N 57°7′ Elsewhere Exhibition

15 Aug 2004 in Outer Hebrides, Visual Arts & Crafts

Taigh Chearsabhagh, Lochmaddy, 13 August-9 September 2004

Installation by Gunilla Hansson

I’VE SAILED TWICE from the Baltic to the Outer Hebrides. Each time the conditions dictated getting the north bit in first. Then you realized you were on the same latitude. You just had to get west and take a skip to clear the Pentland Firth and Cape Wrath. You also realise that there is a natural sea-route from Kiel or Sweden or Norway to the Hebrides. Taigh Chearsabhagh, the dynamic North Uist arts centre, have built a programme of residencies and exchanges along latitude 57 degrees north.

Gunilla Hansson represents the Konstepidemin organization in Gothenburg and Olwen Shone plays for Uist.

Both are part of artist-led movements. Both have sought out and developed buildings, converted for both studio/workshop space and exhibition space. Konstepidemin is an old isolation hospital – think of the old County Hospital outside Stornoway or its equivalent all over Europe – set slightly apart from the centre of town and a village-like series of buildings rather than a single institutional building.

Taigh Chearsabhagh has also developed as a series of linked spaces rather than as a Gallery with a central exhibition venue. So the Swedish/Hebridean association here is a natural and productive link. But in this show, which will go on to the Swedish end of the chain in October, the two artists also gain from each other’s angle.

Gunilla Hansson and Olwen Shone are both students of water. Each can return again and again to stare at a Sound (which either links or separates landmasses according to your point of view) or a wave-break. That colour seen first as “blue” has a complex mix which is quietly changing all the time. And what seems at first to be a still sight has within it elements which are responding to natural but also complex currents in air or water.

“It all amounts to an art-village set near the maritime edge. And prompted by it.”

The exhibition spaces in Taigh Chearsabhagh are not the easiest to use but these artists have turned the vestiges of the old structure within the new to advantage. Hansson’s installation looks at first like yet another set of plastic tubes and gurgles, extending from floor space to one stonework wall of the building, till you take the time to see its focus. There are images of several Island Sounds on the wall. One is a photograph and the installation is constantly altering the mix of blues, as a reflection of the infinite number of blues within the captured image of one particular Sound.

Then there is a list of the Sounds. There has been at least one attempted crossing by a refugee or asylum seeker in an inadequate vessel on each of them. The information is very simply displayed. The clarity of expression is the result of analysis.

Olwen Shone’s work seems to have moved from an emphasis on showing large still images to small videos which at first seem still. She has designed a gallery within a gallery so your view is directed in turn to 3 spaced scenes. Leaves or weed move in air or water. First you have to slow down – it’s the antithesis of Olympic Games – type superb shots of gymnastics or sailing. You have to overcome a reluctance to give the small simple images the space and time they need. Then you’re drawn in and it’s a meditative experience.

It’s no accident that the upstairs Gallery is given over to another of Robert Callender’s obsessive installations. Much of his recent work has focused on the leavings above the tideline of one bay in Sutherland. One you look towards as you pick up Stoer Point light, en route from Sweden to Uist.

This time the focus on objects, reconstructed in paper and glue, is all on plastic. The narrowing-down makes Callender’s mission even stronger and stranger. Colour prints (maybe one or two too many for the space) along the walls catch the particular arrangement on the bank of boulders which again is the result of the complex mix of wind and tide. And the floor is occupied by another arrangement of the objects, though this time they are mirrored by craft.

So all three artists restrict their width of view. One uses great skill in making, one uses well-aimed digital photography and one uses analytical thought. It all amounts to an art-village set near the maritime edge. And prompted by it.