We are excited to announce this year’s Creative Fund award recipients. The six artists below will receive seed funding towards four R&D and training projects.
Ruxy Cantir and Sarah Rose Graber
‘Voyager’
Ruxy Cantir and Sarah Rose Graber are Glasgow-based multidisciplinary theatre makers working together since 2017. The CATS-award nominated duo use collaborative devising to develop, perform and tour original work in visual theatre, clown and physical comedy across Scotland and internationally. Their past projects include Unicorn Dance Party, Two in a Barrel, The Dirty Laundry Campaign, The Refs, and Unicorn Christmas Party receiving critical acclaim from audiences and critics alike. Together they’ve been called “two enormous talents…authentically charming and humourous.”
Individually, Cantir graduated from Furman University and holds an MFA in Ensemble Based Physical Theatre from Dell’Arte International. She recently toured her 5 star production of Pickled Republic across Scotland and teaches masterclasses in physical theatre and mask. While Graber graduated from Northwestern University and holds her Acting certificate from RADA. She’s a Circumnavigator having researched theatre for social change around the world, gave a TEDx talk on her explorations with creating serendipity in creative processes, and is the presenter of Imagine Learning’s popular youtube series SCOPE.
For the Creative Fund, they will collaborate with acclaimed video designer Tim Reid to experiment with the combination of clown performance and video projection. The development will explore the story of Voyager – the 2 spacecraft released into space in 1977 by NASA, still traveling into deep space today as the farthest any human-made object has fared.
Helen Woolston
‘Storm Hags’
Helen grew up in Strathglass watching surrealist animation and teaching herself the art of stop-motion. After completing her BA in Filmmaking at the Arts University Bournemouth, she studied MA Animation Filmmaking at the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn.
She is currently based on the Morvern Peninsula, and works part-time in practical habitat restoration work alongside her creative projects which range from animation, moving-image work and puppet-making to photography, print-making, drawing and writing.
While working with international collaborators under the name “Studio Kompost,” she has based her work on the belief that creativity can heal and empower our ties to to ourselves, to one another in our communities, and to our non-human neighbours who share the world with us, making it a more inclusive, diverse and joyous place to be.
Fiona Oliver Larkin and Jaxx Waygood
‘The Devil’s in the Detail’
Fiona Oliver-Larkin is an Edinburgh based theatre maker, circus performer and puppeteer and one half of feminist theatre company, SALTYDOLLS. Her practice is centred around devising and collaboration. Jaxx Waygood is a visual artist and blacksmith. He creates contemporary art and design using traditional techniques. His studio, Work of Iron, can be found in Granton, North Edinburgh.
Fiona and Jaxx have joined forces to make new metal puppets and a portable, market cart style forge-theatre and to devise their first collaboration, The Devil’s in the Detail. A tragically comedic piece for outdoor performance, incorporating live blacksmithing, glowing hot metal puppets and street theatre, The Devil’s in the Detail aims to animate and blur the relationship between craftsperson and their material and ask…what happens when our creations begin to take on a life of their own.
Selina Wagner
Toonboom training and 2D animation development
Selina is an award-winning animation creator based in Scotland. For 20 years, she has created content for CBeebies, CBBC, National Trust for Scotland, the Moredun Foundation, Baillie Gifford and Irn Bru.
Her filmography includes Takuskanskan, Crow moon, Spindrift and A dog by your side. Each of her films were in official selections at international film festivals and won a few awards along the way, including the Craft Award at the British Animation Awards and a Scottish BAFTA nomination.
Selina is now developing and writing her first animated feature film, supported by Screen Scotland, as well as creating new ideas for animated short films and continually striving to develop her animation practice.
This Creative Fund award will support a period of experimental research and development, as well as training for a new way to create Selina’s 2D animated work.