Sarah Calmus is an interdisciplinary artist and creator of large-scale immersive and participatory installations, working across a multitude of mediums from glass and light, to social intervention and sound. Interested in psychological and philosophical narratives, her practice is intentionally interdisciplinary, viewed as a series of experiments underpinned with explorations into interaction.
Sarah lives and works in Edinburgh and has taken part in over 40 exhibitions, residencies, events and interventions. More recently, her work S.O.S (Survival nOw Skills) was part of the 121st Society of Scottish Artists Annual Exhibition and combined print, spoken word and artists talks to bring creative people together in the need to navigate the obstacles and challenges of today’s art world. She collaborated with many different artists to create a Zine and a panel to explore the theme of surviving in the art. Her work was a celebration of solidarity, a tool to inspire, give hope and spread affirmation.
She has been part of Hidden Door both as an invited and as a selected artist in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
For Hidden Door 2017, Sarah created ‘Echo Chambers’ with lights and glass, this installation drew influence from organic interaction, to consider the nature of action and reaction, of cause and effect. Questioning the social, political and atomical, physical reactions that occur in all realities, you were invited to partake in conversation, to participate in the multitude of realities and consider the power of incremental action.
Mandala Prism, 2016
Mandala Prism 2015:
In 2015 and 2016, Sarah experimented with the format of a screen, creating ‘Mandala Prism’, an installation designed to be experiential, through the use of projection, effects of mirrors and UV lights. Sarah experimented with perceptions of space and voids harking back to the symbolic nature of the mandala as a representation of the dreamer’s search for completeness and self-unity.
