Having successfully completed a three-month residency in summer 2006 with the MacKay Country Group on the North Coast, returning to work in the Highlands has presented many familiar challenges.
''Island Row'' September 2006
Yet, this is very much a new beginning, not only for myself but also for Timespan as an organisation. My new position coincides with the remarkable redevelopment of the museum, additional workshop, community and archive space that will benefit the entire community.
Even in its unfinished state, I find the all new workshop space to be particularly exciting. When finally completed its bright, spacious dimensions will fit perfectly with the scale and ambition of the new youth arts project, enabling its young users to expand and achieve their creative ideas.
At the heart of my work is the engagement and participation of those communities amongst whom I live. As a primary source of information and guidance, I rely on evolving relationships and subtle collaborations to arrive at a work that not only tells a story but also characterises the community that tells and retells that story.
My environmental art practice has developed through my experiences living, studying and working in locations as diverse as Beirut, Chile, China and the Scottish Countryside. I have now just returned from Insaka 2007, a two-week International Artists workshop held in Siavonga, Zambia and sponsored by the Triangle Art Trust. In the middle of the African bush, 20 artists from Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, USA, India and Scotland!
came together to exchange ideas and cultures under the banner of ‘’artists working with communities for environmental awareness’’. Many of the artistic disciplines were represented: painting, sculpture, illustration, video and photography.
The African bush provided an intense and at times, dangerous environment in which we worked alongside each other, the local tribal communities and reptiles of all shapes and sizes. The local tribes welcomed us openly, allowing us to observe their daily lives and learn more about their basic, self-sustaining and vibrant cultures.
My helpers
The natural bridge
Mweene, making Nshima
At the end of the two weeks we held an open day on site. I exhibited a video documenting our experiences with the local tribes people. These short documents focused particularly on the female population of the tribes, who appeared to do everything: farming, teaching, cooking, and raising families. Many of the older women (understandably) complained that they suffered from back pains, and so the video opens with an amusing, yet informative lesson in several yoga stretches as taught by Aditi, our Indian artist on a hot, and slightly surreal morning in the middle of the village. The video then switches to the regular evening dancing and singing round the bonfire and the daily chore of grinding finger millet , which is then boiled to a solid substance called nshima, the staple food of Zambia.
Tonga - English subtitles. There are 72 different dialects in Zambia.
Local children show us how it's done at the open day. 
Though seemingly quite traditional in many ways, through discussions and presentations, the African art scene at large unfolded before me, into a complex dialogue between self-expression, the value of art in society and survival as an artist. For any other artists reading this, these will appear to be issues common to all of us. However, when considered within the context of Africa and its various political and economic situations, these themes evade regular analysis. For an experience such as this to be presented internationally by a country that as yet, has no school of fine art, not only underlines the desire of Zambian artists to evolve their techniques and ideologies but also the awareness that they too have a great deal to teach.
Insaka 2007 was a truly memorable experience for all the artists involved, forming firm friendships. We 20 are now a community and it is my endeavour to enable any one or all of them to complete a workshop here in Scotland. Our works will be shown together in a forthcoming exhibition in the Zambian capital, Lusaka.
http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=32338
The Zambian workshop provides a fascinating precursor to the workshops I intend to hold with the youth of Sutherland, beginning with a series of workshops in the October school holidays.
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