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A' Cunntadh an Uspag (2022)

‘A’ Cunntadh an Uspag’ is a collection of images of works created during the duration of the Tobar an Dualchais x Atlas Arts Summer Residency. The Residency took place over the Summer of 2022. 

 

“This residency aims to foster meaningful engagement with Gaelic culture and heritage, and to build critical and imaginative responses to the complexities of Gaelic history and cultural identity.” (TAD website)

 

The work was inspired by stories and proverbs of weather-lore found on the Tobar an Dualchais (TAD) website. The many excerpts found here give context to the work as a whole. The juxtaposition that the sayings and proverbs have between sure fastness and ambiguity along with the trust that was held in these proverbs was a key influence throughout. Some of the images are more literal representations of the recordings from the TAD archive while others are more esoteric and merge the feelings created by the ambiguity of the proverbs with the modern day alternatives of highly accurate weather forecasting, somewhat inspired by the implements and scientific instruments used. Whether based in proven scientific rhetoric, blind luck or otherworldly powers, the weather-lore of the Highlands and Islands once held the same certainty as the online tables and charts which now often take their place. The work aims to create a dialogue between the human and the non-human and place the viewer within the context of the proverbs, re-strengthening the feelings of connectedness to nature, which is often lost in the immediacy and mechanical means by which information from our surrounding environment is now so often gathered.

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