Staying afloat with Pester & Rossi

Finding Buoyancy was first initiated by Ruby Pester, Nadia Rossi, and Edinburgh Art Festival in 2020, with the pandemic forcing an abrupt halt to the important in-person work the artists wanted to undertake, which centred on local community groups that live alongside Edinburgh’s Union Canal (which is the focus of this year’s festival programme). The meandering Union Canal provides an important place of respite and rest for residents of Wester Hailes amid the fast pace of the busy city, and is vital to the health and wellbeing of communities across Edinburgh. The Bridge 8 Hub has made the canal a focal point of the area and its people, transforming derelict land adjacent to the canal into a hub for activities such as water sports and cycling.

With this important in-person work unable to take place, the two Glasgow-based artists (who have been collaborating since 2008) instead started a visual conversation with drawings and words which centered around "sensory responses to water, nature and the outdoor environment", Ruby Pester tells me. She describes this conversational process as being meditative and cathartic in a time of great uncertainty, grief and disruption. The artists created a visual worksheet containing questions, prompts and activities which centered on the environment in and around the canal. This worksheet was sent to several schools, as well as WHALE Arts in Wester Hailes (a social enterprise and community-led arts charity founded by local residents in 1992), with respondents being asked to reply to these prompts with writing, drawings and photographs. This would come together as a collection of visual and written responses to the canal, with the aim of making a collaborative artwork with the material.

However, lockdown restrictions and social distancing continued to create barriers for the artist's community-orientated plans. They then tried to figure out a method of working that was more effective at engaging people despite the distance, which took the form of a guided audio journey to connect people to the environment during times of isolation. Local residents who attended WHALE Arts were encouraged to listen to the audio track outdoors, on a walk alongside the canal, and to produce creative responses to parts of the audio track and locations along the Union Canal. 

Out of this material, the artists have created a three-part commission for this year’s festival. This is formed of a celebration song about the canal, 'A Float for the Future’ community raft and an installation of sail banners on the canal, designed by the artists themselves. On 31 July, the song will be performed by Pester & Rossi, the Rhubaba Choir and WHALE Arts participants aboard the Panacea canal boat (which local charity The Sorted Project uses to help local people managing recovery related to substance abuse and mental health) alongside the launch of the community raft, with the sail banners installed and flying at Bridge 8 Hub.

As well as these local community organisations, Pester & Rossi also worked with artist Sarah Kenchington on the commission. Kenchington led a series of raft-building sessions with WHALE Arts and the local community to construct the Float For The Future raft, which will sail from Bridge 8 Hub to the Lochrin Basin. Meanwhile, the Rhubaba Choir led a series of song-making sessions with WHALE Arts to craft the celebration song, using meditations and writing from community responses to the canal. 

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Finding Buoyancy can be viewed at Bridge 8 Hub, Wester Hailes, for the duration of Edinburgh Art Festival, until 28 Aug
edinburghartfestival.com/event/pester-and-rossi/