For artist and scholar Désirée Coral, the Fellowship at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen has provided a framework to deepen her ongoing research into salt, landscape, and material movement, across Scotland. Working primarily with ceramics, her practice during the fellowship traces the historical and ecological connections between salt production and the city of Aberdeen. Based within Gray’s School of Art, with access to specialist ceramic facilities and faculty, opportunities to experiment with glass and metal has allowed Désirée to expand her material focussed practice through the lens of water and place.
Being situated within an art school has facilitated dialogue and mentorship through nourishing exchange and shared making with students, technicians, and staff in the ceramics workshop, anchored by conversations around process, material behaviour, and experimentation that learning spaces naturally facilitate. Supported by close mentorship and engulfed in the rhythms of the academic year, the Fellowship enabled Désirée to build lasting connections with the city and its practitioners – an experience that has sharpened her sensitivity to how institutions, landscapes, and materials intersect, and how artistic practice can move between them.