Sgàire Wood joins our Zoom call from her cluttered studio, armed with a tube of glue and a pink vape. I’m half surprised to see Wood with a fresh face, as I’ve just watched her ‘Extreme Beauty Routine’ on Vogue’s YouTube channel, where she transforms herself into a doll, complete with larger-than-life, sparkling eyes. But we’re not here to discuss how she has mastered the art of hyperreal make-up. Instead, the Glasgow-based artist and performer works meditatively on a sculpture as she talks me through her plans for JUPITER RISING X EAF26, a one-night festival that she has curated at Jupiter Artland.
Jupiter Rising has become a highly-anticipated event in Edinburgh Art Festival’s calendar, bringing together late-night DJ sets and pop-up art performances in the whimsical sculpture park. Wood has been involved with Jupiter Rising for several iterations, delivering her signature Sgàireoke, which combines queer performance art and, of course, a healthy dose of cathartic audience interaction. But this year, Wood’s curatorial involvement is paired with her solo exhibition at Jupiter Artland, titled In Pride, In Piety, In Vigilance.
Held in the Steadings Gallery, In Pride, In Piety, In Vigilance is rooted in Wood’s fascination with heraldry (the study of coats of arms) and vexillology (the study of flags). Growing up in Northern Ireland, the “weaponisation of heraldry, and of colours and symbols, […] was part and parcel” of everyday life. Bewitched by the theatrical pageantry of the Orange Order as a child, Wood’s art addresses the dissonance she experiences at the sight and sound of sectarian celebration, when she wholeheartedly disagrees with the cause.
Wood relates this to the “rise of fascism in the UK and internationally” and the reappearance of flags as “ostensibly harmless symbols of national pride.” Although recently the World Cup has blurred the lines, St George’s Cross has been appropriated by far-right and anti-immigration groups; highlighting the irony that St George was born in historic Palestine to a Palestinian mother, Wood probes the aestheticisation of violence through such symbols. Despite her depth of feeling and the weight of the issues she is exploring, Wood is conscious to avoid didacticism. “What disguises do violence, hatred, fascism and exclusion wear? What does that mean, as we try to navigate the rise of fucking fascism, and the far right? I’m careful not to have an answer or a lesson to teach everyone else.”
The exhibition marks an artistic departure for Wood, whose practice consisted almost entirely of performance, costume and make-up until just a few years ago. “I’ve been having fun experimenting with what it’s like to create objects that exist once I leave the room, and they don’t need my body to activate them.” Towering, flamboyant bird sculptures are the “mascots” of the show, analogous to the wider themes of the exhibition: “how we take colours, symbols, imagery from nature […] and imbue them with intense meaning and virtue.” The sculptures are conceptually anchored in heraldic animals and inspired by the fantasy of Jupiter Artland, which reminds Wood of The Prisoner, a 1960s sci-fi series where people are trapped in a seemingly idyllic place.
Although Jupiter Rising will be just as flamboyant as Wood’s sculpture, the artist-turned-curator is not hardwired to the exhibition’s themes. Instead, her “approach to curating has mostly been about bringing people from my creative world and my creative community – mostly in Glasgow – to this festival”. The line-up of performance, DJs and club-style music features several Glasgow-based visual artists performing under their musical aliases. The enrapturing Shola von Reinhold (author of LOTE) as Princess Mangione III sings and plays on the harp in the Glasshouse. Late-night stages in the woodlands see Junglehussi (photographer and DJ Matthew Arthur Williams) deliver a genre-spanning electronic set, while Poisonous Relationship (artist Jamie Crewe) deliver their “tender and demonic” dance floor experience.
Artists Holly O’Brien, Aniela Piasecka and Kirstin Halliday tuck into the recurrent theme of anthropomorphised animals, offering durational and physical performances that emphasise the zoo-like nature of Jupiter Artland. “I’m kind of letting everyone do whatever they want, but Kirsten and Aniela are planning a snake-themed striptease performance.” Meanwhile, O’Brien, clad in aquamarine latex, will perform again as a beguiling mythical mermaid, fresh from her solo exhibition Porthole at Horsepower, an up-and-coming independent gallery in Glasgow’s East End.
This is Wood’s “ideal, vaguely arty, night out in a Glasgow club, transposed onto Jupiter”. Naturally, Sgàireoke is making a return, a persona-driven performance rooted in Wood’s art school days, when she performed in drag behind the DJ booth, bantering with the crowd. Described by Wood as “a bit of a chaotic mess”, Sgàireoke is a chance for the audience to “exercise some demons” through collective singing. “Yous are going to be the ones that are performing for me and for my approval”, jests Wood. She concludes: “I think people always rise to that challenge, especially at Jupiter”.
JUPITER RISING X EAF26, Jupiter Artland, 22 Aug, 5pm