Atelier, Skye was a three-day charrette (an intensive participatory group that engages a common enquiry) wherein a group of artists, curators, academic researchers and members of the local community worked with six common research ‘objects’ located in the north of the Isle of Skye (Trotternish, Waternish and Duirinish).
Working with the charrette curators, ATLAS Arts identified a series of sites and objects that facilitated and contrasted different methods of visual and material enquiry. The objects ranged from artefacts in local museums, to areas of outstanding natural beauty. By engaging with these ‘things’, the charrette enabled participants to map and improve conditions for cross-disciplinary collaboration, shifting the emphasis away from doing research towards the creation of research objects.
The charrette aimed to transform participants’ understanding of what material research is, what it can be and of who/what might participate in it.
As a legacy of Atelier Skye, it is hoped that an open access online archive of the project will be established to ensure Atelier’s methods are available to artists, researchers and educators working with comparable community-based and site-sensitive organisations.
Atelier, Skye is part of The Atelier Network, of which ATLAS is a partner. It is the central point for promoting and facilitating existing and new linkages that reflect a growing range of research and teaching activity across the University of Edinburgh, with overlap between the arts, social sciences and other disciplines within the humanities.
Atelier, Skye was coordinated by Neil Mulholland, Director of Postgraduate Studies and Professor of Contemporary Art Practice & Theory at Edinburgh College of Art, in partnership with ATLAS Arts, and with a group of artists, curators, academic researchers and participants from The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art, The Glasgow School of Art, Heriot Watt University and Northumbria University.