Yvette Bathgate and Jake Shepherd
Artist Duo based between Scotland and Estonia

say hello: yvette.b.jake.s@gmail.com


We began working together in 2016 within the collective, Tendency Towards, responding to an economic shift and the subsequent period of transitions within the city, which resulted in a lack of creative spaces within Aberdeen, Scotland. We explored themes of labour structures and collaborative modes of working, focusing on the increasing necessity of artists communities to operate in this way. This research took form in both our curatorial programming and in the exhibitions and performances made together as a collective, whilst operating nomadically across the city and running a programme in a space of our own.

In 2021, we co-founded another collective, Tactics for Togetherness, alongside Phoebe Banks, Kirsty Russell and Jess Wilson-Leigh. Together we have produced exhibitions of our own collaborative work and programmed/commissioned the work of others. The collective now runs a community library of books and tools titled, Communal Powers. The library is continually activated through a programme of events where creative practitioners are invited to respond to the library in the form of workshops, events, reading groups, exhibitions, etc.

We have both worked within settings of education and care using creativity as a vehicle for (small but significant) social change; schools, hospitals, a children's centre, a co-living care community and alternative educational spaces have been the settings where we’ve learned about our values as artists and therefor shaped how we position our creative practice. These settings are often, too, where this work takes form - we believe that community work is best done in the community, so often the outcomes take place outwith arts spaces. We approach this work with slowness, centering connection and relationship building, over and above any form of production, to ensure the work is meaningful.

Together, our practice is rooted in collaboration, as a duo and in our extended collaborative approaches; co-creation, agency, and tenderness are the integral threads that bind our creative practices. The material outcomes are a result of the explorations, reflections, and questioning of the context of this work, including the methods and structures that are interwoven throughout it. We understand that this work is political and that politics of care cannot be untangled from wider social underpinnings.

this is how the earth must see itself
2024
AEGn/a, Tallinn

holding the space in between
2023
Can Serrat, Catalunya

spoons for left hands & collective weaving
2023
Can Serrat, Catalunya

communal powers, collectively built bookshelf,
2023
Tactics for Togetherness, Aberdeen

holding the space in between,
workshops for El Bruc kindergarten
2023
El Bruc kindergarten & Can Serrat, Catalunya

tactics for togetherness
2021
beyond British Art Show programme, Aberdeen

haunted by the ghost of a flower
tendency towards
2020
The Barn, Banchory

Free Press Publishers flag
youth programme workshop outcome
2020
Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen

the traces are just more apparent here
2019
Silvermuseet, Arjeplog

LOVEAND...
Tendency Towards
2018
The Anatomy Rooms, Aberdeen

I'm-paired
2018
OT Proketraum, Berlin

Scratching the coat
2021
Tendency Towards

assembly [symposiums]
Tendency Towards
2019
a-n, Swansea and Aberdeen

an ode to the dinner table
2023
Snerk Galleri, Tromsø

setting the table, setting the tone
ceramic manifesto workshop
2024
A workshop that has taken place in Berlin, Germany; Aberdeen, Scotland; and Aegna, Estonia.