Conglomerates

Conglomerates brings together a series of works by artist, performer and writer Jessica Ramm following her residency art Birnam Arts in the summer of 2023. Responding to an invitation to perform at Cera Project DUSK festival in Portugal, she used her time in the BA studio to develop a Rock Concert in which a piece of local sandstone communicated with recumbent rocks scattered in the landscape of the Algarve to find out what they had to say to each other. The human audience listened in while the rocks spoke a language of vibrations impossible to translate for the human ear. Their language is of geological time punctuated by splitting, grinding and thrumming vibrations, and is intelligible because human-made time is enveloped within it. Ramm’s investigation into vibrations is further explored through the prints, collages and film shown within this exhibition. Taking the notion of conglomerate as her methodology, Ramm creates layers of texture, elements bound and fixed through a sedimentary process. Through each piece we encounter elements and entities contained within another system, which when combined, make a new, coherent whole. Jessica Ramm Jessica Ramm Jessica Ramm trained at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Dundee (2009), specialising in mechanical sculpture. In 2014, she trained at Edinburgh College of Art, where she studied printmaking, material culture and sculpture, positioned within alternative economies. Her recent projects include commissions to bring lumiere sculptures into public spaces and a printmaking-stunt riding performance working with a group of Glasgow based BMX riders. She is a founding member of Mammas Write; a collective that fosters resilience for mothers through creativity and solidarity. She writes for other artists and art organisations as a way of drawing attention to the power of creativity and supporting the creative community she is part of. Exhibitions include: Mammas Write, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow (2023); Rock Concert, Cera Project, Portugal (2023); Carpet Territory, 36 Lime Street, Newcastle (2021); Buckethead Whiteout Scenario, Glasgow School of Art (2021); Desire Lines, Sustrans, Johnstone (2021); Extraordinary Popular Delusions, Piazza Shopping Centre, Paisley (2019); Cena#3:INTERSECTIONS, Glasgow Women’s Library (2019); From A to Z and Back Again, AC Institute, New York (2019); as well as solo presentations Earth Rise at Tramway, Glasgow (2015); Personal Structures, Platform Easterhouse (Glasgow International, 2018); Stumbling Block, Edinburgh Printmakers (2021)