AN ATLAS OFFSITE PROJECT: IN THE SHADOW OF THE HAND NIALL MACDONALD SOPHIE MORRISH BOBBY NIVEN HANNA TUULIKKI Curated by Emma Nicolson & Gayle Meikle
Inside a former (future) dwelling for an elsewhere land, a communion of objects offer themselves. Dislocated from their original site these objects made by artists speculate on a contemporary epoch; one of material, the hand and a melding of time where past, present and future coalesce.
AS THE TITLE OF THE EXHIBITION, NEO NEO // EXTREME PAST, ALLUDES HERE THE NEW IS EXPLORED BESIDE THE VERY DISTANT PAST. THE ARTISTS PRESENTED ARE CONNECTED BY THEIR RESPONSES TO THE THEME OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES ACROSS THE HEBRIDEAN ISLANDS OF SKYE AND THE UISTS. EACH ARTIST HAS USED PERSONAL BIOGRAPHICAL TIME AS AN ENTRY POINT FOR THEIR INVESTIGATIONS THROWING UP UNIVERSAL THEMES FROM THE MEMENTO MORI OF IN THE SHADOW OF THE HAND’S SELF-PORTRAITS CAST IN GRAPHITE OR THE COLLECTION OF FAUNAL REMAINS GATHERED FROM SOPHIE MORRISH’S CONTINUED INVESTIGATION INTO THE HABITAT IN WHICH SHE LIVES, TO NIALL MACDONALD’S CASTS OF FUTURE ARTEFACTS OR BOBBY NIVEN’S IMAGINED RELICS OF FUTURE FORGOTTEN SOCIETY USING FLOTSAM AND JETSAM, TO HANNA TUULIKKI’S ARCHAEO-ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE TEMPORAL AND MYTHOLOGICAL IDENTITY OF A PARTICULAR LOCATION. Originally conceived and exhibited as part of our curatorial residency Broad Reach at Taigh Chearsabhagh in 2015, we partnered contemporary visual artists with archaeological locations and expertise. Sites that have dropped out of memory were re-imagined with the intention of reflecting on their historical significance and bringing stories of our past to new audiences. Removing objects from their original context is an established practice in archaeology. Here we re-present elements of the artists projects in a new context and location enabling the work to be considered in a new light. Alongside ATLAS Arts contemporary explorations of the cultural identity of the Hebrides we open up the universal conversation within the Anthropocene and the material turn.
LIST OF WORKS (ANTICLOCKWISE FROM THE DOOR) // Bobby Niven Bone and seaweed cast in bronze, lime wood hand
Niall Macdonald Untitled Fragments in Acid Green (12) Plaster, perspex
Driftwood assemblage, pink buoy, oak wood hand
Untitled Fragments in Acid Green (6) Plaster, perspex
In the Shadow of the Hand Remains Graphite
In the Shadow of the Hand Remains Graphite
Bobby Niven Seaweed and sheep dropping cast in bronze, lime wood hand Bogwood cast in bronze ash wood hand
Sophie Morrish Tabulis Synopticis* *An abstraction from the original artwork Biomass (NU20072014) Faunal remains
ABOUT THE ARTISTS // IN THE SHADOW OF THE HAND In the Shadow of the Hand is an ongoing collaborative project that brings into conversation the artistic practices of Sarah Forrest and Virginia Hutchison. Since the collaboration began in 2012, In the Shadow of the Hand has incorporated writing, printmaking, object making, performance and film in order to explore the relationship between an art object and the language that surrounds it. Sarah Forrest currently lives and works in Glasgow. She graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2010 with an MA in Fine Art and won the The Margaret Tait Residency Award in 2012. Her practice encapsulates video, text and sculpture. Virginia Hutchison lives and works in Glasgow. She graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2004 with an MA in Sculpture and currently sits on the board of directors at Glasgow Sculpture Studios. In 2013 she was awarded the International Randall Chair in Sculpture at Alfred University, New York and currently runs the foundry at Edinburgh College of Art. Her practice includes sculpture, performance, text and film.
NIALL MACDONALD Niall Macdonald lives and works in Glasgow. He received his MFA from the Glasgow School of Art in 2008. Macdonald highly detailed sculptures are created through a careful process of casting and moulding found objects in plaster, rubber and metal. His sources his materials from shorelines and hillsides across Scotland, city streets, market places, as well as from specialist shops, internet sites, from his home and studio. In each case the casting process allows him to directly ‘sample’ the world around him. Found objects are fused together into pristine compositions combining natural elements such as bone or rock, with fragments of technology, branded items and historical artefacts inviting us to reconsider their origin and in turn create a new narrative for them. Macdonald is represented by Koppe Astner, Glasgow.
SOPHIE MORRISH Underpinning Sophie Morrish’s creative practice is a deep fascination with the natural world, most especially, how we perceive our place within and as a part of it. For the last twenty years Morrish has lived in wild and rural locations across Scotland, walking and exploring, employing instinctive curiosity and close attentiveness to natural phenomena to inform the of development of her work. Recently returned from a residency deep in the Peruvian Amazon, she is about to embark upon a major new cycle of work that extrapolates those intimate observations and relationships into one of the most environmentally rich and vital habitats on earth. Morrish graduated from Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art before re-locating to Scotland in 1996.
BOBBY NIVEN Bobby Niven lives and works in Edinburgh. He received his MFA from the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, Canada in 2006. Niven works with prop, moving image, artefact and sculpture to explore and construct places. Sometimes working with an existing place, drawing on the context and history as a starting point for new projected narratives. At other times the place is constructed through an installation of assembled sculptures which become implicated into an unknown scenario. His sculptures bring together anthropomorphic objects with more solemn, abstract structures, finding humour in the tension between animate and inert forms. Niven is interested in giving self-awareness to material and the process of undoing objects. Layering motifs between prop, artefact and sculpture that are repeated and distorted in scale and form making it hard to distinguish between these different types of objects. Niven founded The Bothy Project and built the Pig Rock Bothy as part of that project.
HANNA TUULIKKI Hanna Tuulikiki lives and works in Edinburgh. She received her BA (Hons) Sculpture & Environmental Art from Glasgow School of Art in 2006. Tuulikki uses a range of visual and sound-based forms, working primarily with the voice to compose worlds out of sounds – immersive, ethereal spaces that attempt to unearth an essential relationship with the lore of places. Her site-specific performances incorporate sculptural objects and stagings. Drawings, text and visual-scores extend her work.
ABOUT THE SITES
(ANTI-CLOCKWISE FROM THE DOOR) // Rubha an Dùnain, Isle of Skye At the toe of a remote promontory, bounded by Loch Brittle and the Sound of Soay on Skye, lies a rich palimpsest of archaeological remains testifying to the former significance of Rubh’ an Dunain. Named the ‘Viking Canal’ the site boasts evidence of occupation from Mesolithic times to as late as the 1800s and is a unique example of time – depth archaeology where evidence of Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Early Christian and Viking can still be found.
Cladh Hallan, South Uist Cladh Hallan is located on the machair of South Uist, near Daliburgh. A settlement from c1000 BC it includes dwellings, middens and burial grounds, as well as artefacts such as jewellery, pottery and tools. It is unique as the only place in Great Britain where prehistoric mummies have been found.
The Udal, North Uist The Udal Peninsula in North Uist is one of the most important archaeological sites in the UK with evidence of some 9,000 years of continuous occupation. Subject to archaeological investigation over the last 50 years, the Udal Collection comprises 32,000 small finds representing approximately 600,000 individual pieces.
The Uists Sophie Morrish’s work has responded to the site of the Uists entitled Tabulis Synopticis plays on an established way of organising information in a given field of study, (archeology, geology, natural history etc.), in the form of a table of broad features and general relationships to provide an overveiw, (synopsis). Tabulis Synopticis presents a reduced array of faunal remains organised along the original principles of Biomass, providing a summary view of the original.
High Pasture Cave, Isle of Skye Hanna Tuulikki’ filmwork and site-specific performance ‘Women of the Hill’ was created in response to High Pasture Cave. Discovered in 1972 by students from the University of London Speleological Society, Uamh An Ard Achadh (Cave of the High Field or High Pasture Cave). The site shows evidence of human activity mostly between the c7000 BC and the c1 AD. Comparison with earlier geographs shows how much excavation has been carried out, and deep archaeological deposits have been found. These include the remains of an adult woman, and inexplicably, those of an infant and a human foetus mixed with the skeletal elements of a foetal pig.
EVENTS // Friday 1 July 6–8pm
Opening event Saturday 2 July 11am Artists’ In the Shadow of the Hand and Sophie Morrish discuss their work in the exhibition Saturday 9 July 11am Artists’ Niall Macdonald and Bobby Niven discuss their work in the exhibition Tuesday 12 July 11am, 1pm, 4pm Screening of ‘Women of the Hill’ by Hanna Tuulikki Tuesday 12 July 2pm Artist Hanna Tuulikki in-conversation with anthropologist Dr Angela McClanahan from University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art Thursday 14 July 11am–4pm Practising the Anthropocene with GeoStudio (Northumbria University research group) Sunday 17 July (time to be arranged) Closing event curated by Neo Neo Associates All events are free, however spaces are limited and booking is essential except for the opening and closing events. To book please visit our ATLAS Arts Eventbrite page.
Exhibition opening hours: Tuesday – Sunday 11am - 5pm (unless otherwise stated) Closed: Mondays, Thursday 7 July, Friday 8 July and Friday 15 July 2016
About ATLAS Arts Based in the Isle of Skye, ATLAS Arts was founded in 2010 with the aim of generating and presenting innovative and ambitious contemporary arts projects. An organisation “without walls”, we work with artists, curators, writers and the public to create work in response to a specific location or situation. We aim to inspire community interest in contemporary art by delivering a varied programme that is of local, national and international interest. We focus on fostering best practice within socially and contextually engaged art. By developing projects within our community and beyond, and working with internationally respected artists, we aim to create transformative experiences for our community and for the artists we work with. Our sincere thanks go to the artists, who have been very supportive of the project. This has included, in many cases, the production of new work or the reconfiguration of earlier works. We are grateful to Julie-Ann Delaney and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art for their support and assistance. © ATLAS Arts 2016