00:00 Thank you.
00:22 Why hello!
00:36 Welcome to Mimi's store.
00:37 Come away in.
00:38 Hi, I'm artist Rachel McLean and this is my artwork, Don't Buy Me on Ayer High Street.
00:45 Fantastic.
00:46 Can you tell us a little bit about this artwork?
00:48 Yeah, sure.
00:49 As you approach it at first it kind of looks a bit like a disused shop, but when you get
00:53 closer there's things that don't quite add up.
00:55 So signs on the window that say "Don't Buy Me" and "Nothing Must Go" and you come inside
01:00 and it's a shop, an odd one, stocked entirely with Mimi dolls which on the one side look
01:06 kind of like conventional sort of young dolls but then they invert to reveal an old doll
01:11 underneath.
01:12 And in the back of the shop there's a storeroom or what kind of feels like a storeroom, staffroom,
01:18 that has a kind of TV propped up on the wall which features the doll Mimi and a kind of
01:24 narrative which plays out between her old self and her young self.
01:28 And you've exhibited in lots of different places, Scotland and Venice, Duke of Dortmund,
01:33 National Gallery of Scotland, all these different places.
01:36 How has it been to bring something to Ayer High Street?
01:38 It's great, I love it.
01:39 I think there's something about showing in a shop that's very accessible.
01:44 There can often be with galleries, I don't know, people bring assumptions to an artwork
01:48 that when you show on the high street and especially when it's kind of, it doesn't say
01:51 it's an artwork, you approach it and don't quite know what it is.
01:54 I think it means that people are very open to questions and also very honest with feedback
01:59 so I'm really excited to see what people make of it in Ayer.
02:02 Hi I'm Claire Feely, I'm Head of Exhibitions and Learning at Jupiter Artland and I'm here
02:07 to open Jupiter + Ayer, an incredible artwork by Rachel MacLean.
02:11 Great, and can you tell us a little bit about what this artwork is?
02:14 This is a new public artwork by the Scottish artist Rachel MacLean.
02:19 She has taken the idea of a high street shop and quite literally turned it on its head
02:23 and created an immersive experience.
02:26 People are free to explore it, encounter it.
02:30 There is inside a little surprise of multimedia installation and accompanying it is one of
02:36 the most ambitious free learning programmes in Scotland.
02:40 Our mission is for every young person in Scotland to have the wellbeing benefits of creative
02:46 learning.
02:47 We are doing that inspired by Rachel MacLean's practice.
02:50 We've built our own little film studio next door and we're inviting every school in Ayer
02:54 to take part.
02:55 Can you tell us a little bit more about this work, what the themes are, what people can
02:59 see when they go inside the shop?
03:00 This work is really rooted in the town of Ayer and the high street and it's a story
03:05 that's happening to a lot of our towns across Scotland.
03:09 Rachel's work addresses themes of identity, also consumerism, but it's in the vein of
03:14 the best Scottish satire where she takes a challenging subject and by turning it on its
03:19 head creates something that's joyful, inspiring and I think by creating this surreal toy shop
03:26 where nothing is for sale, it suggests new possibilities for culture and social exchange
03:31 in our town centres.
03:32 Can you expand a little bit about what's special about this learning programme in Ayer?
03:36 There's two elements to it, isn't there?
03:38 So the story of this artwork, it began five years ago.
03:42 Rachel was representing Scotland, she had a major show in the National Gallery in London
03:49 and we brought a group of young people from all across Scotland, from Orkney to Malague
03:53 and everywhere in between, to see that show, to meet Rachel and to come up with a new model
03:58 for a public artwork for Scotland, one that would really engage people and serve people
04:02 and especially young people and amplify their voices.
04:06 And they proposed to Rachel the context of a Scottish high street and how to reimagine
04:10 that as a public space where young people could really feel empowered.
04:14 So Rachel delivered this incredible artwork that literally stops people in their tracks
04:19 and then right next to it we're showcasing all of the creative skills that go into making
04:25 a work of this scale and ambition, particularly in digital.
04:28 So this free learning programme skills up young people with all of the creative skills
04:34 that they're going to need to start an exciting career in film, in media, in set production.
04:41 But you know, the future is there, so let's see what they do with it.
04:44 This work is entirely free.
04:46 We've been supported by so many people in Ayr.
04:50 Everyone on the high street has come by and helped us out.
04:54 So yeah, it's free, drop in, you don't need to book, you can spend as long as you want,
04:59 you'll meet the team, you can have a little nosy round.
05:01 It's going to be here all the way through Christmas.
05:05 The lovely thing is it kind of invites people back into the town in those dark winter months,
05:09 which we know in Scotland can be a little bit dreak.
05:11 And I think there's nothing like a joyful artwork to really kind of get things going.
05:17 [Music]
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