ARTS & CULTURE
FRINGE PRODUCT A
PHOTO: LEEDS ANIMATION WORKSHOP
cross the islands of the west coast, art and culture are on the move. From the Aros Community Theatre in Portree, through the Uist’s Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre – which partners with the University of the Highlands and Islands to offer courses in fine art to degree level – to the multiple venues of Mull’s Comar, arts organisations manage to both cultivate local creativity and attract tours from around the country. Alongside the buildings that maintain a constant stream of events and exhibitions, local spaces such as Arran’s Whiting Bay Hall or Minginish Community Hall on Skye can be pressed into service, ensuring that there is a year-round provision of performance, while museums frequently rotate exhibitions to include contemporary visual art alongside more traditional work. This means that not only do the islands receive their share of touring productions – or in the case of Comar, events made on the island by Mull Theatre – and visual art exhibitions, but that the organisations promoting the arts are engaged in sophisticated and inclusive community-orientated curation. On Skye, ATLAS Arts is developing an ongoing series of community meals that combine food activism, film, public discussions and a grand night out under the name of Plural Futures. With a commitment to encouraging makers to produce durational and temporary work that ‘creates connections between artists and audiences and responds to the unique qualities of the region’, ATLAS combines a contemporary aesthetic sensibility with a recognition of Skye’s distinctive identity. Across on Arran, Arran Visual Arts’ Summer Exhibition (23–29 May) allows members to show and sell their work, while May sees Ruth Bond’s oil paintings of the outer Hebrides arrive at Talla na Mara on the Isle of Harris. Like ATLAS’ programme, these events engage with the environment and culture of the islands: since the beauty of the landscape attracts artists, it is unsurprising that communities can generate their own exhibitions. Comar, based in Mull and incorporating multiple forms of art – the organisation evolved from the merger of Mull Theatre and the artist space An Tobar – hosts exhibitions and touring theatre. Three shows, all of which have garnered awards and praise on earlier tours of the UK and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, are arriving in Comar in the upcoming months. Like Animals comes from Glasgow’s Superfan, known for its blend of theatre and live art. With deeply personal touches taken from the real-life relationship between the two
PHOTO: RUTH BOND
6 The Guide to Scotland’s Islands
