Join us for an afternoon with artist Amanda Thomson as she reflects on her microresidency as part of Collective’s 2025 Panorama programme. The residency invited Thomson to respond to the world’s first panorama (1788), created by Robert Barker on Calton Hill.
Thomson’s research explored how Baker’s panorama explicitly and intrinsically captured the different layers of Edinburgh: its geology and geography as well as its built environment. Thomson comments that:
“There is both a timelessness and a restlessness to the city, where the deep time status of Arthur’s Seat overlooks the castle with its origins in the 11th century, the medieval High Street and Holyrood Palace, the Old and New Towns. From where we are now, we can see the urbanisation and ‘filling in’ of the fields and countryside that were so present in Barker’s panorama. While it’s easy to look into the distance, I’m interested in the nearer too, the flora and fauna that inhabit the hill itself, and how easy it is to overlook what’s immediately before us.”
Thomson will present on her different strategies to explore the city and its surrounding areas from different perspectives; the near and the far, past to present. Using newer technologies (e.g. trail cameras) and older ways of looking (archives/ historical documents) to consider responses to Barker’s original panorama.
Thomson has also invited geologist and writer Alan McKirdy to present on the geology of Edinburgh and James Hutton’s lost drawings, an avenue of research that Thomson found particularly intriguing.
Book now: www.collective-edinburgh.art/programme/amanda-thomson
