Caroline Dear works along the edge between producing artefacts and seeding ideas. Caroline’s practice is informed by archeology, Gaelic culture, botany and traditional skills. Conscious of our changing relationship with the natural world and these deep metaphysical connections, she seeks to bring into fresh focus aspects of this important relationship. This talk highlights our deep history of string making and explores it’s contemporary relevance.

Cinema Sgire is a collection of over 100 videotapes produced by communities in the Outer Hebrides in the late 1970s through the Cinema Sgìre project has been digitised, and made accessible to the community as part of a programme of film screenings. Kay Foubister and Seonaid McDonald worked together on the Cinema Sgire project. Seonaid McDonald is Archivist with the Heritage Service of Comhairle nan Eilean Siar which comprises the Museum, Archive and Archaeology services for the Outer Hebrides. She is based at the new museum and archive facility at Lews Castle in Stornoway and works closely with colleagues to care for, and provide access to, the archive collections. Kay is the Acquisitions Curator at the National Library of Scotland’s Moving Image Archive and a co-supervisor with Edinburgh Napier the University of Edinburgh for PhD research concerning film communities and networks within the Scottish film industry. She is also currently working with the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) to compile a handbook on amateur film.

Ryan Dziadowiec is a final-year postgraduate researcher at Coventry University writing a thesis on the Gaelic concept dùthchas, its history and connections with the land reform movement in Scotland. He also spends some time every summer working with children and youth at the Shieling Project. He has lived and worked up and down the Gàidhealtachd and currently lives in Inverness.

Susannah Bolton is an artist and educator interested in layered experience, acts of support, textiles and language. They work sculpturally, using time-intensive making to enact geological scale processes by hand, and has exhibited hand knitted socks more than once. She is currently thinking about time as vibration, loops, knots and the suspended experience of stimming. Susannah lives and works on North Uist.

Fadzai Mwakutuya,‘ Fudge’ is a professional visual artist, artivist and creative educator, working with imagery and messages that demonstrate inclusivity to re-imagine stories that inform our vibrant multicultural heritage. Her art practice advocates for and is passionate about, promoting arts and culture in rural spaces especially for older artists, with ‘hospitality’ a key feature. Fadzai is going to talk about her CS Open funded project, done in collaboration with Ewan Bush called 'Our Common Wealth’.

"This presentation borrows images taken on our recent trip to Zim, as part of a collaborative ongoing project exploring connections, and coloniality between Scotland and Zim, my two homes. This project encapsulates our research and findings but also ties in with the Masters Contemporary Art and archeology course i'm doing at UHI Orkney, where "Archaeological CULTURE allows me to view materiality in the immediate environment telling, not only of historical architecture, but artefacts, as tools for clues to inform environmental and biographical cultures"

Eilidh MacKenzie is a musician, visual artist and educator from Skye. With a keen interest in Gaelic culture and local history she works primarily in mixed media and printmaking, drawing inspiration from the physical and cultural landscape of the island. She is currently studying Contemporary Arts Practice through UHI, and her most recent work has focused on fish-traps, or ‘cairidhean’ found along the coastlines of the Highlands and Islands.

MÀIRI GILLIES is a Gaelic visual artist based in Uig, Lewis. Her creative practice explores place-based, research-embedded ways of seeing connecting to the land and Gaelic culture.

The talks will be captioned using an automated captioner. Please get in touch if we can help you attend in any way.