Space Art Lands in North Uist

So what went on when a group of international artists gathered at Taigh Chearsabhagh in Lewis in September to participate in Còmhla – North Uist International Artists Workshop? Many strange things, it seems, if this mysterious missive to the Arts Journal is anything to go by…

POLICE IN the Uists are continuing investigations into a series of incidents thought to be linked. Officers arrived at Newton House, North Uist to examine a satellite-dish thought to answer a description of one gone missing from a house in the local area. They did find an object resembling the missing property but it was fixed to a lawnmower chassis and carried a text which read “ART SPACE?”

Whilst in the area, police turned their attention to multiple reports of objects which had appeared on a nearby hill. They discovered that a series of fluorescent green dots, clearly visible from the garden of Newton House. These initially followed the lines of disused peat-banks but then  bent round to go close to disappearing over the horizon.

Further investigations revealed bright yellow posts with a rectangular viewfinder fixed to the top. These provided clues to turn the eyes of the police towards more discoveries. Most disturbing was a listening device stationed at a loch in the vicinity. The sound of deep animal breathing, emanating from the bottom mud, could be distinctly heard. This has prompted speculation that the last water-horse is still to be slain.

Coloured sponge bands on a fence encouraged investigations further up the hill to the summit which looks from the open west to the moorland of Uist. A light but sophisticated bridge structure traversed a pool in the plateau but failed to join anything to anything else.

On descending again, the officers investigated several outbuildings, again assisted by the yellow viewfinders which diverted their attention from the fine September light which was glancing on the hills, dykes croftland, machair, shore and bright seas, broken by waves described by a Japanese bystander as “white rabbits”.  A series of animal skins, not thought to be indigenous to the area, were found to be scraped in places and scarred with what appeared to be very large human thumbprints.

At the top of a stairway into a loft, the officers halted in their tracks at the site of  the floor mapped with areas of contrasting colour to an armchair where an elderly woman huddled, separate from all the activity below.

The entry into a barn was signed by a white plinth, bearing the handwritten phrase “this is not a work”. Inside, two films were showing. One revealed manufactured rain which brought wipers to move across a painted landscape. The other was a dance-piece where a close-up of fishing gear was tumbled through angles so sea or sky entered high netting.

Numerous bystanders were sighted carrying painted stools, in the Japanese style. These had been taken from an Information Centre, housed in a military tent. Local visitors had been encouraged to remove these, use them and be prepared to meet their designer, on revisiting the island. Maps, dispensed at the centre, directed a growing crowd of investigators into the house. In the kitchen an arrangement of previous conversations was playing over a continuing series of conversations.

In the dining room a film jumped clumsily around the horizon of a nearby beach while heavy boots beat out a wet but rarely-erring rhythmic march. Intricate Tibetan paintings occupied the porch. These projected cameos of ethnic symbols such as the Orcadian cowboy.  Indeed further reports were being received of a sighting of exactly that creature, wandering the neighbouring barns at night in the company of a pale ghost which moaned, in Portugese, “We fell off our horse.”

The echoes of a hundred birds, some indigenous, others less so, flipped through fabric charts of colour, in the hallway.  Near the photo of a fallen Cavalier, with several centuries growth of moss, a box of red and white duck-eggs confused a crisp snooker game.

At the rear of the house, a young artist-in residence was stationed up a tree. She claimed to be the daughter of the cook.  Corncrakes were struggling to be heard above the cries of a music machine, installed in a fallen dyke. Harrows and slate, wire and oxidised scraps produced a dangerous hypnotic state. The scene was littered with the carnage of those who succumbed but most were awakened by  tinkling glass. Some of the bottlenecks came from indigenous whisky bottles but there appeared to be an influx of foreign Brandy, possibly Trinidadian in origin.

Further sponge protectors hinted at a trail to a headland found beyond the wide natural bay down from the house. A roofless broch, providing shelter and a view to the Atlantic snuggled into a natural hollow. Informed local opinion dates the structure at approx 2000 BC but there was no evidence of any such monument in place before the 8 September 2003.

To date the only one of these mysteries to be conclusively solved is that of the missing satellite dish. The object was stolen on or about the 15th September by one Norman Chalmers, artist by occupation. He apparently claims that the object was taken in error, to allow him to make a possible work of art as part of an International Artists workshop, hosted by Triangle Trust in partnership with Taigh Chearsabhagh, the North Uist Arts Centre.  The other 18 artists deny any involvement.

The Artists:
Julie Brook (Isle of Skye)- installation in stone
Norman Chalmers (Edinburgh) – music and provocation
Nicola Gear (Glasgow) – soundworks
Brian Kelly (Glasgow) – bridge
Colin Kirkpatrick (Orkney) – Orcadian Western
Andy Mackinno (North Uist) – the big movie
Shauna McMullan (Glasgow) – green dots on hill
Olwen Shone (North Uist) – video/photography
Ian Stephen (Isle of Lewis) – performance/film
Stephen Skrynka (Glasgow) – cavalier installation/eggs/films
Analia Amaya (Cuba) – underwater sound installation/film
Melina Birkenwald – bird-book/viewfinders/performance
Kathryn Chan (Trinidad)  – sound sculpture
Langa Magwa (South Africa) – scarred skins
Ashmina Ranjit (Nepal) – installation
Raghavendra Rao (India) – film
Saki Satom (Japan) – Information Centre
Ga De (Tibet) – painting
Carla Zaccagnini (Brazil) – film:walking distance

The artists wish to thank:
Robert Louder and Triangle Trust, Taigh Charsabhagh, The Scottish Arts Council and Glasgow Sculpture Trust for making the workshop and sharing possible.