VAS x Bothy Project Residency -

It's only a few more sleeps until VAS member Sana Obaid heads off to the Isle of Eigg for our Bothy Project Residency 2024. In partnership with Bothy Project, we selected Sana to partake in this residency that offers a VAS member the chance to spend a week-long residency at Sweeney's Bothy on the Isle of Eigg, Scotland. Sana is the fourth resident to undertake the Bothy Project Residency. Previous VAS member recipients include Josie KO (2023), Lorna Fraser (2022) and Jo Pudelko (2021). Bothy Project's ‘in discussion’ event with Josie, Lorna and Jo is available to watch here.

A littlel bit about Sana...

Sana Obaid is a visual artist who lives and works in Glasgow. Born in Pakistan, she completed her BFA in Miniature Painting at the National College of Arts, Lahore, in 2007, before pursuing a Master’s in Art & Design Studies at the Mariam Dawood School of Visual Arts, Lahore. In 2022, she was awarded Scotland’s Saltire Scholarship from The Glasgow School of Art where she studied on the MFA programme, graduating in 2024.

Sana’s cross-disciplinary practice is deeply influenced by her formal training as a miniature painter and her family’s Sufi heritage, which imbues her work with spiritual reflection and resilience. For Sana, creating art is a form of prayer—a source of healing, wholeness, and a way to cultivate divine energies within and around us.

On Eigg, Sana plans to visit the Isle of Eigg’s standing stone, explore the intersections between women’s roles in contemporary art and the links between art and spirituality, and immerse herself in the Island’s natural environment, focusing on deepening her meditative practice, trusting her intuitions and seeking guidance from the Island’s spirit of nature.

The residency will take place from the 5-12 October 2024 and includes seven nights of accommodation at Sweeney’s Bothy, with travel & accommodation costs to and from Eigg, and an artist fee provided by VAS. We'll be catching up with Sana after her residency to hear a little bit about how she got on.