We’re really excited to revisit Lauren Gault’s Samhla exhibition this Am Faoilleach/January, paying homage to echoes, wolf and canine histories which grounded the project, and the animal which gives its name to this time of the year – am faol-chù.
Join Lauren and Ainslie Roddick in conversation, as they chat about the work, and the wider stakes of the project.
You are encouraged to watch the short moving image work made as part of Samhla (available here until 23 February) before you come along, but it’s not necessary.
ABOUT SAMHLA
Samhla was an exhibition of new sculpture and events across a range of indoor and outdoor spaces in 2024 – at Glendale, Romesdal and Staffin – bringing together objects, texts and materials held in the hand, encountered through walking, licked by animals, and expanded through publication and discussion.
Working with many different people whose work tells stories about land – archaeologists, palaeontologists, folklorists, classicists, geologists and soil researchers – the project explored how Skye’s landscape has been controlled, valued, changed or understood across expansive time periods.
Samhla grew from Lauren’s longstanding interest in the stakes of landscape decisions. With issues of how land is accessed and‘renewed’ of ongoing and huge relevance in Skye, Lauren’s work aimed to open up conversations through materials – using objects as prompts to think about echoes, patterns, and relationships between places, and to tune in to different kinds of voices.
Many of the works explored human-canine histories, with these relationships often being very telling about wider social conditions, and how people connect with the land around them. Exploring records of dogs and wolves in place names, mythology, archival records, and fossil finds – the exhibition includes reworked sheep worrying signs, ghostly images of dogs and owners, locations of wolf pits, and much more.
Lauren and Ainslie will talk about the project, the sites and wider references, and open up a conversation about how the work was made, and the questions it poses.