Coastal Cultures - Islands Residencies

Coastal Cultures - Islands Residencies was an innovative placemaking and community engagement programme set within the collaborative framework of CHARTS.

Coastal Cultures - Islands Residencies enabled CHARTS to commission three artist-led residencies funded by Creative Scotland to work with members and communities:  

On Tiree, filmmaker Jack Lockhart and a small team of collaborators developed the project Between the Tides with Screen Argyll. The project provided a range of creative opportunities for the local community to engage with tidal themes and work alongside Jack as he created a time-lapse film exploring Tiree’s tides.

On the Mull Archipelago, Alice Stillman and Rhona Dougall developed Feàrna / Alder, with Alasdair Whyte supporting in phase one of the project.  Feàrna takes trees and our human connections with them as a starting point, using a counter-mapping process as the basis for focused place-based conversations with the wider community on Mull. ‘We will collectively explore questions important to us. In communities where Gaelic language has suffered rapid decline but where Gaelic culture remains all around us, how can we work meaningfully with and within Gaelic culture?’

On Luing (and neighbouring Slate islands), writer and director of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics Norman Bissell led Expressing an Island. Norman, along with Luing-based artist Lottie May and others, will deliver a series of monthly workshops in creative writing, arts, crafts and geology with the aim of producing a legacy of continuing creative networks and outputs for print and exhibition. 

Coastal Cultures is an artist-led, socially engaged project, responding uniqueness of island locations, building networks, participation and audiences. Throughout each project, artists have engaged communities in socially inclusive, imaginative and meaningful ways, including sharing their work through curated exhibitions and knowledge exchange events, both live and digital.

All three projects were delivered by artists and collectives embedded in their communities, and between July 2023 and January 2024, nearly 500 people of all ages engaged with the projects.  In addition, 16 local organisations and venues were supported and engaged through the project. 19 significant paid opportunities were created for creative practitioners, including 2 Project Management roles within CHARTS. Cross-cutting themes of place, young people and Gaelic ran through the projects.

Alongside the 3 Residency commissions, an additional 13 artists who engaged through the residency project activities were supported by Coastal Cultures – Islands Engagement Manager Deirdre MacKenna in a development process.

Coastal Cultures, Islands, aligns with the Culture Strategy for Scotland and the ambition within it to Transform Through Culture and supports artists and organisations exploring socially engaged work, creating capacity and ambition. 

Coastal Cultures, Islands, builds on support from the Scottish Government to develop cultural opportunities across the region’s islands via our support programme Ràmh. Project outcomes aim to inform the extension of its models, improving outcomes for island communities and demonstrating the potential for the arts to enhance economic recovery and community well-being in isolated regions.

Explore each project below or read our artist interviews here: 

Jack Lockhart, Between the Tides

Norman Bissell, Expressing an Island

Alice Stillman and Rhona Dougall, Feàrna

If you want to learn more, please get in touch info@chartsargyllandisles.org  

Coastal Cultures - Islands Residencies is funded by Creative Scotland and supported by the Scottish Government, Argyll and Bute Council and Bòrd na Gàidhlig. Coastal Cultures, Islands, supports the aims of the Argyll and Bute Economic Strategy, the National Plan for Scotland’s Islands and the Scottish Government's Gaelic Language Plan.