PAT LAW explains her role and assesses the wider significance of Ian Stephen’s Is A Thing Lost … project.

IN THE summer of 2010 I received an email from Ian Stephen inviting me to participate in the exhibition Is a thing lost…if you know where it is?, to be shown at An Lanntair in Storonoway in March 2011.

The multi-media project had journeys at the heart of it, he said – mostly sea journeys – which range from Brittany to Iceland with detours to the Shiants, St. Kilda, Denmark and Finland, forming a metaphorical chart. My own practice lies in that area so it sounded good to me.

Is A Thing Lost (photo Mhairi Law)

The title itself stems from a Lewis story.The cook having thrown the cutlery overboard with the washing up water has to confess to the skipper what he’s done,  and pose the question ‘Is a thing lost…if you know where it is?’ You know for sure where the thing is but you can’t get at it…

In essence, the project became an exploration of storytelling in many forms, manifested in prints, film, music, photography and painting, with sixteen artists in all showing their work. The opening on the 25^th March was well attended, with a  good spattering of  folk from further south as well as locally.

a vessel restricted in her ability to manoeuvre can’t keep out of the way

a storyteller can only make an echo of what’s already there

an artist looks inside out for something not there yet (IS and EW 2010)

Is A Thing Lost (photo Mhairi Law)

The concept of connection is strong throughout,  from the underlying theme of the project with its numerous sea routes and journeys, to the individual works within it. Stories are retold from different angles and standing points, overlapping to produce a common ground.

Ian Stephen and Emmanuelle Waeckerlé produced (amongst other works) a series of three photo-polymer prints with Highland Print Studio: Stac Biorach (St Kilda), Allein Duinn (The Shiants), and Limfjord (the story of KIng Lindorm) – island maps and images recomposed with the text of the story as the visual medium. Although literal in approach, the images create metaphorical space for the viewer to interpret their own versions of the stories and  close the distance between the islands which are geographically many miles apart.

Screen printed interventions on garments, also by IS and EW, use textiles as a vehicle for communication. Hung from a line in two opposite  corners of the main gallery Cutty Sarks and Long Johns are printed with the nautical symbol for ‘a restricted vessel…’, presenting a bold visual barrier with a sense of enclosing and restricting the space they inhabit whilst creating a dialogue not only between themselves but the other works.

Morven Gregor and Gerry Loose, both whom were involved in one of the initial voyages, Crossing Alba – rowing a boat through the Forth and Clyde Canal – tell of their visually peaceful inland journey through photography and text, a sharp contrast to some of the  turbulent sea images in the rougher waters of Ian’s film Croiseag, showing potent images of the crossing from Port Nis to Suile Sgeir and Stromness on the Lewis sgoth, Jubilee.

A film by Sean Martin and Louise Milne, A Boat Retold, is a documentary about a return voyage to the Shiants of the rebuilt vessel Broad Bay. The dominant voice of the film seemed to belong to the vessel itself and the relationship to its home waters in the Hebrides.

Andy Mackinnon’s atmospheric film Sruth nam Fear Gorm also has the Shiants at the heart of it, this time depicting the gruesome story of the Blue Men who are said to haunt the turbulent waters around the islands, a story that would put fear into the heart of any sailor. Maggie Nicols and Peter Urpeth created dynamic soundtracks to both films.

Is A Thing Lost (photo Mhairi Law)

If boats can tell stories then sections of boats can certainly suggest them. Ian Stephen’s large weathered and dressed larch plank Stràc from the Lewis sgoth Jubilee sits with a  quiet but powerful presence on a main wall in the gallery inscribed with  gaelic text (“seall nas fhaide nam bàgh as leithne” – look wider than the broadest bay, and is kept company by Falmadair, Sean Ziehm-Stephen and Innes Smith’s carefully crafted tiller, also for Jubilee. Both ooze a multitude of untold stories through their sense of use and history.

Another stràc is suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the gallery, this time one of nine planks used to reproduce the shape of the boat Emily. Colin Myers, a former shipwright and crew member on the voyage to Sula Sgeir on Jubilee in 2010, was asked to produce a drawing imagining the cut plank shapes which make up the complex shape of an Orkney boat.  The eloquent drawing sits side by side with a  photo of Emily by Ian, forming a strong relationship between the three related works.

The formats of diptych and tripytch were a common format in many of the works, expressing more than one side of a story. Colin Myers also produced a trio of digital images relating to the sgoth Jubilee.

From a closer perspective, my own contribution and approach centres around the imaginary journey of a found piece of timber on a trip to Iceland. The timber had apparently travelled the length of a remote glacier where there are no trees, human habitation or man-made constructions of any kind.

Is A Thing Lost (photo Mhairi Law)

It then journeyed to Scotland (in my bag via Icelandair) where it was paired with a similar piece of timber found on a similarly remote section of Scotland’s west coast. The subsequent morphing of the two timbers into one gave them a new identity while connecting both stories and land masses.

To complete the installation I created two diptych paintings from the areas where the timbers were found: the Vatnajokull area in Iceland, and the Shiant Isles on the west coast of Scotland. It was important that the presence of Iceland and Scotland was incorporated into these works in a physical sense, so lava dust from Mt. Hekla and spring water from the Shiants was used in conjunction with graphite and paint to produce the images.

I also contributed a short audio visual piece with an ambiguous image (in terms of place) overlaid with an old Icelandic song. If you listen with half an ear, it could be an old Scots voice singing, such is the feel and sound of it.

The film was alternately looped with another film of images of St. Kilda, Boraraigh, by IS. A reminder of how, in spite of any superficial differences between the Nordic cultures, they are are essentially similar in many respects, with songs and stories often overlapping in subject and imagery.

The spaces at An Lanntair – which include most of the arts centre on three levels –  have been well thought out and utilised, inluding a looped projection on the main stair wall and the lower foyer. On the highest level, colourful banners printed by Highland Print Studio and created by local school children with John McNaught in an education outreach programme, protrude into the bar space and welcome visitors to an area not usually open to the public.

Visually the show as a whole is rich and varied, the tactile elements successfully producing texture and balance with the other works, resulting in a natural flow and rhythm.

Outside the arts centre, the exhibition extends to the Sail Loft on the harbour, home of IS and his artworks – also to the drawings of David Connearn and the Baltic paintings of Mikko Paakkola. Visitors are invited (now by appointment: 01851 705 320) to walk down from the gallery to view the works and to participate in the theme of journey… .

The project was concluded with a dynamic event at An Lanntair with performances by Ian Stephen, Maggie Nicols, Maggie Smith and Peter Urpeth, who brought the various elements of the show together with storytelling and music, including the participants of Maggie Nicols sound improvisation workshop held earlier in the day.

Maggie Smith and Ian Stephen (photo Mhairi Law)

This type of event was well suited to the venue and introduced the audience to a form of music not staged at An Lanntair before – a positive move for an outward looking arts centre.

Looking to the future, the various elements which make up  the exhibition produce a large degree of flexibility when it comes to showing the project elsewhere; allowing  it to be rebuilt without compromise in many types of venue regardless of size. It could focus on single aspects alone, eg, film, or a show of prints, or relate to one particular area (eg, the Shiants) or could be purely performance based.

It could also include guest artists at any stage, enriching the cultural aspect. Ian is keen for the exhibition to travel and venues within the UK and overseas  are being currently being explored. Ian can be contacted at:  ian@ianstephen.co.uk

© Pat Law, 2011

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