From Little Sparta to Push the Boat Out: Inside Pool Burn, Lock and Sluice
Image of Corin Sworn and Iain Morrison at Little Sparta, credit: Luke Fowler.
Ahead of their performance at Push the Boat Out 2026, we take a glimpse into the creative process of poet Iain Morrison and artist Corin Sworn, whose residency at Little Sparta has inspired a new collaborative work exploring language, landscape and the flow of water.
This year, Push the Boat Out launched a new artist residency programme in partnership with Little Sparta, supporting collaborative, poetry-led performance inspired by the extraordinary garden of artist and poet Ian Hamilton Finlay.
“And of course Little Sparta has aye been its own micropolity; anyone suspecting pastoral artists of blanket, heart-melting schmaltz need only clock the carved grenades and guillotines within the Spartan eclogue.”
Nestled in the Pentland Hills, Little Sparta is a living artwork where poetry, sculpture and nature exist in constant conversation. For our first residents, Iain Morrison and Corin Sworn, it has become a place of discovery, experimentation and unexpected creative connections.
’Spread from Pool, Burn, Lock, and Sluice publication, designed by Marcus Jack
From their first journey, the landscape began to shape their responses:
“On the first day, we walked four miles to Little Sparta. The fields were cut in harvest lines of yellow, the sheep were lean, furrowed from shearing.”
Throughout their residency, the artists have followed the movement of water through the garden, exploring its pools, burns and channels while considering the challenges of maintaining a living artwork in an era of climate catastrophe.
Their developing work moves between close observation and playful linguistic experimentation, finding poetry in the smallest details:
“I look at a photograph from the garden. I see the veined tributary of a leaf, a cellulose architecture catches light”
Little Sparta is as provocative as it is beautiful, with its sculptures and inscriptions challenging traditional ideas of the pastoral garden. This tension between artistic intention and the unpredictable natural world runs throughout pool burn lock and sluice.
“The garden assembles; its dialectics of colour unresolving, resplendent, prolific this undecided morning.”
Iain writing with coloured inks and Little Sparta’s water, credit: Corin Sworn
On Saturday 14 November, Morrison and Sworn bring the fruits of their residency to Push the Boat Out, sharing a new work where poetry, visual art and landscape meet.
The performance will also feature a talk from journalist and writer Magnus Linklater, offering further insight into Ian Hamilton Finlay and Little Sparta, followed by audience questions.
Discoverpool burn lock and sluiceat The Pleasance, Edinburgh, on Saturday 14 November, 3pm.
