A 快播视频 visual arts doctoral student will head to the Scottish Highlands this summer after being named the , one of Canada's most prestigious honours for contemporary artists.
, a first-year practice-based PhD student in visual arts at 快播视频鈥檚 (AMPD) was selected from more than 200 applicants across Canada. A national jury of artists and curators chose Marsh, with the final selection made by Glenfiddich Artists in Residence program curator Andy Fairgrieve.
Marsh will spend three months living and working at the historic Glenfiddich distillery in Dufftown, Scotland, where she will develop a permanent public sculpture as the residency program marks its 25th anniversary. She expects the experience will directly inform her PhD outcomes at York, including the research documentation that supports her dissertation and future exhibits.
Marsh's proposed project draws on her research into the ritual of coin-wishing and its historic roots in Celtic water worship.
Her work will centre on the Robbie Dhu spring, the water source that has supplied the Glenfiddich distillery since 1887.
For Marsh, the residency is timely and deeply personal. Though she is half Scottish, these histories and rituals were never passed down to her. She sees her time in the Highlands as an act of learning through presence 鈥 listening to local knowledge, walking the land and gathering stories that will shape her final work.
"I hope that while I am in the Highlands, I can learn as much as I can from locals about regional histories around holy wells, coins and the kinds of small acts of sacrifice I am interested in, which have been practiced in the Celtic world since prehistory," says Marsh. "A lot of my residency will just involve soaking up the atmosphere, landscape, histories and stories.鈥
At York, Marsh points to AMPD鈥檚 hands-on facilities as a key reason she chose the program, with specific interest in the metal shop and foundry.
"Having access to these resources was a big draw in my wanting to study at York," she says. "I'm aiming to do several bronze pours and possibly a copper pour over the next year."
That technical development connects to the sculptural work she plans to produce in the years ahead, with elements from the pours expected to carry into upcoming exhibitions.
Marsh has previously completed residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts, AiR Bergen and Rupert in Vilnius, among others. She describes residencies as essential to her practice, not only for the time and space they offer, but for the productive challenges of adapting to new conditions.
"Although a residency tends to require a lot of adaptation 鈥 for instance, making work without my very lived-in studio 鈥 these challenges force a flexibility that can allow new insights and require new experiments," she says. "I am hoping for this kind of generative struggle in Scotland."
Marsh鈥檚 work has received funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, Partners in Art, the Chalmers Arts Fellowship, the Toronto Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council. She received her BFA from the Alberta University of the Arts in 2007 and her MFA from the University of Guelph in 2013.