TEN PENCE PIECE

Will you spend it all at once, save it for another day or split it for more chances to win? Would you dive head first into chance - into creative play?

This work explores impulsivity, natural movement and the patterns that emerge when we take a gamble - whether under the neon lights of the arcade or on the shifting sands of the shoreline.

A collaborative piece by Ailsa Lochhead and Solen Collet.

ARCADE

  • PROPOSAL IDEA

  • CONNECTION TO THEMES

  • POTENTIAL RESEARCH

  • NATURE OF OUTCOMES

In the lead-up to Art Walk, Ailsa Lochhead will lead a Move To Feel session on Portobello Beach—an invitation for participants to connect with play, body, rhythm, and environment. This improvisational session will be filmed and photographed by Solen Collet, capturing the transient poetics of movement, patterns and visual dialogue between human body and natural environment.

Drawing inspiration from the layered patterns found in nature (Portobello Beach) and urban play spaces (Nobles Amusements). From tidal rhythms of waves and slot machines, illumination cycles of flickering arcade lights and moonlight shimmers on the sea, the interplay between meditative movement of intuitive dance and hypnotic gameplay of fruit machines—the project explores the tension between randomness and repetition, pleasure and discomfort, connection and disconnection, and finding flow between winning and loosing. Both the beach and the arcade offer spaces of chance, reflection, and sensation—simultaneously grounding and exhilarating.

The resulting film will layer abstract fragments of movement and light from the dance session with glints on the sea’s surface, solar flares, coastal flora captured in stills, digital video, and nostalgic digitised Super 8 film. Intercut with the neon flicker and visual spectacle of Nobles Amusements, the black-and-white video installation becomes a sensory collage—blurring the line between serenity and overstimulation. Monochrome in a room of colour, the work simplifies and intensifies the viewer’s sensory engagement—inviting contemplation of pattern, chaos, and the body’s intuitive dance between them.

To deepen the playful contrast between inner and outer landscapes, the video will be presented on a box screen housed in a sculptural retro fruit machine console, the installation brings the beach indoors—offering a sensory meditation on chance, repetitions, and the body’s playful presence. Like finding a shiny 10 pence piece of light on the beach, the work celebrates moments of unexpected joy and reflection in the everyday.

ROLL THE DICE

Roll the Dice By Charles Bukowski

if you're going to try, go all the

way.

otherwise, don't even start.

if you're going to try, go all the

way.

this could mean losing girlfriends,

wives, relatives, jobs and

maybe your mind.

go all the way.

it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.

it could mean freezing on a

park bench.

it could mean jail,

it could mean derision,

mockery,

isolation.

isolation is the gift,

all the others are a test of your

endurance, of

how much you really want to

do it.

and you'll do it

despite rejection and the worst odds

and it will be better than

anything else

you can imagine.

if you're going to try,

go all the way.

there is no other feeling like

that.

you will be alone with the gods

and the nights will flame with

fire.

do it, do it, do it.

do it.


all the way

all the way.

you will ride life straight to

perfect laughter, it's

the only good fight

there is.

Artist statements & CVs

  • SOLEN COLLET

    Solen is a commercial photographer and creative working from Out of the Blue Drill Hall in Leith.

    Her personal work explores connection - to self, to others, to nature and to creative energy. Solen often uses creative play, in the form of digital and film photography, written word, collage and mixed media, to transmute difficult life experiences and to make sense of emotions.

    Last year she took part in 10 exhibitions nationally, including an Art House for Art Walk Portobello. She hosted her first solo exhibition at Agitate and curated a group show for over 20 artists and makers resident at The Drill Hall.

  • AILSA LOCHHEAD

    Lochhead’s practice explores the intersection of body, intuition and presence within the physical world. Rooted in fine art and education, her works spans sculpture, installation, collage and writing, often guided by instinct and play.

    A shift to home-based making during early motherhood deepened her engagement with the body as material, leading to training in somatic movement and the creation of Move To Feel - a mindful movement practice fostering creativity, connection and expression.

    Recent collaborations continue to blur boundaries between art and healing, expanding her exploration of materials, emotion and embodied experience.

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