As part of Magnetic 3, Villa Arson is welcoming Emilia Beatriz (they / iel), an artist from Puerto Rico’s diaspora living in Glasgow, Scotland.
Emilia’s multidisciplinary practice is based on sensory narratives composed of still and moving images, texts, immersive installations and performances. During this residency, the artist intends to expand on their practice of “sensorial storytelling” by creating new characters for speculative narratives reflecting on grief and resistance in shifting coastal and tidal “landscapes of loss”. Their project includes 16mm film hand-developing, processing oral histories, live-collaging of film, text, vibration and experimental character-building within Villa Arson’s context.
Recent work includes the group exhibition “In Dispersion / En la Dispersión”, VISARTS; Maryland; screenings with Cove Park’s Climate Literacies Compendium hosted by Ocean
Archive; the online publication Grief Offerings commissioned by Rhubaba, Edinburgh; the talk On Moss as Matter & Metaphor with Amelia Merced; Sappho’s Wake, a performance/ reading for ‘a wake: on mourning, marking and moving forward togetherwith joy’ hosted by Birds of Paradise and San Alland.
Emilia’s solo exhibition “declarations on soil and honey”, presented at Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) Glasgow included the launch of Glasgow Seed Library and was listed in Royal Academy’s top 10 UK exhibitions in May 2019.
Emilia’s Margaret Tait Award film BARRUNTO premiered internationally in 2024 including in Berwick Media Arts and Film Festival, Havana Film Festival, Third Horizon in Miami and was awarded a Jury Special Mention at Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Montréal. A multi-sensory screening of BARRUNTO was part of Arika’s Episode 11: To End The World As We Know It at Tramway, Glasgow
Emilia has lectured at Glasgow School of Art, Newcastle University, Edinburgh College of Art, Zurich University of the Arts (ZhDK) and University of Washington.
Emilia Beatriz served on Transmission Gallery’s committee (artist-run space in Glasgow, 2011 – 2013) and is co-founder of Collective Text, a disabled-led group who strive for a world of “access abundance” in the arts.
Magnetic 3 is a programme of Fluxus Art Projects which is supported by the Institut français du Royaume-Uni, the Institut français, French Ministry of Culture, French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, Arts Council England, Creative Scotland, Arts Council of Wales/Wales Arts International, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the British Council and its precious private patrons and friends.
