Highlands on display at Venice Biennale as exhibition explores links between culture and landscape
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
TWO HIGHLAND-based researchers were involved in a Scottish-born exhibition set to be on display at a major international arts event in Italy.
Loch Ness and the Highlands are set to be featured in A Fragile Correspondence, a project which will be on show during the prestigious Biennale Architettura 2023 in Venice.
The project is the collective effort of artists and architects from various backgrounds and aims to explore the effects of capitalism and commercial interests on cultural identity and environmental sustainability of the land.
“Language is a big part of the project,” said Carl C.Z. Jonsson, one of the curators for the project.
“When you lose biodiversity, you lose the language and culture tied to it.”
With fellow member of the /other (read slash-other) collective Alyesha Choudhury, they wished to re-connect architecture to people who were affected and influenced by it.
Ms Choudhury said: “Studying architecture can feel quite an insular and very disconnected process, far from the real world.
“There should be so many more conversations between architects and the people who live in a place, and with artists and researchers.
“For us as curators, it was really important to sort of identify themes, and then find a group of people who can actually respond to the themes and are able to give those you know authentic responses.”
Dr Mairi McFayden and Raghnaid Sandilands, respectively based in Abriachan and Strathnairn, took part to the project focussing on specific issues affecting land and population around Loch Ness.
“The Biennale is hugely intimidating platform,” said Dr McFayden, an ethnologist and anthropologist whose work for the display showcases stories of what has been restored – both in terms of community and biodiversity – after 25 years of community ownership of the forest.
She said: “I really wanted to foreground the stories of the local people of this in places.
“Even though it’s a small kind of microcosm of self-determination and change, stewardship and care and connection, it’s absolutely vitally important and has every right to be on such a huge and prestigious platform.”
Taking the audience through a journey across different landscapes in Scotland (Orkney and Ravenscraig included), the exhibit takes inspiration from this year’s theme for Biennale Architettura, The Laboratory of the Future.
Curated by Scottish-Ghanian architect Lesley Lokko, it blends the work of writers, artists and architects exploring issues specific to these landscapes but with global relevance to the cultural, ecological and climatic issues that we face.
Creative ethnologist and Gaelic translator Raghnaid Sandilands worked more in detail on the connection between language and places.
She told about one of her contributions: “I’ve made a map with woven linen and silk threads. To source the colours for the fabrics, I went with a friend who is an expert dyer based near Gairloch, Rowena Dugdale, to an area in the hills where there is an ancient growth of birch forest and whose original name on the maps in Gaelic means ‘the branched grove’.
“We took the lichen and birch bark and heather from the forest floor – being careful not to take too much – and used the colours of the forest to make a map which was stitched together.
“I wanted to use the colours of the forest to speak quietly on behalf of places that are very vulnerable – where deer numbers are high and overgrazing is a big problem – and are really struggling.”
She said the Gaelic names on old maps tell of a very different landscape in areas across the Highlands.
“The soundscape of that place is very different today. There are so many names that speak to a richly forested place, and they are all in the place names.
“There are names for the tiniest intimate places, and they reveal what kind of connection and awareness and intimate knowledge we had of these places and also how much higher the biodiversity was once in the past.”
The creative responses to the questions posed by A Fragile Correspondence are displayed throughout the exhibition and include artworks, photography, sculpture, installation work, film, audio and sound.
Materials used within the exhibition’s presentation reflect aspects of the various landscapes, from Loch Ness, to Orkney, as well as Ravenscraig.
Commissioned by the Scotland + Venice partnership and curated by the Architecture Fringe, -ism magazine, and /other, A Fragile Correspondence will be on show from May 20 to November 26 at Cantieri Cucchini in Venice.
You can find more information about the exhibition and the Scotland + Venice partnership visit scotlandandvenice.com.
