The Imagining Natural Scotland conference took place at the University of St Andrews on 27 August 2013 with 118 delegates in attendance – approximately 50% were artists, 30% were academics and 20% were professionals. The keynote speech was given by renowned science writer and leader […]
The Third Landscape ~ urban rivers
Jo flagged up Gilles Clement, the French gardener / botanist / ecologist and his idea of a “third landscape”. In landscape management, this is a compromise between the engineered and the entirely wild. Thinking about planting or replanting gardens and urban areas, Clement says that human, animal and weather flows have produced a state where […]
Gallowgellygillburn, Dundee
Saturday 3rd Aug : Exploring the Gelly Burn, one of the tributaries of the Dighty, with Roshni Jose, PhD researcher at Abertay. The Gelly Burn runs through what is now Ardler Village. Where once there were Dundee’s iconic multis (surely on our coat of arms at one point?), now there are football pitches and green spaces, […]
Making Space for Water ~ postcards
This project has been exploring our experience of urban rivers, and our responses to water in our built landscape – environmental, civic, personal, practical …. The most important creative element has been in the exchange of ideas, the exploration of other ways of thinking and the chance encounters and that have taken place on our walks. But […]
Making Space for Water
This project explores the route, uses and character of urban waterways. The Dighty Burn in Dundee and the Denburn in Aberdeen are both part of the history and mythology of their home towns; yet they constantly alter, reinventing themselves along their course. Urban rivers are intimate, immediate places of contact with the non-human world for […]
Mirror Lands Artists Talk
Several weeks in to our project, we are holding a public talk at the Lighthouse Field Station in Cromarty to discuss the background to Mirror Lands and how the work – exploring the sounds and narratives engrained within the area that the Field Station is based – is progressing so far. Through video and sound recording and conversations with a wide […]
Natural Scotland on Screen at INS Conference
In this Year of Natural Scotland, we want to debate and celebrate Scotland’s place on big and small screens. A partnership project between Creative Scotland and Scottish Natural Heritage, ‘Natural Scotland on Screen’ brings together a collection of films, documentaries and television programmes that showcase how filmmakers and broadcasters have represented, misrepresented, imagined and re-imagined […]
Barnacle – Fish or Fowl?
Beginnings. I am exploring in partnership with my husband, Carl Mitchell, the image of the Barnacle Goose in Scotland. This species has a myth connected with its origin, based on early lack of knowledge of migration. There are several fascinating medieval drawings of Barnacle Geese growing on trees, as the myth says, available to view […]
Dreaming Scotland
First thoughts…… I am on the train to Edinburgh Waverley from Queen Street, Glasgow, enjoying the views. To me, the Campsie hills look like a geological tidal wave. I try and spot the green towpaths of the Forth and Clyde canal as they duck and weave from one side of the railway to the other. […]
Mirror Lands is Go!
Here we are, all set up in our little Mirror Lands office – part of a decommissioned Lighthouse no less – at The University of Aberdeen’s School of Biological Sciences Lighthouse Field Station in Cromarty. It’s great to be beginning the project – there’s a flurry of ideas and possibilities bouncing around at the moment and […]
Successful Applications announced
Now that all the applicants have been notified, we are delighted to be able to announce the successful applications to the Imagining Natural Scotland project fund. The quality of entries to the INS project fund was extremely high, and with over 100 entries to assess, deciding which projects to […]
