The Fifth ‘Open’ provided an opportunity for upcoming and established artists, to showcase their work, and offerd an eclectic mix of photography, video and computer based art.

Aimed at artists across Scotland, or work which had been recently made, this exhibition included 39 artists and photographers selected from open submission, which that year had attracted over 80 applicants. This was the largest number of artists included in an ‘Open’ show at Street Level, and was a testament to the variety of work submitted across a variety of mediums, from black + white and colour wall based photographs, digital imagery, sculpture incorporating photo-based imagery, moving images and screen-based media. A variety of mediums were represented with a refreshing mix of working practices, varying from traditional techniques to offbeat and experimental approaches.

The selection of work included a large colour lambda print by Louise Crawford and Stéphan Guéneau portraying the neighbouring ‘Trongate’ at night, it’s vibrancy emblematic of an area in transition from old to new; Ruth Maxwell reproduced digital images of storm damaged trees onto canvas; Gary Winters wrote seemingly meaningless messages with light onto photographic paper; Janie Nicoll’s work literally swarmed the walls and windows with colour laminated photographs of flies; and Charlotte Blackledge had produced unique colour pinhole images taken within the orifices of her own body. Other works relied on the visitors interaction - Simon Yuill’s ‘Greylines’ invited you to interact with the computer to help produce a series of code-generated images; another, Caroline Dear had produced a set of boxes which represents different images of the sea on their six sides, these could be mixed & matched in a ‘cube jigsaw’.

Pertinent themes were also addressed in work by Basharat Khan which used a Bob Dylan track to link a series of prints taken on a demonstration against an attack on Iraq, and Euan Sutherland’s issue based digitally manipulated photo-collage critiqued the western world’s theatre of war and the politics thereof.

Artists included in the show were:
Ruth Beale
Jennifer Beattie
Alexandra Bettencourt
Charlotte Blackledge
Judith Burbridge
Nadia Burns
Ziggy Campbell
Louise Crawford & Stéphan Guéneau
Lea Cohan
Ken Davidson
Caroline Dear
Ryan Exidore
Barry Fielder
Robin Haig
Laura Heffernan
Bashart Khan
Mari Lagerquist
Sussane Lin Jenson
Norma Louise Thallon
Ruth Maxwell
Iain McClean
John McManus
Robin Miller
Nicola Murray
Janie Nicoll
Leanora Olmi
Paul Rooney
Mary Rosengren
Beth Sandison
Anthony Schrag
Lindsay Neil & Sinclair Neeson
Jenny Stephens
Euan Sutherland
Mairi Taylor
Ral Veroni
Catherine Whippy
Gail Wigley
Gary Winters
Simon Yuill

A slideshow of the exhibition in situ: