Research and Development Residency

1 February - 1 March 2025 - An Cridhe - The Isle of Coll

My practice
I am currently working with textiles, film, sound and text to tell stories that are slightly out of joint, hidden or lost under the surface of things. My work is inevitably slow due to a practice that had to develop in the margins around full-time work and part time study. Due to the nature of my PhD research, I became fascinated with collective work – and since completing that doctorate, I have specialised in co-production in my freelance film work. This has also become part of my practice, in developing relationships with people about their ways to process ideas, art and emotions.

Background to the project
My brother died suddenly 4 Feburary 2023. Before he died, he’d been incapacitated by a stroke that took his voice, and we could only communicate indistinctly, with him spelling out his conversations with an outsized alphabet on a piece of laminated A4 and I became his scribe. During these stilted difficult conversations, he revealed he’d always wanted to dive in the waters around Oban. We talked about a round ferry trip to Coll I had taken soon after my relocation to Scotland and I showed him some of the footage I’d captured on that trip (a little clip of the waters around Coll taken from the deck of the ferry is captured in the header above). He told me the waves were ‘hypnotic, like fire’. His last wish was to see the sea, we found a way to do that for him and for a little while, against all predictions, he rallied, regaining his speech and appetite. He believed the sea was responsible.

The Royal Scottish Academy Residency
I centred the idea of finding ways through my practice to develop a process of capturing some of the ‘hypnotic’ qualities of the sea and to think about the relationship of the sea to grief and grieving as well as healing - in my proposal to the RSA Residencies programme.

An Cridhe was ideal for this residency because the ferry to Coll that provoked the conversation with my brother passes over many of the dive sites he was dreaming of.

The island’s community lives with the constant presence of the ocean. I hear from people who live on the island about their thoughts about being so close to the impact and magnitude of the sea. I’m delighted to be based at The Bunk House in Coll and also to able to use the island’s community space An Cridhe to talk to people who might be interested in talking to me about their experience of living on the island, and what they think about the idea that nature can heal.

This time is also going to allow me to experiment with how I might to film or portray nature, water, and healing and how I’m going to bring over that hypnotic or firelike quality of the sea and/or grief.

The period I've suggested will be over the second anniversary of my brother’s death, so a vivid time to engage with this project and engaging with processes of grief and healing during the depths of winter on the sea.

If you live on Coll and would be interested in talking to me about your experience of the island, or the sea in relation to any of the issues above or just to keep abreast of my filming or perhaps a talk or two at An Cridhe during my time - please sign up here to start that conversation ahead of my arrival!