Skin of the City

Skin of the City is the most recent iteration of the ongoing project, Erratic Drift, an evolving body of work about humans’ interrelations with the urban lithic, about stone and cities.

Glasgow/Madrid-based artists Minty Donald and Nick Millar, with Madrid-based landscape architect and ecological thinker, Malú Cayetano, turn their attention to the hard, stony surfaces of urban environments: strata of concrete, asphalt, granite, sandstone, and brick, marking out a city’s boundaries, forming membranes between street and earth, between within and outwith.

At the core of the project is an installation of 3000+ fragments of stony matter that have flaked, chipped or crumbled from the walls, pavements, and roads of Glasgow. The fragments are installed on the gallery floor, to form a lithic map of the city.

Skin of the City reflects on how, like our human skins, the city’s skin is continually changing and decaying – and being patched and replaced. It considers the consequences of covering the earth with hard stony matter: limiting biodiversity and exacerbating the effects of flooding or heat. It reflects on the toxic burden permeating the skins of many post-industrial cities.

The Skin of the City exhibition is accompanied by a series of walks and events, alongside a screening programme.

Skin of the City is one of three events for Architecture Fringe 2025 hosted by New Future Construction School. It is also supported by a GALLANT Innovation Fund award.

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Minty Donald and Nick Millar are Glasgow and Madrid-based artists who are interested in interrogating and dissolving divisions between the human and the nonhuman. The current focus of their collaborative practice is on humans’ interrelations with the lithic, specifically in urban environments. Previous work explored humans’ interactions with rivers and other waterways. Repeated actions or ‘micro-performances’ are pivotal to their process, which also includes sculptural practice, writing, and video. Recent projects include Erratic Drift, 2021 -ongoing; Skin of the City/Piel de la Ciudad, 2023 – ongoing; and With These Hands, 2021. Minty is Professor of Contemporary Performance Practice at the University of Glasgow.

Malú Cayetano holds a degree in landscape architecture from Wageningen University (Netherlands) and a degree in forestry engineering from the Polytechnic University of Madrid. She has developed national and international projects in the fields of engineering, ecological restoration, landscaping and urban planning, and artistic and cultural production. Collaborating with various groups and initiatives related to the social transformation of habitats, urban regeneration, and urban ecology. She is an expert in participatory methodologies, interested in unlocking and making visible natural processes in urban contexts, the role of art as a mediator between citizens, ecology, and territory, and in culture as a facilitator in the transition toward ecological awareness. She is a member of Paisanaje, an art collective based in Madrid.

New Future is a Glasgow-based accelerator for cultivating sustainable construction and retrofit skills in the built environment. Founded as a Community Benefit Society, NF equips construction sector participants with the skills required to preserve our existing, and decarbonise our future, built environment. By delivering low-impact retrofit, heritage and new-build skills training NF enables new and existing construction workers to become versatile and multi-skilled experts in the practical application of sustainable, low-carbon, bio-based and circular materials.

The novel model of retrofit and heritage training will be delivered through live construction projects, rehabilitating disused and at-risk buildings for community benefit. NF views access to specialist climate literacy education and sustainable construction skills as essential to addressing some of the most significant social, environmental and economic challenges of our time, aiming to empower construction professionals and urban communities with the agency to accelerate environmental and economic transformation.