Yulia Kovanova’s fascinating work on the migration of Arctic terns

SARAH URWIN JONES

installation made up of cast resin tern beaks, “in real size, from when they are born to when they die,” explains Kovanova.

“And what happens is that their bill changes with the seasons. So when it is cold, the bill is black, and when the mating season is coming it becomes more red. It’s like putting on lipstick!

Then after the breeding season, it fades again to black.”

Terns, says Kovanova, live quite a long time, and she handpainted each bill to make it as close to nature as possible.

“The oldest I’ve heard about is 30 years. The first time I made the installation, the tern was 30 years old, by beaks, but depending on the space available it’s life ends at different times!

“It might be 20 or 24. It is a portrait of a bird through a beak, starting with a very tiny orangey coloured one.”

The work is installed so that the changing light of day changes the shadows of the beak on the wall, from sharp and focused to elongated.

The final piece is a moving image work called Hide, a video of an Arctic tern in flight, edited so that the tern’s own image is removed from the film. The whole works in this one room as a picture of movement and life, of Kovanova’s own concerns with our “ecological entanglement”, of our place amidst the nature that tries to go on despite our actions.

Yulia Kovanova: Colony, An Tobar, Argyll Terrace,Tobermory, Mull, 01688 302211 www.comar.co.uk Every Weds and Sat in Sept; Mon 12 and Fri 16, in Oct. Until 16 Oct Entry by appointment: 07934 386136 or exhibitions@comar.co.uk

ALTHOUGH there is much still in the varied landscape of Scotland’s art galleries that is available only virtually, many galleries are now open or in the process of reopening, and the joy of seeing art in the flesh again is still fresh.

You may have to book for your free viewing slot at many places and remember to pack your mask, but it’s worth it.

It is the Dundee Cooper Gallery’s turn to reopen now, after 6 months of closure, and they do so with this fascinating retrospective on the work of influential theorists and filmmakers Laura Mulvey and Peter Woollen.

Mulvey, whose work in film theory from a feminist viewpoint has been very influential, and Woollen, who wrote Signs and Meaning in Cinema (1969), and who died in 2019, wrote and directed six films together whilst they were married.

This new Cooper Gallery exhibition roots itself in the avant garde of the 1970s, and looks at how Mulvey and Woollen kept this going in subsequent decades of film theory and making, putting the artists’ work in the context of other artists of the period, including those the pair collaborated with to make pieces, from Faysal Abdullah to Kathy Acker and Kerry Tribe.

This is a thought-provoking look at the work of two transdisciplinary film makers, writers and theorists, seen through the medium of art, using audio recordings, moving image works, photographs and archival materials, as well as other media, to present once-radical concerns which still have resonance and importance today.

A is for Avant-Garde; Z is for Zero, Cooper Gallery, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee, 13 Perth Road, Dundee, 01382 385330 www.dundee.ac.uk/cooper-gallery 6-31 Oct, Tues – Sat, 11am - 4pm

LIVING BETTER:

HOW I LEARNED TO SURVIVE DEPRESSION Alastair Campbell

John Murray Press, £16.99

(ebook £10.99).

In this deeply honest exploration into the human mind, journalist and mental health campaigner Alastair Campbell delves into his experiences with depression and his search for a cure. The former Downing Street advisor articulately reflects on these issues in sharp detail, creating an all-encompassing and intricate look into mental health. He tackles the impact depression can have on the individual and those close to them, through recounting his own demons and talking to others. This incredibly nuanced read will resonate with anyone who has experienced depression or witnessed it in anyone else, with suggestions and guidance on how to manage it. In short, it will strike a chord with almost all of us.

EDD DRACOTT