Artists come to Culloden
Three newly appointed artists will be coming to Culloden this spring to look afresh at the battlefield, exploring its hidden histories with a view to creating new artwork in the Highlands.
The project is a partnership between IOTA, (Inverness Old Town Art) ,The Highland Council, and the National Trust for Scotland’s Culloden Battlefield. Funded by the Highland Arts Partnership through the Creative Scotland Rural Innovation Fund (RIF), this project is part of a wider context: - a series of new arts commissions that relate to different aspects of Highland life and culture.
The National Trust for Scotland’s team at Culloden is supporting the project in a range of ways including hosting the artists at the site and helping to develop educational activities that engage the local community. Strengthening local relationships will be a vital part of the initiative with each of the artists establishing different connections with communities including special interest groups, schools and residents in and around the site.
All three artists – Catherine Bertola, Kevin Reid and Graeme Roger - are committed to engaging with Culloden; a place that has been pivotal in Highland history. Selected because of their differing and innovative approaches, between them they bring expertise in film, performance, installation and sound.
Susan Christie, IOTA Commissions Manager said: “Artists of calibre and imagination will be working and making their own forays into a powerful and emotionally charged area of Scottish history. We’re looking forward to sharing the ideas generated with the wider community.”
Catherine Bertola is a highly respected artist working at a national level who creates works that responds to evocative and unusual places, and specific historic contexts. Often her approach involves uncovering invisible or hidden histories of places and drawing, on the historic role of women in society, craft production and labour. Significant national commissions include a residency at the Victorian & Albert Museum in London where she recreated a William Morris wallpaper and made an exquisite delicate artwork from unorthodox beginnings, Most recently she has been involved in leading a programme of education events and new soundwork at the Bronte Museum in Haworth. Her work is represented by the Workplace Gallery in Gateshead, Newcastle.
Graeme Roger and Kevin Reid work independently and collaborate under the name Roger & Reid. Their past projects have taken them to battlefields across the world where they have made films and unique artistic interventions at each site. They share an obsession with atmospheric places and a fascination for the lingering influence that the past can exert on the way we perceive the present, which makes them ideally suited to this new commission and opportunity.
Over the past years they have created a series of theatrical video artworks, and have a film currently in post-production phase in Dundee which is entitled ‘The Trail of Tears,’ filmed and performed at battle sites in the UK and the US. This film will be officially screened for the first time later this year.
Cathy Shankland, The Highland Council’s Exhibitions Officer said: “We are delighted that through the Rural Innovation Fund and partnership working we are able to offer such brilliant opportunities for artists to work in the Highlands.”
Learning Manager Katey Boal, NTS Culloden added: “Many stories are associated with Culloden and this is a fantastic opportunity to explore these with local people.”
The three artists may work together or separately on the Culloden project according to the results of the research which they are currently undertaking and phase two of the project will be to take forward the ideas to culminate in artwork which uniquely responds to the site and its stories.