Enhancing the Landscape

MARK FISHER sets the scene for nva’s latest outdoor experience at the The Storr.

FORGET ABOUT the Edinburgh Fringe. You might be impressed by the sound of shows performed in department stores, charity shops, people’s houses and the secret basements of grand buildings, but when it comes to remarkable locations, you won’t find better than The Storr on the Isle of Skye. That’s because this “environmental artwork” has nature on its side.

And what nature. The Trotternish ridge is one of the most spectacular stretches of countryside in Britain, a near pristine area of high cliffs, pinnacles and buttresses rising to the iconographic Old Man of Storr, a 48m spike of Jurassic rock that dominates the landscape on a clear day.

With this kind of landscape at his disposal, the nva organisation’s artistic director Angus Farquhar couldn’t fail to create a memorable experience, though the £1million he has raised for the project will ensure that The Storr is more than just a walk in the country. Setting off around midnight every night in August and into September, 200 people will scale the mountain, following a two-mile route including a rapid 1,500ft ascent.

This in itself is a central part of the experience: the sheer novelty of taking a demanding mountain walk after dark, enhanced by whatever atmosphere the island’s unpredictable weather chooses to supply. The night I went up there, during an early lighting test, it was so misty you couldn’t even see the Old Man of Storr, but the uncertainty is part of the fun and poor conditions have just as much character as good.

It doesn’t end there, however. Following on from The Path, the company’s similar, if more gentle, event in Glen Lyon in 2000, The Storr is an attempt to “enhance the landscape”, using subtle interventions to encourage you to look at the wilderness with fresh eyes. Each walker wears a head torch and follows a route marked out in reflective panels like cat’s eyes.
As you climb, you will see lighting effects in the trees and hear the recorded Gaelic poetry of Sorley MacLean. There’ll be a Gaelic singer and a galaxy of LED stars that will stretch across 30 sq miles, creating the UK’s largest ever light sculpture.

The practical and technological demands have been enormous, inspiring the company to think laterally

Farquhar’s intention is to engage in one of the most protected landscapes in Europe – and an official site of special scientific interest – in a way that leaves no long-term damage. This isn’t just a fancy show for outsiders, but an expression of the life of the local community, 51% of which is Gaelic speaking.

For this reason, you won’t directly see how the whole £1million budget has been spent: the project is about more than the just the midnight walk. It’s also about creating 50 jobs, training the local workforce, restoring a collapsing footpath at a cost of £70,000, leaving lighting kit for future use on the island and completing a best-practice document outlining ways to get the maximum number of people to inflict the minimum amount of damage in our most fragile places.

The four-year project required a 300-page planning application, the regular visits of an ecologist and an environmentalist and a painstaking analysis of the effects of bringing an extra 8,000 walkers onto the site. They’re proud to have reduced power consumption by up to 90% compared with the event in Glen Lyon and have been meticulous in their attempts to minimise the physical impact of their activities.

“There are severe restrictions on what we’re allowed to do because it’s a very fragile environment,” says David Bryant, the event’s 44-year-old lighting designer. “There are rare mosses, lichens and we have to respect that. The aim of what we’re doing is about letting an audience see an environment in its natural beauty.”

The practical and technological demands have been enormous, inspiring the company to think laterally. “There is no access,” says Bryant. “If you want something up that hill, it either has to be carried or it has to be dropped in by helicopter. But if you carry things in, you increase the amount of footfall and footfall damages the environment. If you want anything delivered into a difficult environment in this area, helicopter is the way that you do it.

“Technically, we’ve had to go right back to scratch: if you put a cable down you leave a line of damage and that very quickly ruptures like a scab or a wound. We can’t have generators because of the risk of fuel spill. So our compromise is to run a small cable, which we can move, and that recharges a series of batteries every day.”

From these major questions right down to the kind of lights they use, the company has approached The Storr with a thoroughness and true integrity. It will ensure an experience for the audience that is as rare as it is ecologically sound.

The Storr, Trotternish, Isle of Skye, until September 17,  01478 613 750

© Mark Fisher, 2005