Rad Tunes, Pagan Mythology, and Science: This Week in Scottish Art

Starting this week in Glasgow, 1 Royal Terrace have launched their second programme of exhibitions, which curators Ruth Switalski and Peter Yxell have titled Colloquy. Oh My Have, the first of three presentations to come over the next few months, is given by Glasgow based artist and writer Laurence Figgis. Showcasing older and more recent work, Figgis exhibits parts of his ongoing collage-novel Blonda,  “a thrilling hybrid of romantic historical fiction, pagan mythology and dystopian speculative literature.” Open at weekends and by appointment, 1 Royal Terrace is a converted space within a domestic apartment; find our chat with the founders in this month's magazine, which is out this week.

At the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art this week, on Thursday 2 Apr, there is an evening event for the exhibition Up, Down and Around. This is the first of three collaborative exhibitions between Scotland and Norway, as part of a link-up between the Glasgow School of Art and the Kunsthøyskolen in Bergen, Norway. Primarily, the subject of this project is the shift between the private life of the studio and the curation of work within a public space. As well as being open late, this Thursday's event will also feature a performance by one of the Glasgow participants, MV Brown.

At Glasgow Print Studio from this Friday, there’s Below Another Sky, the outcome of a series of Commonwealth-based residencies between artists from and based in Scotland, and artists from elsewhere within the Commonwealth. Taking its name from a line in RL Stevenson’s poem “Travel”, artists including David Shrigley, Christine Borland, Jim Lambie and Carol Rhodes travelled around the Commonwealth and without specific direction were given the freedom to create a body of print work. This whole project has been documented here, and the exhibition continues until 10 May.

This Saturday, at the Old Hairdresser’s in Glasgow, is the annual Glasgow Zine Fest. Running the show, Lauren Davis and Josh Peter have put together a day of zine-makers, and take an expansive approach to the 'zine,' defining it variously as “something about something”, “a place to put all those cat pictures or some goddamn heartfelt prose … a zine is heart and soul, printed and distributed.” On the day, there’s promise of “good food, rad tunes, excellent chat” and zines aplenty.

Previewing in Edinburgh this Friday between 7-9pm, Summerhall present How the Light Gets In, co-curated by a whole host of art and science types including ASCUS Art & Science and the Edinburgh International Science Festival. Throughout the gallery, a diverse range of exhibitors take light, its form and how it behaves, as their subject, as well as looking at its more poetic associations with knowledge and enlightenment. Along with the artists' contributions, there is work generated by the University of Strathclyde’s Chamberlain Lab and the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Immunity, Infection and Evolution. How the Light Gets In continues until 22 May.

Staying in Edinburgh, the Scottish Gallery unveils its latest exhibition this week – Estuary, by Kate Downie. Since graduating from Gray’s School of Art, Downie has spent two decades working in a range of media, primarily painting. On Wed 1 Apr, Downie presents bright new ink and watercolour painting, and her pictorial diaries, following three months of travel through Australia and Japan late last year.

Lastly, it’s the final week or so for a couple of exciting exhibitions. There's the RSA New Contemporaries show in Edinburgh, which features the Academy’s pick of the best and brightest of the 2014 degree shows and finishes next Wednesday (8 Apr). Meanwhile in Dundee, the Scottish solo debut of Portuguese artist Hugo Canoilas, which exhibits “a rich palette of visual and textual collisions between multiple collaged projections of paintings, photographs, drawings and writing, cast on each other and the architectural fabric of Cooper Gallery”, concludes on Fri 10 Apr.