Five Angels
15-19 March, 2017
Traverse Vidéo, Toulouse, France
Speculum
12 March, 2017
VIDEO: To Flowers, ANDOR Gallery, London
Mutus Floris
17 February, 2017

2016

Unfix Festival: Rebirth, Glasgow
Five Angels
18 December, 2016
Transgression, at Close-Up Film Centre, London
Five Angels
10 December, 2016
Glasgow Short Film Festival
Of The Excellency Of Wheate
16-20 March, 2016
Inside and the Wunderkammer of Fertility, Palazzo Vernazza, Lecce, Italy
Mutus Floris
Curated by Dores Sacquegna.
2-9 March, 2016
Full Frame Theatre, Durham, NC, USA, Center For Documentary Studies/Duke University MFA
Solo retrospective: Alchemist, Diagram, Mutus Floris, Cubiculum Umbrae, Speculum, Of The Excellency of Wheat
27 January, 2016

2015

Edinburgh Artists’ Moving Image Festival
Of The Excellency Of Wheate
12 December, 2015
Antimatter [media art] Festival, Victoria, BC, Canada
Speculum
16 – 31 October , 2015
Sphinx Thebes Festival, Greece
Alchemist
October, 2015
Motion Creatures, Edinburgh
Cubiculum Umbrae, Diagram
24 August, 2015
Altered States at Coastal Current Arts Festival, Hastings
Speculum
29 & 30 August, 2015
USURP Zone 5 Film Festival, London
Cubiculum Umbrae
14 August, 2015
SHORTini Film Festival, Sicily
Speculum
1 August, 2015
Swedenborg Film Festival, London
Post Lux Materia (solo retrospective): Alchemist, Diagram, Mutus Floris, Speculum, Cubiculum Umbrae, Of The Excellency of Wheat
8 July, 2015
Tower Mill, Heart of Hawick
Speculum
24 June, 2015
Chicago Underground Film Festival
Speculum
13-17 May, 2015
Videoformes, Clermont Ferrand, France
Speculum
19-21 March, 2015
Papay Gyro Nights, Hong Kong
Speculum
6-20 March, 2015
Papay Gyro Nights, Papa Westray, Orkney, Scotland
Speculum
3-10 February, 2015

2014

Venice Performance Art Week, Italy
Alchemist (installation)
13-20 December, 2014
RISC Rencontres Internationales – Science & Cinema 2014, Marseille, France
Speculum
29 November, 2014
The Journal of Short Film, Vol 33 – peer reviewed DVD, Ohio State University, released November 2014
Speculum
Strangloscope III – Cinema as Witchcraft 2014, Florianópolis, Brazil
Speculum
31 October, 2014
Highlight Arts, Edinburgh
Twelve Frames Left
2 October, 2014
Videoholica 2014, Bulgaria (award finalist)
Twelve Frames Left
August, 2014
The Picture Show, New York, USA
Diagram
27 & 28 June, 2014
Montreal Underground Film Festival
Speculum
24 May, 2014
Threshold Artpsace, Perth
Mutus Floris
May, 2014
Iowa City Documentary Film Festival (Winner ‘Best Cinematography’ Award)
Speculum
17-19 April, 2014

2013

Edinburgh International Festival
Catoptrica – Live video performance
28 August, 2013
YES Festival, Selkirk
Mutus Floris
September, 2013
Verksmiðjan, Hjalteyri, Iceland
The Fixed and the Volatile: Speculum, Cubiculum Umbrae, Diagram, Mutus Floris and Catoptrica film performance.
1-30 August, 2013
Filmpoem Festival, Dunbar
The Rainbow
August, 2013
Koli Natural Park, Finland
The Rainbow – forest walk installation and screenings
May-Aug, 2013
Threshold Artpsace, Perth
Mutus Floris
May, 2013

2011

Inspace Gallery, Crichton Street, Edinburgh
Sensory alchemy – a laboratory of failure
7-9 Dec, 2011
The Horsebox Gallery, touring (group) show, various places, Scotland
Diagram: Utopia
Sept – Nov, 2011
Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival, Hawick, Scottish Borders
Hear: See: There (A/V performance collaboration with James Wyness)
24 Oct, 2011
I-Park, East Haddam, Connecticut, USA
Seven Seals
16 Oct, 2011
Bump Gallery, Galashiels, Scottish Borders
Mutus Floris
26-27 August, 2011
Supernormal Festival, Braziers Park, Oxfordshire
Supernature – a collection of films
19-21 August, 2011
An Tobar, Isle of Mull
Fingal’s Cave
2-30 July, 2011
Liverpool John Moores University, Film Philosophy
Alchemist
6-8 July, 2011
Montreal Underground Film Festival
Mutus Floris
May 14, 2011
The Generator Shed, Phenzhopehaugh, Scottish Borders
Mutus Floris
7-15 May, 2011
Invite and directions
Geopoetics Festival, Brantwood, England
March, 2011
Going Outward: Mutus Floris, Lament
Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Scotland
Reflections, Inversions, Symmetries
February – March, 2011
New Moves International, International Festival of Live Art (single channel screening), Glasgow
Alchemist
February, 2011

2010

Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival, Hawick
Alchemist and Lament
September, 2010
Glasgow International, The Jacobean Building, 49 Virginia Street (first floor), Glasgow. G1 1TS
Alchemist
April-May, 2010

2009

Atlantic Islands Festival, Isle of Luing, Scottish Centre for Geopoetics
Lament & Fingal’s Cave
July, 2009
Mendelssohn Festival, An Tobar, Tobermory, Isle of Mull
Fingal’s Cave
June, 2009
SSA annual exhibition, Vision Building, Dundee
Lament (group show)
May-June, 2009
Forest Gallery, Selkirk
Lament (solo show)
April, 2009
Casa Artelor, Timisoara, Romania
Borderline/Lament (solo show)
March, 2009
Curated by Ileana Pintilie

2008

Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
Fingal’s Cave (solo show)
June-July 2008
Curated by Jaromir Jedlenski

2007

Fabrycka Sztuki, Lodz, Poland
*Poprzez Portret
December, 2007
Curated by Krystoff Noworyta
The National Brukenthal Museum, Sibiu, Romania
Contact Rushes
November, 2007
Curated by Ileana Pintillie (a Demarco Archive exhibition)
Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh
*Contact Rushes
August, 2007
Curated by Richard Demarco
Demarco European Art Foundation, Edinburgh/Glasgow
*Evanescence – Ice/Thaw Norway
April, 2007

2006

Ruskin Gallery, Cambridge
*A Landscape Symphony in 22 Movements
October 2006

2005

Threshold Artspace, Perth Concert Hall, Perth
* A Landscape Symphony in 22 Movements
October, 2005
Curated by Iliyana Nedkova
Threshold Artspace, Perth Concert Hall, Perth
The Guru
October, 2005
Curated by Iliyana Nedkova

2004

Videomedeja, Novi Sad, Serbia
* The Windmills of Innerleithen
Part of Drift touring programme
Edinburgh International Film Festival, Stills Gallery,
* The Windmills of Innerleithen
Part of Drift touring programme

2003

Innerleithen, Scottish Borders
* The Windmills of Innerleithen
June, 2003
Curated by Iliyana Nedkova
Ledingham Chalmers, Edinburgh
* Reception
January, 2003

* Note to the above:
Works marked by an asterisk were produced during a period of joint practice with Alexander Hamilton, under the name ‘Hamilton & Ashrowan’.

Biography

Dr Richard Ashrowan (b.1966) is a moving image artist and independent film curator. He works with video and 16mm film, creating short single channel films, immersive video installations and live multi-projector performance experiments. His works are exhibited at film festivals, galleries and artist spaces around the world.

He was the founder and Creative Director of Alchemy Film & Arts in Scotland from 2010 to 2019 and was curator for Scotland + Venice at the Venice Art Biennale 2017. He was awarded a PhD in 2016 (Edinburgh College of Art / Edinburgh University) for his practice-based research on ‘Alchemical Catoptrics of the Moving Image’. He has contributed to numerous festival and artistic juries, delivers talks and workshops, and was lead facilitator for Alchemy Film & Arts tutored residency programmes in 2017 and 2018. He is an active member of the Moving Image Makers Collective.

His work is concerned with light and luminosity, referring to the language of early light metaphysics and alchemical processes in methodology and content. His research has included an exploration of the use of light by alchemists from the 12th to the 18th centuries, examining their experimental methodology (alchemical catoptrics), diagrammatical structures and early pre-scientific philosophies of light. These historical antecedents often inform the content and structuring principals of his films, which are substantively concerned with notions of transformation. Landscape and place, coupled with a personal sense of deep presence, often form the starting point for his visual material.

Filmography

Prima Luce (First Light) (2020, 9m)
Folding In (2019, 6m)
That Apart (2019, 8m)
Passage (2019, 5m)
Dead Metaphor (2019, 3m)
Lumen (2018, 3m)
Substitute (2018, 7m)
Index (2018, 3m)
Five Angels (2016, 6m)
Mercurius (2015, 6m, installation with feathers)
Of the Excellency of Wheate (2015, 9m)
Speculum (2014, 17m)
Cubiculum Umbrae (2013, 9m,16mm)
The Rainbow (2013, 7m,16mm)
Twelve Frames Left (2013, 5m)
Catoptrica III (2011 – 2014, 60m, 4 channels)
Diagram (2011, 7m)
Mutus Floris (2011, 4m)
Alchemist (2010, 30m, 2 channels, installation)
Reflections, Inversions, Symmetries (2010, 21m)
Lament (2009, 9m)
Green man (2008, 5m)
Fingal’s Cave (2008, 6m)
Contact Rushes (2007, 5m, 4 channels)
Evanescence (2007, 10m, 4 channels)
A Landscape Symphony in 22 Movements (2005, 25m, 30 channels)
Threshold Artspace (2005, 30 channels, various)
Windmills of Innerleithen (2004, 8m, 3 channels)
Reception (2003, 8m)

Writing on his work

Speculum: review by Simone Dompeyre, Curator, Traverse Video.
Speculum: review by Francesco Cazzin, University of Turin / L’Emerge Del Possible.
Lament: review by curator, Ileana Pintilie Teleagă.
Lament: review by Allan Harkness.
Lament: Sunday Times Review by Joan McAlpine.
Fingal’s Cave: Associations, an essay by Foksal Gallery Curator, Jaromir Jedliński.
A Landscape Symphony: commissioned essay, Dr Ailsa Boyd on Millais and the Sound of Many Waters.
A Landscape Symphony: essay by Rebecca Bell, Millais, Hamilton & Ashrowan
The Windmills of Innerleithen: essay by Iliyana Nedkova: The New Readymades and Menhirs of the North.

Publications

Speculum
DVD and artists’ scroll, 2016
Lament
Nowhere Arts / Artists monograph 2009
Borderline
Timisoara, Romania / Group catalogue/ conference paper 2009
In Romanian and English
Fingal’s Cave
An Tobar, Isle of Mull / Exhibition catalogue
Fingal’s Cave / Blue Flora Celtica
Foksal Gallery, Poland / Joint exhibition catalogue 2008
Contact Rushes / Poprzez Portret
Fabryka Sztuki / Narodowe Centrum Kultury
A Landscape Symphony in 22 Movements
Threshold Artspace / Exhibition catalogue 2005
Threshold
Threshold Artspace / Project catalogue 2005
The Windmills of Innerleithen
Exhibition catalogue 2005
Reception
Ledingham Chalmers / Exhibition catalogue 2003

Residencies

Duke University – Visiting Artist (2016)
David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Durham, North Carolina, USA
Cafe Tissardmine (2014)
Morocco
The Arctic Circle (2012)
Svalbard, High Arctic
Kolin Ryyanänen (2012)
Koli Natural Park, Finland
I-Park (2011)
Artist Residency Centre, East Haddam, Connecticut, USA
Brantwood (2007)
Former home of John Ruskin / Brantwood Trust, Coniston, Lake District, England
Threshold Artspace (2005)
Perth Concert Hall, Perth
Lead Artist

Public Collections

Threshold Artspace, Perth Concert Hall, Perth
Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge

Corporate Collections

Ledingham Chalmers, Edinburgh