Alkmini Gkousiari, REACH Scotland Resident

We are delighted to welcome Alkmini Gkousiari to ESW for her REACH Scotland Residency. Alkmini will be in residence 1 – 15 March developing new work.

Alkmini Gkousiari is a Greek artist who lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. She has a BA (Hons) in Sculpture and Environmental Art from Glasgow School of Art since 2020, and she exhibited in Athens, Glasgow, Dundee, Manchester, and Dumbarton. She explores her country’s ancient gods, rural and orthodox rituals, and family traditions to create new understanding of these dualities and multiplicitous identities. Her practice attempts to encapsulate the myth of creation or coming-into-being through engagement with the conflicts that arise from multiple cultural identities. Alkmini also uses in collaborations, performances and site-specific works her playful sense of storytelling to interrogate whichever landscape she finds herself in through the process of mythmaking. Alkmini’s practice spans drawing, sculpture, writing, sound, and performance.

Over the years she has been developing a practice of symbol making –through sculpture, performance, drawing and text –which she’s now ready to advance through more demanding materials. Therefore, this residency will support her skills development, concentrating on stone carving and bronze casting.

She particularly wants to pursue this making process in Edinburgh, historically termed ‘Athens of the North’. Here, she will reflect on the colonial history of Scotland, ancient history in Greece and their connections to the current socio-political situation in Greece.

More about Alkmini’s intriguing work here