LAND, WATER AND LANGUAGE

4th September - 30th October 2010
Taigh Chearsabghagh Museum and Arts Centre, North Uist, Western Isles, Scotland HS6 5AA

I first visited these islands in the early 80s when I walked from The North of Lewis to Barra in the South. One of the abiding images I have from this walk was the sight of Eaval rearing up above the flat, flow country of North Uist, dominating the maze of Lochs and waterways. In 1997 I was invited to make a work around Lochmaddy and made the now much visited 'Hut of the Shadows'.

It was not until Andy Mackinnon mentioned the idea of a canoe journey through this land, that I was able to re visit this land and to finally climb Eaval and see it all spread out before me.

This exhibition is the first in a series about land and water which will be curated and devised by Chris Drury and Andy
Mackinnon at Taigh Chearsabhagh over the next 2 years. It is hoped that the ongoing project will involve, artists, writers,
film makers and musicians.
The project began in September 2009 when Drury and Andy Mackinnon (TC’s curator and filmmaker) made a two day
journey by Canadian canoe across the island, from the west coast back to Lochmaddy on the east coast, threading their
way through the maze of lochs and waterways. The result is this extensive show which includes the installation of a suspended
woven canoe, made from heather, willow and salmon skins, works on the wall using digital technology and place
names, with maps and satellite imagery; works with peat and water; a photogravure of the land traversed by canoe; and a
video of a breaking wave.

‘The Uists and Benbecula are part of a flow country whose interweaving of sea, lochs and land takes on a wave pattern, as
when the tide retreats from a beach. The chain of islands and sea are dominated by Eaval (Island Mountain) in the North
and Hekla in the South, both Norse names transfixing a fluid landscape with history and language. For the experience of
this land is multi layered: from the actuality of the place; the wind, the rain, the light, the sound of the curlew, the roar
of the surf, the brown squelch of the peat bogs and the scent of the burning peat from the cottage chimneys, intermingles
with the history interred in the place names on the map, given both in Gaelic and Norse: Encounter Loch, Secure Sheep
Island, Hillock of Many Priests, Loch of the Old Woman and something of the pain from the clearances: Isle of Lament,
Coffin Loch. So language and meaning and history are embedded in this now sparsely populated place. And using satellite
imagery we can look at this pattern of land and water observe the ever changing patterns of weather fronts which
mirror the land beneath. At the same time we can look at the microcosm in the small bacteria embedded in the peat bogs
and know through the science that these microorganisms are affecting the climate and the weather in which the whole is
embedded.’