Re – Soundings is an arts project based across the islands of Lewis & Iona, combining sound, sculpture and film in an exhibition, book & CD.
Thank you for your interest in the Re – Soundings project. Artists Mhairi Killin and Hugh Watt are raising £2000 to help with the cost of publishing a book and CD to accompany an exhibition at An Lanntair, Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis from May 12th – June 25th 2016, and also at two site specific locations; St.Moluag’s Chapel, Ness, Isle of Lewis and St. Oran’s Chapel, Isle of Iona.
www.re-soundings.com
Commissioned by An Lanntair, Stornoway (www.lanntair.com) and part funded by Creative Scotland, Re-Soundings is the outcome of a collaborative journey through the landscapes of Lewis and Iona. Musician John Purser of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Skye, and Lewis writer Alastair McIntosh accompanied artists Mhairi Killin and Hugh Watt in their exploration of the bell as a symbol of secular and non-secular time all set against the wider context of the reformation in Europe.
The book and accompanying CD, in conjunction with the exhibition at An Lanntair and the sound interventions at St. Moluag’s Chapel on Lewis and St. Oran’s Chapel on Iona, reflect months of shared thinking, and engagement with one another’s artistic and scholarly practices, and with the people most connected to the landscapes explored. With writing by Alastair McIntosh, Francis McKee and John Purser, the book aims to reveal the scope and context of the project’s subject matter.
Created by John Purser, the CD comprises amongst other arrangements, bell recordings gathered during public workshops and performances on Lewis and Iona. The bells were created by re casting WW1 munitions into replicas of two early Christian quadrangular hand-bells. The artists chose this material to symbolise a rethinking of the iconoclasm of the Reformation in Europe; it is documented that bells were removed from religious buildings and recast as munitions. The artists chose to use munitions from the Great War, as the project coincides with its centenary.
One meaning of “inspiration” is to breathe in, and the artists have inhaled deeply of the exceptional physical, spiritual and cultural terrain of Lewis and Iona. They hope that this book and CD will allow others to share in that breath.
Recently elected to the Royal Scottish Academy, Iona artist Mhairi Killin has spent twenty years exploring the islands which surround and are her home. A recipient of many awards, and a graduate of the Glasgow School of Art, she was the visual artist in residence at the Leighton Colony, Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada in 2013.www.mhairikillin.com
Hugh Watt is a Northern Irish artist based in Glasgow, known for his evocative work in film and video. He completed the MFA at Glasgow School of Art in 1999, where he has taught in the Media Studios since 2001. For the last 10 years he has been visiting lecturer at Lew’s Castle College in North Uist. In 2012 Hugh was the recipient of an RSA residency at Timespan in Helmsdale and in 2004 artist in residency at Cove Park.www.hughwatt.com
John Purser is well known as an award-winning composer, writer, broadcaster and musicologist. In 1992 his book Scotland’s Music won him the McVitie Scottish Writer of the Year Award. An expanded edition of Scotland’s Music was published by Mainstream in 2007 to accompany his second eponymous radio series for BBC Scotland. He is a Researcher and Lecturer at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic College on the Island of Skye, where he lives and crofts with his American wife, Barbara.www.johnpurser.net
Alastair McIntosh was raised in and educated in Leurbost and at the Nicolson Institute in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. He holds or has held visiting professorships and fellowships at the universities of Glasgow, Strathclyde, Ulster and the School of Divinity (New College) at Edinburgh. His books include Soil and Soul, Island Spirituality, and forthcoming from Birlinn in June 2016 – Poacher’s Pilgrimage: an Island Journey.www.alastairmcintosh.com
Thank you!