By connecting Portobello’s industrial past sanitary ware manufacturing with the present-day wastewater treatment plant in Seafield, MURRAY MORRANT takes a playful approach to expose the hidden infrastructures that supports our daily lives and envisions the possible future trajectory that lie ahead.
Through collective casting workshops on the beach in Portobello to produce transient vessels, and mixed media investigations, Murray explores the dynamic interplay between architecture, human nature, and ever-changing landscapes.
Murray Morrant Based in Glasgow, Murray’s work is influenced by his interest in architecture and the built environment. Through a narrative-based approach, his work often takes an anthropological approach, exploring the human desire to shape and reshape landscapes into territories over time. The idea of environments being in constant flux is a common theme throughout his creative practice.
Murray studied architecture at the Glasgow School of Art, graduating in 2021. His work, ‘Against Aseptic Corporeality,’ which reimagines a gallery for wastewater, has been exhibited in the Desired Spaces Exhibition (2020) and featured in Koozarch magazine. Murray has since worked for architecture studios in Denmark, London, and Glasgow.
Above images from Sand Making Vessel Workshop and Pop Up Exhibition, Portobello Beach (September 2023)
The workshop involved making objects in the style of sandcastles,
encouraging learning and creative thinking through play. A lightweight
cubicle on the beach created a pop-up exhibition; the four walls of the cubicle providing the walls to display polaroid camera images of the made vessels which were later taken by the rising tide.
Murray provided a selection of forms to be used in the same way a bucket is used for making sandcastles. Participants mixed and matched these forms to experiment and create their own sandcastle-like sculptures, taking the shape of pipework, toilets, and drains. These are elements that are usually invisible and reserved for individual use, but here, they will be put on display and made by a collective group of people.
Accompanying works as part of Vessel group exhibition, Art Walk Hub (September 2023)
Toilet 1 2023 using materials collected from the Figgate Burn Portobello
Booklet including map of Portobello sewer, surface water and water pipes & supported texts
LIST OF WORKS & EVENTS
September 2023 during Art Walk Porty:
VESSEL Group Exhibition, Art Walk Hub Portobello High Street
Sand making VESSEL workshop, Portobello Beach