Tracy Alexander Rigg
Creating immersive, other-worldly art through costume, dance, music, words and drawing.
Alex Rigg is an artist, designer, and director, and the creative force behind Oceanallover — a collaborative performance company working across visual art, dance, costume, and site-specific installation.
Making work since 1982, Alex has developed a distinctive interdisciplinary practice shaped by a diverse background including fine art, archaeological illustration, blacksmithing, drystone dyking, timber construction, and dance. He holds a First Class BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Glasgow School of Art and an MA in Fine Art from the University of Ulster.
In 1997, he founded Oceanallover, an international collective creating visually striking, large-scale performances in both urban and remote environments — from mountain landscapes to theatres, festivals, and public spaces. His work is known for its strong visual identity, intricate costume design, and integration of live music and movement, often engaging directly with communities and collaborators.
Over the past four decades, Alex has worked with a wide range of artists, organisations, and festivals, including Scottish Ballet, NVA, Surge Festival, Theatre Cryptic, and the V&A Museum. His sculptural and performance work has been commissioned for major cultural events, outdoor installations, and international productions.
His practice draws on film, literature, and popular culture, often exploring ecological, philosophical, and human themes. Based in South West Scotland, Alex runs an off-grid studio where he creates sculpture, costume, and performance work, while also mentoring artists and facilitating residential creative retreats in the landscape.
His work has been described as “instantly exhilarating” (The Glasgow Herald) and “beautiful, other-worldly” (The Times), reflecting a commitment to creating immersive experiences that challenge, inspire, and transform audiences.
(photo-credits - Graeme Robertson; Christchurch Arts Festival; Chris Puddephatt; Brian Hartley)
Projects
The Self Assembled
This project was first presented in 2022 and 2023 in Glasgow at the Drygate Brewery and the Centre for Contemporary Art.
The Self Assembled - or An Inventory of Parts
(…In Which Tracy Alexander Rigg Becomes Transfigured)
You are invited to a costume auction and disassembly.
Dressing up is available when an assistant is in the room. Eating is encouraged. You may pass through the building as many times as you wish. We will be sewing, dancing, rehearsing, performing, strutting, conversing, reflecting, projecting and contextualising. You are encouraged to give opinions where it seems appropriate. If you wish to wear one of our costumes then we will fit them for you while you wait. Wearing a costume is optional.
Proposals are invited from you for future use of the Oceanallover costume archive. During this costume auction you will be able to put forward ideas that could make use of individual or collective garments and props. Offers may include a financial value for the item as well as discussion of their intended use or of your concept. Your offers will be considered after the event has finished and will be judged on merit, intent, integrity and values both fiscal and social.
There will be several live performance fragments shown across the course of the evening and an approximate schedule for these events will be available on arrival. We will also be showing film archives relating to the work of Oceanallover and Alex Rigg, including work by contemporary companies and archive footage from the past thirty years of work at the CCA.
You are invited to bring with you writing and images of work that has a connection with the CCA or with the work of Oceanallover and Alex Rigg. These thoughts and memories will be assembled during the evening to establish a context for the work.
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All public events are in a state of statelessness at this time and so it is probable that the date will be pushed back until later in the year. Consequently, costume, music and performative elements will be released on-line over the next few weeks.
This is particularly true of our invitation for proposals to make work on existing costume. This can be composition of music, choreography of the body or dramatising of the soul.
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This text was prepared in 2020 during the onset of the Covid epidemic.
The Self Assembled has continued as an active project, making Alex Rigg’s costume available to be worn and enjoyed alongside active performance events. The clothes form a kind of dressing-up box or reference library. The public can have access to the costume within a very specific set of circumstances in which a magical world is created. By late summer 2026 the project is in to its sixth year, and looks to continue for some time yet. New costume is added periodically, some pieces have become unusable and have been decommissioned.
The Sailmaker’s Palm
This is a story about salt and sails, about the persistence of mystery, transmutation and transcendence. It is an allegorical tale told through music, dance, costume and words. It follows a sailmaker and a salter on a journey to find a release from the structures and strictures of their lives.
Sail making and salt panning have both been very vital crafts for coastal communities. Salt was essential for survival, helping to preserve food during winter months and maintaining a basic level of health and cleanliness. Sails allowed people to catch the wind and use its power to fish and trade and travel, linking communities in areas where travel by land was difficult and dangerous.
The Sailmaker’s Palm is a discussion of boundaries, looking and the tensions between differing states of awareness. Salt, water and air have cycled through changes across the geology of our Earth for years without number. Humanity is part of that cycle, the water and minerals in our body are what life is made from.
Read more here:
(photo-credit Kim Ayres)
Didar - The Encounter
A collaboration with photographer Xeder.
Read more here:
The Oken Stone Podcast
