Visual Arts Scotland

OPEN CALL

Visual Arts Scotland presents The Whole and The Hole, a new exhibition of moving image works exploring the void of the hole. Opening this October at Dalkeith Palace, the exhibition offers an opportunity for moving image artists and film-makers to show their work.

Henry Moore described 1932 as “the year of the hole,” when both he and Barbara Hepworth first began piercing their sculptures. Absence became form, void became volume and since then artists have continued to explore the paradox of the hole, emptiness that generates presence, negative space that defines matter. These apertures are not merely voids; they are intimate spaces, reminding us that the hidden interior can be as powerful and seductive as the outer surface.

“The Whole and the Hole” proposes that art’s most radical gesture may be the simplest: the act of cutting through. A gesture that continues to open new ways of seeing, feeling, and imagining, not only the object before us, but the invisible forces and relationships it frames.

The hole allows us to be seduced by the play of positive and negative, by the rhythm of shadow and light, by the ways that absence can feel as present as matter itself. “The Whole and the Hole” asks moving image and film artists to respond to the hole, whether this is carving absence into mass; connecting interior and exterior; seen and unseen spaces; a portal as a threshold to other realms; or a metaphor for wound, memory, or transformation.

VAS members are invited to submit up to 3 original works of maximum duration 7 minutes each. All forms of art-based moving image and experimental film work are accepted. Works should have been completed in the last 5 years.

Deadline: 5pm August 31st 2026

Exhibition Dates: October 8th - 11th 2026
Venue: Dalkeith Palace, Dalkeith Country Park, Dalkeith, EH22 2NA Dalkeith Country Park

Please visit our website for more information on submission guidelines. Our submission portal is linked in our bio- Please ensure you have a valid VAS membership before applying.

Poster design: Alasdair Dimmick

MEMBERS NEWS

Ma Bit Yer Bit

Winner of the Leith School of Art Prize at the Society of Scottish Artists Annual Exhibition in 2024 Jannette MacDonald is a photographer and printmaker interested in the relationships between time, history, memory and belonging.

Proceeds from the exhibition will go to charities she has worked with Care 4 Calais and Offene Arme.

Opening Event 10 July 5 – 7 pm
Exhibition Dates 13 July - 28 August 2026

Jannette MacDonald