PT 2 - ARTISTS & AUTHORS
In part two of Looking North, we were delighted to welcome back each of our artist-speakers who we paired with a nature writer or scholar whose work has explored similar themes. We decided to opt for a two-part format to allow enough time for our speakers to engage in an unscripted and authentic dialogue. In doing so, we hoped to cultivate a context in which a conversation can evolve that is stimulating — not just to the audience, but the speakers themselves. This was then followed by a Q&A in which the audience had the opportunity to participate and ask questions. Conceptually, we believe wholeheartedly in the value of the potential that lies in between disciplines, walks of life, and variety in perspectives. Our hope was to apply a holistic approach to this project by bringing together the worlds of visual art, literature, and natural sciences as well as ecological conservation. In the beginning of each session, a representative of a chosen non-profit organisation with a direct link to that week’s central theme shared their work and practical, local approaches to our sometimes very theoretical questions.
ALEX BOYD & CAL FLYN
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Alex Boyd is a landscape and documentary photographer, printmaker and writer. His work is primarily concerned with landscape in Scotland. As a photographer his work examines the role of early Scottish landscape photographers, often using antique cameras and processes such as the Victorian wet-plate collodion process in mountain environments. For years, militarised landscapes have been a focus of Alex, who has explored parts of the estate of the Ministry of Defence – one of the biggest landowners in Scotland. “Tir An Airm (Land of the Military)” bears visual witness to Alex’s visits and provides a context in which one can explore a wide range of environmental themes and questions that emerge regarding “Scottish landscape” and the ethics of energy. Alex's work has been exhibited in national and international galleries. His work is represented in several museum collections, including - but not limited to - the National Galleries of Scotland, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Yale Centre for British Art. “Tir An Airm (Land of Military)” was previously exhibited at Stills Gallery in Edinburgh as well as the Gairloch museum.
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Cal Flyn is an award-winning writer from the Highlands of Scotland. She writes literary nonfiction and long-form journalism. Her first book, Thicker Than Water, about frontier violence in colonial Australia, was a Times book of the year. Her second book, Islands of Abandonment—about the ecology and psychology of abandoned places—was shortlisted for a number of prizes including the Wainwright Prize for writing on global conservation, the British Academy Book Prize, and the Baillie Gifford Prize for nonfiction. Cal’s journalistic writing has been published in Granta, The Sunday Times Magazine, Telegraph Magazine, The Economist, and others. She was made a MacDowell fellow in 2019 and was recently announced as the 2021 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year.
SOPHIE GERRARD & AMANDA THOMSON
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Sophie Gerrard is a Scottish photographer whose practice is characterised by sensitive and evocative visual exploration of the natural environment and landscape and our relationship to it. The central concerns of her work are people, environmental connection, identity and belonging, drawing from archives and personal narratives. Sophie has been the recipient of many accolades, including the Jerwood Photography Award, a Fuji Bursary, a Magenta Fast Forward Award, the Remote Photography Award, and the Brighton Photodocument award. Sophie’s work was recently on view at the Museum für Europäische Kulturen in Berlin, as part of an exhibition called Document Scotland: Reflections on a Changing Country. The show is named after Document Scotland, a collective of internationally acclaimed photographers dedicated to chronicling the social, cultural, and economic life in Scotland, which Sophie co-founded in 2012.
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Amanda Thomson is a visual artist and writer who is also a lecturer at the Glasgow School of Art. Originally trained as a printmaker, her interdisciplinary work is often about notions of home, movements, migrations, landscapes and the natural world and how places come to be made. In 2013 she completed her doctorate in Interdisciplinary Arts Practice. Her practice-led thesis considered the ways in which we come to know place and was rooted in Abernethy Forest in Strathspey and the forests of Morayshire, particularly Culbin. Her first book, A Scots Dictionary of Nature, was published by Saraband Books in 2017. Her latest book project, Belonging: Natural Histories of Place, Identity and Home, was published by Canongate Books in August 2022.
SEKAI MACHACHE & CHRIS MARSHALL
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Sekai Machache’s work is a deep interrogation of the notion of self, in which photography plays a crucial role in supporting an exploration of the historical and cultural imaginary. Aspects of her photographic practice are formulated through digital studio-based compositions utilising body paint and muted lighting to create images that appear to emerge from darkness. In recent works she expands to incorporate other media and approaches that evoke that which is invisible and undocumented. She is interested in the relationship between spirituality, dreaming and the role of the artist in disseminating symbolic imagery to provide a space for healing against contexts of colonialism and loss. Sekai is the recipient of the 2020 RSA Morton Award and is an artist in residence with the Talbot Rice Residency Programme 2021-2023. Sekai works internationally and often collaboratively, for and with her community and is a founding and organising member of the Yon Afro Collective (YAC).
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Christopher Marshall’s research at the University of the Highlands and Islands focuses on examining landscape scale peatland processes in the present and geological past to understand the controls on peatland resilience to future climatic change. Christopher is currently contributing to a Leverhulme leadership award examining how satellite radar can be used to assess future peatland resilience and the NERC funded ‘Fire Blanket’ project assessing the impact of large fires in the Flow Country in 2019. He is involved in a project in conjunction with Forestry and Land Scotland and Peatland Action to assess how bog-breathing characteristics as measured by satellite radar can be used to determine peatland condition and assess the effectiveness of peatland restoration at a national scale.
MHAIRI KILLIN & ALASTAIR MCINTOSH
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Mhairi Killin is a multi-disciplinary artist who works with drawing, print, sculpture, and installation in an exploration of the landscapes that surround her home on the island of Iona. Past work has explored the iconoclasm of the Reformation and its impact on the auditory landscapes of the islands of Lewis and Iona. Her current focus is on the presence of the MoD in the Hebrides and throughout 2021/2022 she has been working on a project commissioned by COMAR in partnership with the Hebridean Whale & Dolphin Trust and in collaboration with composer Fergus Hall researching the impact of anthropogenic sound, during the NATO exercise Joint Warrior, on the behaviour of cetaceans in the Sea of the Hebrides.
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Alastair McIntosh is a Scottish writer, academic and activist. He was brought up in Leurbost on the Isle of Lewis. He is involved with Scottish land reform especially on Eigg and campaigned successfully against the Harris superquarry in Lingerbay. He is a fellow of the Centre for Human Ecology, an Honorary Fellow of the Schumacher Society, and helped to set up the Govan-based GalGael Trust of which he is Treasurer and a non-executive director. In 2006 he was appointed to the honorary position of Visiting Professor of Human Ecology at the University of Strathclyde (Department of Geography & Sociology) – the first such post in Human ecology in a Scottish university. Alastair’s most recent book, Riders on the Storm: The Climate Crisis and the Survival of Being was published by Birlinn Books in 2020.