Lorna Swinney

SaltSpace x Glasgow School of Art Graduate Residency Award

2026

My work focuses on the human experience of the land, whether that is urban, suburban or rural. I am attracted to the literal and metaphorical journeys we make through these spaces: how the landscape marks us and we mark it. I aim to consider the layers of time within a landscape, the strata of different histories and how culture connects to place. I am also fascinated by repeated journeys of walking through the seasons, how places change and evolve, and the effect of walking on our bodies and minds. 

I work with textiles, sculpture, print, photography and words to record and celebrate these journeys, processing materials and images from the land. I am also interested in the language that the landscape generates whether this is in my own writing or signage, interpretation panels, maps and graffiti. Who I meet on these journeys is important to me and the happenstance of connections with strangers appeals to me.

I make printed costumes to wear as I perform walks as memorials and secular pilgrimages. My recent work has focussed on the walk from Camelon at lock sixteen on the Forth and Clyde Canal to Spiers Wharf in Glasgow – a journey I made to memorialise my late father who studied at GSA in 1948. 

Finally, I am fascinated by who or what witnesses my walks just as much as who or what I have witnessed. How this might be expressed in an exhibition or gallery setting intrigues me. What residues from a walk might be displayed or how a walk might be performed in these settings is an ever evolving challenge.