ESW/ECA Graduate Residents 2025 - Eilidh McKeown & Libby Entwistle

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop is delighted to announce Eilidh McKeown and Libby Entwistle as the recipients of the ESW/ECA Graduate Residency Awards for 2025.

Both artists will undertake their residencies at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop in early 2026 when they will spend 3 months developing new work within a supportive community of artists and makers, continuing their exploration of urgent contemporary themes through ambitious, research-led practice.

Eilidh McKeown is a Scottish artist whose practice investigates shifting belief systems in Scotland and the wider UK through a broadly sculptural, materially varied approach. Her work recontextualises culturally significant objects, images, and texts to spark critical dialogue around art, politics, and collective agency. Often referencing multiple historical periods, her sculptures create spaces for reflection on the UK’s turbulent political climate and the production of its art and culture.

McKeown earned her MA (Hons) in Fine Art from the School of Art at Edinburgh College of Art. During her time there, she distinguished herself through her research-led sculptural practice, culminating in her 2025 graduation project and a place in Trading Zone 2025 at the Talbot Rice Gallery.

You can find out more about here work here.

Image: Parley, installation view, courtesy the artist.

Libby Entwistle is a multidisciplinary artist whose work reinterprets historical sources, myths, and tales through a playful yet critical lens. Often told from a feminine perspective, her projects highlight recurring historical patterns in an age seemingly detached from the past due to rapid digital change. Drawing on moving image, ceramics, sculpture, and painting, she creates modular visual narratives that shift meaning when rearranged. Through humour and cultural nostalgia, she makes historical narratives accessible, exploring figures such as Martha Mitchell, Aphrodite, Margery Kempe, and Saint Margaret. Her work operates within what she terms “Lorecore”—a cultural moment of digital capitalism defined by the need to storify the self amid collapsing global narratives.

Libby Entwistle completed her MA (Hons) in Fine Art at the School of Art, Edinburgh College of Art. Her graduate work, An Aftermath, A Crime Scene, showcases her investigative and narrative-driven approach.

You can find out more about her work here.

Image: An Aftermath, A Crime Scene