Join us at An Crùbh in Sleat, South Skye, for a day-long artist and cultural event bringing together artists, makers and organisations from across the Hebrides and wider Highlands and Islands to meet, chat, and share our creative practices. We’ll have round table discussions, sharing artworks and resources, book-making, artist talks, and plenty of refreshments to keep us going.
You can sign-up for sessions like making a photographic print with the Skye Dark Room, get a Community Cinema Kit induction or make your own sketchbook with the Making Publics Press. Throughout the day we’ll have a makers and kids craft table, and a quieter space in the Making Publics Press library corner. We have a fantastic schedule of artist conversations with Simon Larson, Katharine Macfarlane, and Iseabal Hendry.
In the afternoon we’ll have an open round table where we invite you to bring your creative resources or equipment as an opportunity to share your practice, let’s hear what everyone’s up to and how they do it!
More details on the full programme can be found below.
Work by Katharine Macfarlane
This event follows on from Artist Talks & Gathering in November 2023, where we enjoyed an evening of artist talks from artists and cultural groups working across the Highlands and Islands.
PROGRAMME
12.00 Welcome cuppa 12.30–13.30 Sign-up sessions
Register here and choose from one of the options below:
14.00 Round table sharing with photographer Simon Larson
Simon Larson will be delivering an informal round-table session presenting examples of work produced during, and discussing the benefits of, some of the numerous Therapeutic Photography projects he designed and led at Kyleakin Connections.
Using both digital and analogue photographic formats, Simon devised a broad range of photo-based activities in collaboration with the centre’s staff and attendees from 2016 until when the pandemic hit in 2020. He was successful in applying for funding from the Richard and Siobhan Coward Foundation for one of the large-format film-based projects and a resulting booklet will be on show.
14.30 Workshop with Katharine Macfarlane, Poems for Placing Sound
In this workshop with artist and poet Katharine MacFarlane we will explore how we hear and communicate the soundscapes of landscapes on the page. Sharing soundscapes we will experiment with active listening techniques and translating audio to text and back once again to sound through the use of sound mapping and spoken sound poetry. With opportunity for discussion around how our knowledge of, and experiences in, landscapes may shape soundscapes and the emotive connection between sound and experience this relaxed session is a chance to experiment with pure sound-based writing beyond the boundaries of language.
15.15Round table sharing + tea/coffee break
Open to all individuals and groups. Share your practice, let's hear what everyone’s up to and how they do it!
Refreshments provided.
16.00–16.45 Iseabal Hendry Tobar an DualchaisArtist in Residence in conversation
Iseabal will be sharing more about her journey through the Tobar an Dualchais collections, as part of her 2023 residency. We'll hear more about the recordings of plant-lore, Gaelic names, botanical cures, local plants, resourceful uses of grasses and heather that have been informing her practice. We'll share a little bit about the Tobar an Dualchais residencies across the years, and talk about Iseabal's experience of being the most recent artist in residence.
17.00–18.00 Community Cinema Kit films
Throughout the day
Makers & Kids craft table
Making Publics Press Library corner
Optional after event
Come along to Am Praban Bar Hotel Eilean Iarmain, Sleat, Isleornsay, IV43 8QR for an evening dram.
18.30 Pub quiz
19.30 Trad session, Ewan MacIntyre and friends
Katharine Macfarlane
Katharine Macfarlane is a Skye-based writer whose lyrical poetry is rooted in the history and landscape of the west of Scotland. She was the 2020 Scottish National Poetry Slam Champion and placed 3rd in the World Cup of Poetry. Her work has been published in several anthologies and her debut pamphlet was published by Speculative Books in July 2021.
Simon Larson
Simon’s practice encompasses a broad range of photographic genres from still-life and portraiture through to landscape and social documentary. Having previously been awarded two rounds of funding from the Richard and Siobhán Coward Foundation, Simon is currently focusing on two long-term film-based portrait social documentary projects.
Naturally, Simon is also inspired by the rugged and untamed landscape, the elements and the wildlife of Skye and the Highlands. He enjoys utilising both large-format sheet film as well as digital formats to capture its majesty in the ever-changing light.
Simon gained a first Degree in photography in 1978, commencing his career in a London-based advertising and fashion studio prior to moving to the Midlands in the mid-1980s. There he developed a range of exhibition materials utilising photography, audio-visual techniques and graphic design for a Country Park Visitor Centre on Cannock Chase. Following this, he worked in Medical Illustration for the NHS and then moved into Further Education. Having successfully undertaken a Masters in Photography at Nottingham Trent University in 2000, he subsequently gained a PGCE at the University of Wolverhampton and taught photography up to HNC Level at City of Wolverhampton College.
He moved to Skye in 2009 and has since worked as a freelance photographer shooting food, portraits, press and PR work and interiors. He also worked as a Lecturer at UHI West Highland establishing the Higher and HNC Photography at Broadford and Portree. He designed and delivered therapeutic photography sessions at Kyleakin Connections from 2016 to 2020. He is currently an active member of The Bridge Art Collective has exhibited in London, Glasgow, the Midlands and Skye and Lochalsh with his work being purchased from America, Australia, Asia and Europe.
On the day Simon will share more about the photography activities he's undertaken with people to explore identity, express artistic moods, celebrate achievement, apply artistic self-expression and actively engage in a broad range of photographic styles, genres and techniques in both traditional darkroom and digital photography. Simon will also have work on show from two longer-term social documentary film photography projects he is currently focused on, one supported by a second successful Richard and Siobhan Coward Foundation grant, and the other, his current ‘Faces of Sleat’ portrait project, where he has currently made over 150 portraits since May 2023.
Iseabal Hendry
Born and raised in the Highlands of Scotland, Iseabal Hendry is inspired by the traditional craft skills that she grew up with, from basket-weaving to boatbuilding to roof-thatching. Her creative practice is materially-led, inspired by zero-waste and her family heritage in leatherwork.
After studying Traditional Clinker Boatbuilding in Plockton and Embroidery at the Glasgow School of Art, Iseabal launched her first collection of handwoven accessories in 2020. Her works are sold at Hauser & Wirth owned luxury hotel, The Fife Arms, and in Scotland's home for contemporary craft, BARD.
Iseabal has been selected for several national craft programmes and was named as one of the Crafts Council’s ‘top 10 makers to watch in 2022.’ In 2023 her series of large-scale sculptural wooden and leather objects showed at Somerset House in London for Collect Art Fair, and later at the Bluecoat Display Centre in Liverpool. Most recently Iseabal has been awarded the Atlas Arts ‘Tobar An Dualchais’ residency.
Iseabal’s work aims to weave together environmental values, a modern aesthetic based on time-honoured techniques and materials, with the landscape that continually inspires her to make.
ACCESS and STIPENDS
Scottish Art Contemporary Network (SCAN) is supporting a number of stipends available to help support attendance e.g. for travel, subsistence, or child care for registered SCAN members. Please register interest via the registration form or contact info@atlasarts.org.uk for more information.
ATLAS Arts attendance bursaries are fully allocated at this time.
An Crùbh (Sleat, Isle of Skye IV43 8QU) has fully accessible toilets and there are parking spaces available close to the main door. A hearing loop is available on request. Kids are welcome and there will be some fun activities available however we do not have any specific childcare arrangements made for their care and there will be the responsibility of the adult they come with.
Other events and collaborations
March 2023 — April 2025
One off events, open days and collaborations such as film screenings, talks, workshops, community meals, and book making days that run alongside our programme.
