Taigh Chearsabhagh Art Exhibitions

sarah macintyre

soundings/doimhneadhdan

18 August - 13 October
Gallery One

Sarah MacIntyre from Loch Carnan, South Uist, who has recently completed her M.A. at Edinburgh College of Art, presents a fascinating exhibition of her recent work in Gallery One from the 18th August.

Sarah says"My recent work explores themes of charting, marking and signaling in relation to the landscape and how we move within it. The Hebrides, Uist in particular, have strongly influenced my work offering a unique contrast and closeness in proximity between land and sea.

Much of the work references imagery used in sea charting and navigation. From early admiralty charts through to sonar and new fishing technology I am interested in how technology has affected our experience of the landscape. Our reliance on technology has in many ways caused us to lack the same observation of our surroundings that was present in past generations. Structures such as lighthouses and buoys interest me greatly and I often use light within my work as a motif for communication and knowledge.

I have been interested in the oral culture which exists in the islands and its connection with the landscape for some time. This interest lead me to make a vinyl recording of Gaidhlig stories for a previous piece of work. The tradition of passing down knowledge through stories is incredibly valuable to our understanding of our surroundings, I became particularly fascinated with place names, often not included on maps, and their history."

Andy Goldsworthy
Early Works

from the Arts Council Collection
A Hayward Touring exhibition

2 June - 30 July

Andy Goldsworthy creates sculptures in the landscape, using nature as the raw material and subject of his work. A National Touring exhibition from the Hayward Gallery brings together a series of 15 colour photographs of these works, made between 1977 and 1979. Drawn from the Arts Council Collection, the exhibition comes to Lochmaddy in June as part of an extensive UK tour.

Goldsworthy uses materials, from stones and twigs to snow and icicles,
to create works that offer the viewer a heightened experience of the energy and patterning of the natural world. Photographs often provide the only lasting evidence of the artist's reworking of nature, preserving "the optimum moment, the moment when I had not just made the piece, but understood the piece". One of the photographs in the exhibition is of a black soil-covered snowball sitting in stark contrast against the white of the surrounding snow. Another image shows a seemingly haphazard arrangement of grass stalks on the ground.

Goldsworthy has been working in photography since the mid-1970s, but winning a North West Arts Major Award in 1979 enabled him to have photographs professionally printed up for exhibition for the first time. The result was this series of 15 colour photographs, selected and purchased for the Arts Council Collection for inclusion in the group exhibition of sculpture and photographs, Nature as Material, which toured the UK in 1980.

Born in Cheshire in 1956, Goldsworthy grew up in Yorkshire where he made his first outdoor sculptures. He now lives and works in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. He has travelled extensively in Britain, and throughout Europe, America, Japan, Australia and to the North Pole, allowing the diverse landscapes to inform his work. In a recent work, Goldsworthy used chalk, a natural material of the South Downs. Moonlit Path (2002) weaves its way among the trees of Petworth Park in Sussex. The path is best experienced at night, when the reflective quality of the chalk is illuminated by the moon.

Fragility of Flight

May 12 - July 7

gallery 1

The Fragility of Flight highlights the environmental links between suspected declining bird populations in the Uists and climate change in a project combining ornithology and origami. This exhibition has been created using elements made by primary schoolchildren in the Uists and visitors to Taigh Chearsabhagh museum & Arts Centre.

The project started with guided visits by school groups to Balranald RSPB reserve where some wader species are found in their highest worldwide densities. Workshops in the schools involved examination of global environmental issues, in particular increases in air travel.

Fine Art PhD. student, Hiroko Oshima, led workshops in the Japanese art of Origami with recycled paper to teach children how to make various styles of origami birds and planes.

Visitors are invited to create an origami bird to be included in the exhibition. Educational visits to the exhibition will result in facts about waste awareness being attached to the birds on the walls. Origami birds will also be posted around the world to encourage further environmental education and promote better use of the Earth's resources.

Global warming changes bird migration routes

Like the canaries that once warned of gas danger in mine shafts, migrating birds are becoming harbingers of another risk - climate change.
Confused and disoriented by erratic weather, birds are changing migration habits and routes to adjust to warmer winters, disappearing feeding grounds and shrinking wetlands. Failure to adapt risks extinction, experts say. Bird watchers and conservationists in dozens of countries staged events at the weekend to mark World Migratory Bird Day with concerts, films and children's drawing contests to attract attention to the rising threat of global warming.

"Changes are already taking place in the habits of migrating birds," said Robert Hepworth, executive secretary of Convention on Migratory Species, a treaty under the auspices of the UN Environment Program. Bird life already is under pressure from human intrusions like coastline development, but climate change is making matters worse. "We are presiding over a managed retreat," Hepworth said. "The danger of climate change is that the retreat will become a rout."

Earth's rising temperatures are predicted to drive up to 30 percent of known animal species to extinction, and migrating birds are especially vulnerable. Climate change can strike at each stage of their annual trek, from breeding ground to rest stops along their flyways, to the final destination. Arctic permafrost and tundra, where many species breed, is melting. Even moderate rises in sea levels can swamp wetlands where travelers stop to feed. Deserts are expanding, lengthening the distance between rests. Birds face starvation when they arrive too early or too late to find their normal diet of insects, plankton or fish. With warmer winters in the north, some birds have stopped migrating altogether, leaving them at risk when the next cold winter strikes. "Species that adapted to changes over millennia are now being asked to make those adaptations extremely quickly because of the swift rise in temperatures," Hepworth said. "We don't know how many will survive. We will lose species," he said.

The convention's scientific council says 84 percent of 235 species listed in the treaty's annexes could be affected by changes in water availability, mismatched foods supplies, more frequent storms and competition with alien species intruding into their habitat.
The convention came into force in 1983 and is signed by 101 countries that have pledged to help preserve the habitat of wild creatures.

Arthur Max
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Roar o' Human Shingle

Helen MacAlister

20 January - 31 March 2007

MacAlister's new body of work investigates how language defines a culture. Making Gaelic and Scots references from significant writers such as; Sorley MacLean, Burns and MacDiarmid. MacAlister draws a sophisticated analysis of how subtleties of language are intrinsically linked to the social identity of place.

This series of drawings & paintings show a significant development of MacAlister's work and personal exploration into language. 'The Roar o' Human Shingle' seems a pivotal marker to a potential innovative discovery - exploring the rich subtleties of language and defining Gaelic & Scots within a visual art context.

Artist's Statement
These drawings and paintings touch on ideas of cultural resilience: the resonance of language and place. Language has a physicality, how it feels in the mouth, carrying or implying the very character of a place through intonation,etc. I regard the visual possibilities as akin to MacDiarmid's view of the vernacular as, 'a vast unutilized mass of lapsed observations….a debris of ideas - an inexhaustible quarry.'

The botanical references deal with landscape and therefore place. The plant types relate to the condition & position of language and place. Lichen regarded as a pollution detector - paralleling a description of Gaelic as 'like the canary down the mineshaft, the fragile thing that means we're all safe as long as it stays alive.' Primula Scotica (found only on the far north coast & Orkney), for its rarity and preciousness. The orchid for it's inferred worth being, as it is on the list of species protected by law. Sphagnum moss for it's history of being packed as field dressings - the curative. Dock ditto moss - a counteractive remedy. Marram, the belt to hold the land and finally Ligusticum Scoticum (Scots Lovage)said to be a highland cure-all.

The images of (Bowmore) Kilarrow Parish and other church interiors, pews, laird's-loft etc are not employed for any religious significance. Much like the quotations and botanics used, they have through the work's own process, somehow come to fit the interests - language and the culture it embodies. I return to MacDiarmid and his point that '….the vernacular abounds in terms which short-circuit conceptions that take sentences to express in English' - and think this should be conceivable in a form of visual translation also."

The Roar o' Human Shingle' is an extract from Hugh MacDiamid's poem 'Pray For a Second Flood', used with kind permission from Carcanet Press Ltd.

Helen MacAlister is represented by ART FIRST

Tha na dealbhan is na peantaidhean seo a' coimhead ri beachdan air seasmhachd dualchais: an co-cheangail eadar cànan is àite. Tha cànan stuthail, corporra; fairichear sa bheul e; cuiridh e an cèill le ceòl a' ghuth an coltas sònraichte a th' air àite. Gabhaidh sin a mhìneachadh sna meadhanan lèirsinneach, mar a mhìnich MacDiarmid e, is e a-mach air cainnt dhùthchasach a bhith "mar thiùrr sheallaidhean neo-chleachdte… sprùilleach bheachdan - mèinn nach teirig.

Tha na h-ìomhaighean luibheach a' dèiligeadh ri cruth tìre is, mar sin, ri àite. Tha na seòrsaichean lusan co-cheangailte ri staid is suidheachadh a' chànain is an àite. Tha Crotal ga fhaicinn mar nì a tha a' tomhas truailleadh. (Chaidh a' Ghàidhlig a shamhlachadh uair ris an eun a bhathar a' toirt sìos dhan mhèinn ghuail: "nì lag, so-leònte a tha a' comharrachadh gu bheil sinn uile sàbhailte fhad 's a bhios esan beò".) Primula Scotica: an t-seòbhrach nach fhaighear ach air fìor Cheann a Tuath na dùthcha is ann an Arcaibh, air cho gann is prìseil 's a tha i. A' Chailleach Fhuar air sgàth a luachmhorachd is i air àireamh nan lusan air a bheil dìon an lagh. Còinneach Dhearg a bhathar a' cur ann am bannan-leighis aig amannan cogaidh. A' Chopag a bha na sàr ìocshlaint. Muran, an crios a cheangaileas an talamh. Mu dheireadh thall, Lus an Liùgaire (Lingusticum Scoticum) a chuireadh gach eucail ma sgaoil.

Chan ann air adhbharan co-cheangailte ri creideamh a tha ìomhaighean de dh'Eaglais Chille an Rubha ann am Bogha Mòr, eaglaisean eile, suidheachain is mar sin air adhart san obair. Mar a tha na luibhean agus briathran dhaoine, tha iad seo, le fàs na h-obrach, air tighinn a rèir a' chuspair: cànan is an dualchas a tha stèidhichte air. Thuirt MacDiarmid gu bheil "cainnt dhùthchasach làn abairtean a bheir ciall ann am beagan fhaclan far am feumte rosgrannan slàn sa Bheurla". Bu chòir dha bhith comasach dhuinn an t-aon rud a shealltainn sna meadhanan lèirsinneach!

Exhibitions 2006

Changing Places
METAL HOUSE - FOREST HOUSE Ettie Spencer

3rd November 2006 - 13th January 2007.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT:
I have for some time been pursuing ideas about what it is to have a 'sense of place' and so have been engaged in making a body of work about the migration and displacement of people as a growing global phenomenon. This has resulted in a number of projects using tents (the tent as a symbol of temporary shelter); which leads quite naturally on to the simple house shape and the politics of the most basic of human needs, that of a home.

I was interested in making this work in this particular location because I wanted to respond to a sense of 'on the edgeness', something that runs through all my work, and which can be found here in the Hebrides.

Changing Places 1………..
METAL HOUSE
This shell of a single-storey, roofless house with its bare stone walls, windowless windows, doorless doorway and gable ends pointing into the sky on the remote Hebridean island of North Uist is now entirely clad in reflective aluminium.

It is the beauty of the changing light on these islands which caught my imagination. I wanted to find a way to focus on that while also underlining issues about belonging and displacement. All over North Uist these abandoned shells of houses - abandoned as inhabitants move away from island life, or into more comfortable modern dwellings, talk about the changing identity of the island. How do we know who we are if we don't get some reflection back of ourselves? This is the question implicit in this art installation. The physical, changing reflections of the light over the landscape in the aluminium sheet hint at how our reflections of ourselves as a species are changing in the fast-moving, cultural and political landscapes we inhabit. And yet, against the backdrop of North Uist, however quickly the light changes, things also stay the same. Here is a quietness and timelessness - a different sort of reflectiveness is evoked.

Changing Places 2……………
FOREST HOUSE
Projected onto screens cut to the same shape as the metal house is a film of swaying, lush, subtropical New Zealand forest - as opposite to the empty, sky-full landscapes outside the gallery as can be. This is what is not on the island - but might have been. The word "clearance" is evoked by this film of forest. And inhabiting the shape of a derelict North Uist house as it does, we could wonder "Was this the place the islanders emigrated to?" 2009 has been designated Scotland's Year of Homecoming, but this piece raises the question "What is it that constitutes our home?"

Central to the concept is the notion of displacement and yet connection with the other side of the world. New Zealand is not only at the exact opposite end of the planet but is a place many Scottish people have migrated to. Apart from the climate, the landscape has many similarities to the Hebrides, as has the way of life.

In addition:
Crossing the Line Video of an installation. North Sea 2003
Ten upright vacuum cleaners were launched on the high seas, to embark upon a journey to unknown destinations and beyond the control of the artist.
Cast in builders foam and marked with a contact email address, they were buffeted by the waves but remained upright like a fleet of sprightly yachts, tacking close to the wind.
The launch took place off a boat about four miles out at sea from North Berwick in East Lothian, Scotland. No one can be sure if they headed north or south or whether they have joined one of the huge litter slicks far out in the ocean, but the idea remains that they have taken their right to find their own path (as indeed we must).
- Referring to this project, there are now two upright hoovers placed here in the landscape. One is floating on the water, the other, a weathered, concrete version recalling the standing stones scattered throughout the islands, sits on a hilltop. These signifiers of domesticity set loose in the wild landscapes of North Uist are a sort of coda on the ideas of displacement, and belonging or not belonging implicit in my work. Once again, I am asking how will we know what or where our home is, these days? These works provide an opportunity to reflect on the 21st century legacy we leave behind and what is important to us in contemporary culture.

For more of ettie's work visit www.crossingtheline.org.uk/

First Solo Exhibition by

Lise Bech - PODS/COCHUILL

Fantastic new assymetric basket forms & jewellery range

8 July - 26 August

Gallery 2

Lise Bech lives and works in the Southern Uplands of Scotland, where she grows a wide range of willows (Salix species) for her basketmaking. In addition to her cultivated willow beds, the local landscape provides a rich source of other traditional basketry materials (heather, fieldrush, hairmoss) and more experimental fibreplants (birch, broom) which are occasionally used for embellishment.

Her initial interest and motivation in taking up basketry was her desire to be involved with the whole process of making beautiful and useful organic objects: from the growing and harvest of the raw materials through to design and and final execution of the piece - each step satisfying her love of and commitment to the natural world. Working exclusively with Scottish willow - much of it organically grown, tended and harvested (coppiced) by hand - she weaves traditional as well as contemporary pieces for today's lifestyle with integrity and in a sustainable fashion.
In her work Lise Bech strives to share with the onlooker her reverence for her materials, the meditative act of weaving and her almost symbiotioc relationship with her local landscape.

"I am passionate about basketmaking and get intense pleasure from using natural materials, which I hope comes across in my work", says Bech, who received a grant from the Scottish Arts Council in 2004 to develop a new range of sensual asymmetric organic Forms, which marry her traditional technical skills with a new level of emotional expression.

"...using sweetly scented willow, Bech's inspirational baskets epitomize the elemental simplicity of combining natural materials with exquisite craftsmanship.
Showing subtle natural colors her baskets are beautiful & functional, beckoning us to get back in touch with the more elemental aspects of our daily lives"
Ursula Ilse-Neuman, Curator of Craft,
Museum of Art & Design, New York
September 2005

Transparency - VALGERÐUR HAUKSDÓTTIR

2 june - 19 july

gallery one

Transparency is a borderline piece between a sculpture, sound, paper and graphic work. The work is made up with an interplay between strips of thin Japan paper which hang from the ceiling and create a space which makes it possible for the viewer to approach the work from many directions because there is no front or back side. The hand made paper and printed units create a transparency and an effect of light and shadow, which is reflected in the diffused sound that comes from within the work. The goal is to create a dimension between different realities of transparency and substance.

"My art work has progressively become an integrative point for various matters of interest which might at first seem too diverse but in actuality are not far apart. The subject matter is consistently influenced by the laws of nature, the beauty/cruelty to be found everywhere in the environment as well as by the effect the surroundings have on each individual and on entire civilisations throughout the millenia. The artwork can be compared to a window where one peers in both directions, outward and inward, in an attempt to understand the origin of oneself as that of others."

VALGERÐUR HAUKSDÓTTIR, who completed an MFA from University of Illinois in 1983, has worked equally as an academic and artist. She has had solo shows in Iceland and Finland, and has participated in group exhibitions in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Germany, France, Norway and the US. Her works are in major national collections in Iceland and Italy.

The Cowboy & The Spaceman

Colin Kirkpatrick

13 - 27 may

gallery one

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/4994844.stm

2008
*Restrain/Release* Kate MacDonald/Morag Macdonald 2 - 30 August Restrain/Release is a joint exhibition by recent graduates Kate MacDonald and Morag Macdonald showing their degree shows from the Edinburgh College of Art. They both completed the Art and Design diploma in Taigh Chearsabhagh before going to study Painting in Edinburgh. Morag Macdonald looks at the repetition of a single mark and the effect it can have on a piece of paper. How one simple mark, through repetition can change from being passive to intrusive, producing a compelling image. Kate MacDonald on the other hand has created an interactive installation which leads the viewer on an ever changing journey through space and colour.
Jocelyn Cottencin *new video work* 5 june - 30 july REAL ESCAPE Real Escape is a movie alluding to an epic, the drifting of a polar bear in an inappropriate environment. In this story, we are not quite sure if it's a man disguised as a polar bear or a polar bear disguised as a man. Seeing the bear, we balance between humour and a sense of uneasiness raising questions of displacement, fragility of the environment, artificiality and nature, etc. The artifice and camouflage are used here, to reveal something else. Intérieur " During a residence in Scotland, Jocelyn Cottencin took the ferry to North Uist, one of hebrides islands. Weather cloudy and stormy. And rainy. He filmed between the window of the boat. It's a one shot sequence of 5 min, no sound. The movie "Intérieur" has the particularity to refuse to give a preference either to space or time. As a result, this absence of choice allows a total suspension. It is the consequence of one of these rare moments of coincidence where nothing resists, nothing holds, where what should happen actually do. Thus, it is just a question of being present.
The Fleeting Ilana Halperin & Nathalie de Briey 5 July - 30 August 2008 The Fleeting serves as a prologue to inaugurate a joint project between Ilana Halperin and Nathalie de Briey. The artists have spent several weeks living and working on the island looking at how both geological and human events are recorded through ephemeral actions. The Uists have proved an ideal field site to deepen their investigations of temporality through encountering distant geology and unexpected objects. Every band of rock is a record of a physical and instantaneous event; just as amalgamated objects from as far afield as Hiroshima inhabit garage windows en route to Kildonan Museum, serving as testimony both to the events of 1945 and mirroring the geological processes which formed the landscape - melting and reforming. Geology and human time alongside each other. The exhibition in gallery one introduces the artists work and sets the tone for an upcoming commissioned publication by Taigh Chearsabhagh. Ilana Halperin's work explores the relationship between geological phenomena and daily life. Whether boiling milk in a 100 degree Celsius sulphur spring in the crater of an active volcano or celebrating her birthday with a landmass of the same age, the geologic history and environmental situation specific to the locale directly informs the direction of each piece. Recent projects explore the changeable nature of landmass, using geology as a language to understand our relationship to a constantly evolving world. The project Emergent Landmass (a chronicle of disappearance) takes the island of Ferdinandea as its starting point, charting the history of a territory that no longer exists. In 1831, the island appeared off the southern coast of Sicily, sparking an international dispute over territorial ownership of this strategically positioned heap of young geology. Before any serious conflicts developed, the island disappeared, crumbling back into the sea. Drawings attempting to describe the perpetual formation and erosion of new landmass, a text and the only remaining mineral samples of Ferdinandea, which were taken in 1831 when it was still above water, all featured. For The Fleeting, Ilana has included an excerpt from the Emergent Landmass project, a suite of hard ground etchings based on the format of traditional geological field guides. Previous field endeavours have taken place in Iceland, where some of the youngest rocks in the world can be found. In Lochmaddy, we are standing on some of the oldest stone on earth. To make acquaintance with the geological processes that formed the rocks around North Uist, Ilana has developed a wall drawing in response to walks on the island within gallery one. Nathalie de Briey's work has been investigating ephemerality and touch; these ideas have been explored through diverse approaches, such as manufacturing ice which turns the viewer's breath into visible frost on an object, putting wind into a gallery space, reconstructing vanished geological terraces out of rubber bands, and establishing a language between natural air phenomenon and air data from Antarctica. The work shown at Taigh Chearsabhagh is a response to a period of research in Japan in which Nathalie has been working within the archives of the Museum of Meteorology in Ebayama and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Artefacts found in the aftermath of the A-bomb such as bowls, cups, sake jugs - used in domestic setting and daily passed around a family table - have been twisted, distorted and broken through the shock of the blast and intense heat which reached 3000 to 4000 degrees Celsius. At 8.15 am on 6th August 1945 their function instantaneously changed from anodyne household objects to witness a world changing event. The drawings investigate several objects observed at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum drawn from different angles and overlapped in an attempt to understand the Hiroshima bombing through a drawing process. Concurrently a projection of early morning in Hiroshima Peace Park during Sakura week (cherry blossoms week) is shown. All over Japan, the cherry blossoms' flowers flourish and disappear in a period of a week; during that time it is the tradition to have picnics with friends and family underneath the blossoms to celebrate the new season. During a conversation with an A-bomb survivor the symbol of the week was further explained, the week being a signal of hope as well as epitomizing the life of the warrior "living beautifully and dying quickly". A reading room is located outside gallery one including documentation of past projects and ephemera. For further information please visit the artists' websites: www.nathaliedebriey.com and www.ilanahalperin.com
*fragility of flight* keith mcintyre & karen wimhurst 5 april - 31 may "Bird Species have always flirted with extinction as they lose the challenge regarding survival of the fittest." Tina MacDonald Fragility of Flight is an anthropomorphic tragi-comedy in visual art, music, film and origami. Birds and humankind merge to face survival in the wake of profound changes to the natural world. Artists Keith McIntyre and composer Karen Wimhurst were commissioned by Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Arts Centre, based in the Isle of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, to create a gallery installation combining Keith's large ink drawings and performance with Karen's improvised woodwind and birdsong composition. Keith McIntyre's Visual Art practice has for the past 5 years examined new synergies between drawing and performance activities. This has resulted in a number of projects where large-scale black ink on paper works are used in a variety of ways beyond conventional exhibition contexts. The 'Last Flights' project has evolved through McIntyre's longstanding collaborative partnership with composer Karen Wimhurst. This new work is an tragic-comic examination on the subject of birds and extinction and has both migrated and developed in response to the environments that the project has been site-specifically located. The first stage of this project has been commissioned by Taigh Chearsabhagh North Uist where it opens in April 4th '08. Following this it is being toured to An Tobar Isle of Mull and An Lanntair, Isle of Lewis.
*Journeys* Joanne B Kaar June 2008 As the culmination of a three month residency in Durness Journeys reflects a process of cultural excavation and interpretation "over land, sea and time". What is so extraordinary about this exhibition is both the expansive scope of the project and its intimate scale. For those who participated in Journeys during its development as part of the residency and for subsequent audiences of the exhibition Journeys reveals much about its location. The artist has thoroughly immersed herself in uncovering, sifting and merging creative process and technique with the natural environment. Taking joy in the everyday and the unique character of place that is so often taken for granted, such a project makes us all examine our own place in the world with fresh eyes. Each piece is fascinating, filled with the landscape and its stories, the beautiful tactile experience of handmade fibres, the smell of natural elements mixed into the pages and the wonderful skill of artist Joanne Kaar in binding all these layers together. It is gratifying to see a project extend its life and legacy by touring and visitors can add their own journeys to a log book as part of the display. A power point presentation of images from some of the paper works in the landscape compliments the contents of the book boxes and helps place the work in context. The creative process in Journeys interprets and reflects a community and its environment by use of materials, content and active involvement. It is a reflection of the way that our creative influence as individuals can extend beyond any idea of isolation that may confine us geographically. The residency unfolded online in tandem with activities on the ground and connected artists as far away as America and New Zealand with the whole creative process. The original starting point, the origins of ships log books, transformed into the modern blog as a document of the journeys taken within the project. The linking of Durness as a creative community to a potential worldwide audience through the internet is not only an important form of documentation but communication about the unique qualities of the area. The series of book boxes naturally invite the viewer to experience them, opening every wooden toggle is a discovery! They record a wide range of interpretations and the act of looking at them is immediate, personal and tactile. Made from coffee grains collected from Mackay's Hotel in Durness "The Shipping News" combines local history, with intoxicating smell and the image of a three mast Barque, a type sailing ship wrecked in the area during a time of merchant voyages. The image of the ship is simply and beautifully realised using a watercut technique, drawing through thin pulp while it is still in the papermaking mould. Personal and local history combined in the reading of the "Shipping News" was recorded photographically on site. Georgina Coburn - Northings(extracts)
bardic voyage andrew ward gallery 1 + 2, studio 1 feb2 - march 29 Ullapool-based artist, Andrew J Ward, brings his Bardic Voyage project to Taigh Chearsabhagh. Most recently seen installed on various Calmac ferries, eight of the large-scale portraits of the bards most relevant to the Uists, including Donald John MacDonald, Mary MacLean and Martyn Bennett, will hang throughout the gallery spaces. A digital animation face of the bard is screened in studio one. As Timothy Neat states in the foreward to the exhibition catalogue; "The Bardic tradition of the Islands and highlands of Scotland is probably the oldest and richest, still living folk literature of Europe…Here are the faces of the bards; here is the song that binds a people; here is the breath of life and a message of Peace." Dr. Margaret Bennett will give an accompanied talk with Anna Wendy Stevenson entitled 'Celebrating the Bards' on Friday 8 february at Taigh Chearsabhagh which is free.
Uist Arts Association Annual Exhibition *October 13 - December 1* over 30 artists from the Outer Hebrides and beyond are represented in this years exhibition. If you are looking for a unique present for someone special or you just want to support the artists in the association or Taigh Chearsabhagh in general, the Uist Arts Association Exhibition is the place to be.
sarah macintyre *soundings/doimhneadhdan* 18 August - 13 October Gallery One Sarah MacIntyre from Loch Carnan, South Uist, who has recently completed her M.A. at Edinburgh College of Art, presents a fascinating exhibition of her recent work in Gallery One from the 18th August. Sarah says"My recent work explores themes of charting, marking and signaling in relation to the landscape and how we move within it. The Hebrides, Uist in particular, have strongly influenced my work offering a unique contrast and closeness in proximity between land and sea. Much of the work references imagery used in sea charting and navigation. From early admiralty charts through to sonar and new fishing technology I am interested in how technology has affected our experience of the landscape. Our reliance on technology has in many ways caused us to lack the same observation of our surroundings that was present in past generations. Structures such as lighthouses and buoys interest me greatly and I often use light within my work as a motif for communication and knowledge. I have been interested in the oral culture which exists in the islands and its connection with the landscape for some time. This interest lead me to make a vinyl recording of Gaidhlig stories for a previous piece of work. The tradition of passing down knowledge through stories is incredibly valuable to our understanding of our surroundings, I became particularly fascinated with place names, often not included on maps, and their history." Andy Goldsworthy Early Works from the Arts Council Collection A Hayward Touring exhibition 2 June - 30 July Andy Goldsworthy creates sculptures in the landscape, using nature as the raw material and subject of his work. A National Touring exhibition from the Hayward Gallery brings together a series of 15 colour photographs of these works, made between 1977 and 1979. Drawn from the Arts Council Collection, the exhibition comes to Lochmaddy in June as part of an extensive UK tour. Goldsworthy uses materials, from stones and twigs to snow and icicles, to create works that offer the viewer a heightened experience of the energy and patterning of the natural world. Photographs often provide the only lasting evidence of the artist's reworking of nature, preserving "the optimum moment, the moment when I had not just made the piece, but understood the piece". One of the photographs in the exhibition is of a black soil-covered snowball sitting in stark contrast against the white of the surrounding snow. Another image shows a seemingly haphazard arrangement of grass stalks on the ground. Goldsworthy has been working in photography since the mid-1970s, but winning a North West Arts Major Award in 1979 enabled him to have photographs professionally printed up for exhibition for the first time. The result was this series of 15 colour photographs, selected and purchased for the Arts Council Collection for inclusion in the group exhibition of sculpture and photographs, Nature as Material, which toured the UK in 1980. Born in Cheshire in 1956, Goldsworthy grew up in Yorkshire where he made his first outdoor sculptures. He now lives and works in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. He has travelled extensively in Britain, and throughout Europe, America, Japan, Australia and to the North Pole, allowing the diverse landscapes to inform his work. In a recent work, Goldsworthy used chalk, a natural material of the South Downs. Moonlit Path (2002) weaves its way among the trees of Petworth Park in Sussex. The path is best experienced at night, when the reflective quality of the chalk is illuminated by the moon. *Fragility of Flight* *May 12 - July 7* *gallery 1* The Fragility of Flight highlights the environmental links between suspected declining bird populations in the Uists and climate change in a project combining ornithology and origami. This exhibition has been created using elements made by primary schoolchildren in the Uists and visitors to Taigh Chearsabhagh museum & Arts Centre. The project started with guided visits by school groups to Balranald RSPB reserve where some wader species are found in their highest worldwide densities. Workshops in the schools involved examination of global environmental issues, in particular increases in air travel. Fine Art PhD. student, Hiroko Oshima, led workshops in the Japanese art of Origami with recycled paper to teach children how to make various styles of origami birds and planes. Visitors are invited to create an origami bird to be included in the exhibition. Educational visits to the exhibition will result in facts about waste awareness being attached to the birds on the walls. Origami birds will also be posted around the world to encourage further environmental education and promote better use of the Earth's resources. *Global warming changes bird migration routes* Like the canaries that once warned of gas danger in mine shafts, migrating birds are becoming harbingers of another risk - climate change. Confused and disoriented by erratic weather, birds are changing migration habits and routes to adjust to warmer winters, disappearing feeding grounds and shrinking wetlands. Failure to adapt risks extinction, experts say. Bird watchers and conservationists in dozens of countries staged events at the weekend to mark World Migratory Bird Day with concerts, films and children's drawing contests to attract attention to the rising threat of global warming. "Changes are already taking place in the habits of migrating birds," said Robert Hepworth, executive secretary of Convention on Migratory Species, a treaty under the auspices of the UN Environment Program. Bird life already is under pressure from human intrusions like coastline development, but climate change is making matters worse. "We are presiding over a managed retreat," Hepworth said. "The danger of climate change is that the retreat will become a rout." Earth's rising temperatures are predicted to drive up to 30 percent of known animal species to extinction, and migrating birds are especially vulnerable. Climate change can strike at each stage of their annual trek, from breeding ground to rest stops along their flyways, to the final destination. Arctic permafrost and tundra, where many species breed, is melting. Even moderate rises in sea levels can swamp wetlands where travelers stop to feed. Deserts are expanding, lengthening the distance between rests. Birds face starvation when they arrive too early or too late to find their normal diet of insects, plankton or fish. With warmer winters in the north, some birds have stopped migrating altogether, leaving them at risk when the next cold winter strikes. "Species that adapted to changes over millennia are now being asked to make those adaptations extremely quickly because of the swift rise in temperatures," Hepworth said. "We don't know how many will survive. We will lose species," he said. The convention's scientific council says 84 percent of 235 species listed in the treaty's annexes could be affected by changes in water availability, mismatched foods supplies, more frequent storms and competition with alien species intruding into their habitat. The convention came into force in 1983 and is signed by 101 countries that have pledged to help preserve the habitat of wild creatures. Arthur Max Tuesday, May 15, 2007 ASSOCIATED PRESS *The Roar o' Human Shingle* Helen MacAlister *20 January - 31 March 2007* MacAlister's new body of work investigates how language defines a culture. Making Gaelic and Scots references from significant writers such as; Sorley MacLean, Burns and MacDiarmid. MacAlister draws a sophisticated analysis of how subtleties of language are intrinsically linked to the social identity of place. This series of drawings & paintings show a significant development of MacAlister's work and personal exploration into language. 'The Roar o' Human Shingle' seems a pivotal marker to a potential innovative discovery - exploring the rich subtleties of language and defining Gaelic & Scots within a visual art context. Artist's Statement These drawings and paintings touch on ideas of cultural resilience: the resonance of language and place. Language has a physicality, how it feels in the mouth, carrying or implying the very character of a place through intonation,etc. I regard the visual possibilities as akin to MacDiarmid's view of the vernacular as, 'a vast unutilized mass of lapsed observations….a debris of ideas - an inexhaustible quarry.' The botanical references deal with landscape and therefore place. The plant types relate to the condition & position of language and place. Lichen regarded as a pollution detector - paralleling a description of Gaelic as 'like the canary down the mineshaft, the fragile thing that means we're all safe as long as it stays alive.' Primula Scotica (found only on the far north coast & Orkney), for its rarity and preciousness. The orchid for it's inferred worth being, as it is on the list of species protected by law. Sphagnum moss for it's history of being packed as field dressings - the curative. Dock ditto moss - a counteractive remedy. Marram, the belt to hold the land and finally Ligusticum Scoticum (Scots Lovage)said to be a highland cure-all. The images of (Bowmore) Kilarrow Parish and other church interiors, pews, laird's-loft etc are not employed for any religious significance. Much like the quotations and botanics used, they have through the work's own process, somehow come to fit the interests - language and the culture it embodies. I return to MacDiarmid and his point that '….the vernacular abounds in terms which short-circuit conceptions that take sentences to express in English' - and think this should be conceivable in a form of visual translation also." The Roar o' Human Shingle' is an extract from Hugh MacDiamid's poem 'Pray For a Second Flood', used with kind permission from Carcanet Press Ltd. Helen MacAlister is represented by ART FIRST Tha na dealbhan is na peantaidhean seo a' coimhead ri beachdan air seasmhachd dualchais: an co-cheangail eadar cànan is àite. Tha cànan stuthail, corporra; fairichear sa bheul e; cuiridh e an cèill le ceòl a' ghuth an coltas sònraichte a th' air àite. Gabhaidh sin a mhìneachadh sna meadhanan lèirsinneach, mar a mhìnich MacDiarmid e, is e a-mach air cainnt dhùthchasach a bhith "mar thiùrr sheallaidhean neo-chleachdte… sprùilleach bheachdan - mèinn nach teirig. Tha na h-ìomhaighean luibheach a' dèiligeadh ri cruth tìre is, mar sin, ri àite. Tha na seòrsaichean lusan co-cheangailte ri staid is suidheachadh a' chànain is an àite. Tha Crotal ga fhaicinn mar nì a tha a' tomhas truailleadh. (Chaidh a' Ghàidhlig a shamhlachadh uair ris an eun a bhathar a' toirt sìos dhan mhèinn ghuail: "nì lag, so-leònte a tha a' comharrachadh gu bheil sinn uile sàbhailte fhad 's a bhios esan beò".) Primula Scotica: an t-seòbhrach nach fhaighear ach air fìor Cheann a Tuath na dùthcha is ann an Arcaibh, air cho gann is prìseil 's a tha i. A' Chailleach Fhuar air sgàth a luachmhorachd is i air àireamh nan lusan air a bheil dìon an lagh. Còinneach Dhearg a bhathar a' cur ann am bannan-leighis aig amannan cogaidh. A' Chopag a bha na sàr ìocshlaint. Muran, an crios a cheangaileas an talamh. Mu dheireadh thall, Lus an Liùgaire (Lingusticum Scoticum) a chuireadh gach eucail ma sgaoil. Chan ann air adhbharan co-cheangailte ri creideamh a tha ìomhaighean de dh'Eaglais Chille an Rubha ann am Bogha Mòr, eaglaisean eile, suidheachain is mar sin air adhart san obair. Mar a tha na luibhean agus briathran dhaoine, tha iad seo, le fàs na h-obrach, air tighinn a rèir a' chuspair: cànan is an dualchas a tha stèidhichte air. Thuirt MacDiarmid gu bheil "cainnt dhùthchasach làn abairtean a bheir ciall ann am beagan fhaclan far am feumte rosgrannan slàn sa Bheurla". Bu chòir dha bhith comasach dhuinn an t-aon rud a shealltainn sna meadhanan lèirsinneach! Exhibitions 2006 Changing Places METAL HOUSE - FOREST HOUSE Ettie Spencer 3rd November 2006 - 13th January 2007. ARTIST'S STATEMENT: I have for some time been pursuing ideas about what it is to have a 'sense of place' and so have been engaged in making a body of work about the migration and displacement of people as a growing global phenomenon. This has resulted in a number of projects using tents (the tent as a symbol of temporary shelter); which leads quite naturally on to the simple house shape and the politics of the most basic of human needs, that of a home. I was interested in making this work in this particular location because I wanted to respond to a sense of 'on the edgeness', something that runs through all my work, and which can be found here in the Hebrides. Changing Places 1……….. METAL HOUSE This shell of a single-storey, roofless house with its bare stone walls, windowless windows, doorless doorway and gable ends pointing into the sky on the remote Hebridean island of North Uist is now entirely clad in reflective aluminium. It is the beauty of the changing light on these islands which caught my imagination. I wanted to find a way to focus on that while also underlining issues about belonging and displacement. All over North Uist these abandoned shells of houses - abandoned as inhabitants move away from island life, or into more comfortable modern dwellings, talk about the changing identity of the island. How do we know who we are if we don't get some reflection back of ourselves? This is the question implicit in this art installation. The physical, changing reflections of the light over the landscape in the aluminium sheet hint at how our reflections of ourselves as a species are changing in the fast-moving, cultural and political landscapes we inhabit. And yet, against the backdrop of North Uist, however quickly the light changes, things also stay the same. Here is a quietness and timelessness - a different sort of reflectiveness is evoked. Changing Places 2…………… FOREST HOUSE Projected onto screens cut to the same shape as the metal house is a film of swaying, lush, subtropical New Zealand forest - as opposite to the empty, sky-full landscapes outside the gallery as can be. This is what is not on the island - but might have been. The word "clearance" is evoked by this film of forest. And inhabiting the shape of a derelict North Uist house as it does, we could wonder "Was this the place the islanders emigrated to?" 2009 has been designated Scotland's Year of Homecoming, but this piece raises the question "What is it that constitutes our home?" Central to the concept is the notion of displacement and yet connection with the other side of the world. New Zealand is not only at the exact opposite end of the planet but is a place many Scottish people have migrated to. Apart from the climate, the landscape has many similarities to the Hebrides, as has the way of life. In addition: Crossing the Line Video of an installation. North Sea 2003 Ten upright vacuum cleaners were launched on the high seas, to embark upon a journey to unknown destinations and beyond the control of the artist. Cast in builders foam and marked with a contact email address, they were buffeted by the waves but remained upright like a fleet of sprightly yachts, tacking close to the wind. The launch took place off a boat about four miles out at sea from North Berwick in East Lothian, Scotland. No one can be sure if they headed north or south or whether they have joined one of the huge litter slicks far out in the ocean, but the idea remains that they have taken their right to find their own path (as indeed we must). - Referring to this project, there are now two upright hoovers placed here in the landscape. One is floating on the water, the other, a weathered, concrete version recalling the standing stones scattered throughout the islands, sits on a hilltop. These signifiers of domesticity set loose in the wild landscapes of North Uist are a sort of coda on the ideas of displacement, and belonging or not belonging implicit in my work. Once again, I am asking how will we know what or where our home is, these days? These works provide an opportunity to reflect on the 21st century legacy we leave behind and what is important to us in contemporary culture. For more of ettie's work visit www.crossingtheline.org.uk/ First Solo Exhibition by Lise Bech - PODS/COCHUILL *Fantastic new assymetric basket forms & jewellery range* *8 July - 26 August* *Gallery 2* Lise Bech lives and works in the Southern Uplands of Scotland, where she grows a wide range of willows (Salix species) for her basketmaking. In addition to her cultivated willow beds, the local landscape provides a rich source of other traditional basketry materials (heather, fieldrush, hairmoss) and more experimental fibreplants (birch, broom) which are occasionally used for embellishment. Her initial interest and motivation in taking up basketry was her desire to be involved with the whole process of making beautiful and useful organic objects: from the growing and harvest of the raw materials through to design and and final execution of the piece - each step satisfying her love of and commitment to the natural world. Working exclusively with Scottish willow - much of it organically grown, tended and harvested (coppiced) by hand - she weaves traditional as well as contemporary pieces for today's lifestyle with integrity and in a sustainable fashion. In her work Lise Bech strives to share with the onlooker her reverence for her materials, the meditative act of weaving and her almost symbiotioc relationship with her local landscape. "I am passionate about basketmaking and get intense pleasure from using natural materials, which I hope comes across in my work", says Bech, who received a grant from the Scottish Arts Council in 2004 to develop a new range of sensual asymmetric organic Forms, which marry her traditional technical skills with a new level of emotional expression. "...using sweetly scented willow, Bech's inspirational baskets epitomize the elemental simplicity of combining natural materials with exquisite craftsmanship. Showing subtle natural colors her baskets are beautiful & functional, beckoning us to get back in touch with the more elemental aspects of our daily lives" Ursula Ilse-Neuman, Curator of Craft, Museum of Art & Design, New York September 2005 Transparency - VALGERÐUR HAUKSDÓTTIR 2 june - 19 july gallery one *Transparency* is a borderline piece between a sculpture, sound, paper and graphic work. The work is made up with an interplay between strips of thin Japan paper which hang from the ceiling and create a space which makes it possible for the viewer to approach the work from many directions because there is no front or back side. The hand made paper and printed units create a transparency and an effect of light and shadow, which is reflected in the diffused sound that comes from within the work. The goal is to create a dimension between different realities of transparency and substance. "My art work has progressively become an integrative point for various matters of interest which might at first seem too diverse but in actuality are not far apart. The subject matter is consistently influenced by the laws of nature, the beauty/cruelty to be found everywhere in the environment as well as by the effect the surroundings have on each individual and on entire civilisations throughout the millenia. The artwork can be compared to a window where one peers in both directions, outward and inward, in an attempt to understand the origin of oneself as that of others." VALGERÐUR HAUKSDÓTTIR, who completed an MFA from University of Illinois in 1983, has worked equally as an academic and artist. She has had solo shows in Iceland and Finland, and has participated in group exhibitions in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Germany, France, Norway and the US. Her works are in major national collections in Iceland and Italy. *The Cowboy & The Spaceman* *Colin Kirkpatrick* 13 - 27 may gallery one http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/4994844.stm	Lise Bech photos by Shannon Tofts
A Taigh Chearsabhagh curated photographic exhibition Barbara Yoshida - Dark Skies March 11 - April 29 Taigh Chearsabhagh presents an exhibition of outstanding photography by this accomplished New York photographer. An amalgamation of two recent projects- Standing Stones & Moonlight and including work created during her 2005 european visit, Dark Skies is a celebration of timeless landscapes under skies not yet adulterated by artificial light. Ancient monoliths and natural rock formations, "where the earth meets the sky", are explored through the medium of time-lapse photography producing a haunting, yet majestic, quality to these powerful images. "In 2003 I pitched my tent next to the ancient Ring of Brodgar in Scotland and photographed from evening through the night until dawn. That was the beginning of this project, a series of images from Sweden to Corsica featuring various megalithic, standing stones." There is a timeless quality about these stones that gives them enormous power. As Angus Peter Campbell puts it, "suddenly you realize that this stone you're gazing upon...was here before you came, and it will be here after you have gone, receiving the warm west wind, bowing before the terrible winter storms, coping, thrawn, surviving." A stone is that from which we come, is that to which we go back, it's the earth itself. Isamu Noguchi Photographing at night, with the stones against the night sky, emphasizes their shapes as well as the relationship between "figure and ground," between the focal object and its surroundings. The "star trails" add another element, that of time. They are a visual record of how much the earth has moved during the exposure, which can be 8 minutes or more than an hour. And the gravure process (the way the paper is pressed into the bitten plate) complements the texture of the stones. "The otherness of stones and stars, like that of wild animals, is their deepest mystery, for they are not our products and their purposes are their own. They are the models for thinking our humbleness in the universe, and they are the key to the strangeness of ourselves." Paul Shepard Barbara Yoshida has had numerous exhibitions in countries around the world, including The Netherlands, Japan, Finland, Turkey, Egypt, Ukraine, Korea, Hungary, India, England, France, Scotland, Austria, Republic of China, Switzerland, Canada and Italy, as well as two one-person exhibitions in Poland during 2004 and a forthcoming one-person exhibition at Taigh Chearsabhagh in March/April 2006. In the United States, recent one-person shows include George B. Dorr Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine in 2003; Johnson County Community College; Arts Space in New York City in 2006. For more information and images visit www.barbarayoshida.com Stephen Hurrel BEYOND a post-retro future Gallery One & café 7th January - 25th February 2006 Two video installations by Scottish artist, Stephen Hurrel, 2005 recipient of a Creative Scotland Award. Gallery One - Colour Memory Colour in itself has the ability to transport us to different points in time and to unearth latent memories. By focussing on specific colours sampled from everyday objects and media the artist intends to test this theory. Through collecting objects and images, including sources from his own childhood years, the artist has identified certain 'nostalgic colours' that communicate another time and place. Using both traditional and digital media to abstract these colours from their original context, and to manipulate the source material, it is hoped the artworks will now become triggers for memory in the minds of the viewer. "Colour Memory does what it says on the tin - it recovers the past through colours: an episode of Star Trek broken down digitally into its component colours (mustard yellow, turquoise, red); an installation of coloured lids. It makes a simple but powerful point." (Scotsman 3/5/05) Café - VIDEO-ZEN "In August 2004 I travelled to the Orkney Islands, off the north coast of Scotland. The purpose of my trip was to record my journey on videotape, together with a spoken message, I would then seal the videotapes in watertight, buoyant containers and arrange for them to be dropped at sea off three seperate Orkney islands. This was an extension of a similar small project that I undertook whilst 'SAC artist in residence' for a year in Australia where I dropped a 'confession on videotape' at sea off the south coast of Tasmania in 1997 (still to be found). Documentation of that project was contained within the group show 'TGOZ - new work by recipients of an SAC Australian Residency Award'. This exhibition was curated for the Scottish Arts Council's Travelling Gallery bus for its Autumn tour of rural and remote towns of Scotland. My journey to Orkney coincided with the Travelling Gallery's tour of the islands. Each videotape package contains my contact details. When, or if, the tapes are found I have asked each person to contact me by email or postcard. My intention is to travel to wherever the tapes were found and to continue my documentary film. This is a film that relies on chance, random opportunities and unknown journeys for its success (or failure)." As part of the ongoing Video-Zen project, Stephen will be creating a North Uist video to be launched in the sea during the last week in January (wednesday 25th - Saturday 28th). If you are interested in taking part or have any stories about the sea contact Andy Mackinnon at Taigh Chearsabhagh for details, 01876 500240, andy@taigh-chearsabhagh.org Stephen Hurrel creates artworks through an engagement with particular environments and public contexts. He is interested in how technology impacts on our environment and how it can be used within the art making process. He works across various media including video, sound, light, photography, interactive digital media and sculpture. Having mainly produced temporary art installation in the U.K. and abroad since 1990 he has, over the past few years, undertaken several commissions for permanent public art works. These works combine sculptural materials with interactive technologies to create innovative new forms of public art. Stephen Hurrel studied sculpture at Glasgow School of Art from 1983 to 1988 and since then has worked in a wide range of projects in the U.K and abroad. Past exhibitions include works for; the CCA, Gallery of Modern Art, Streetlevel, GSS Gallery, Transmission, Tramway and DCA in Scotland and in contemporary art spaces in England, Germany, Australia, New Zealand. He has recently received an SAC Creative Scotland Award to develop new work. Past awards include an SAC one-year Australian Residency 1997-98. He lives and works in Glasgow and lectures part-time on the Context and Media Masters Course in Gothenburg, in Sweden.