► Aimee Labourne: "Other Worlds"
Other Worlds is a drawing project to create immersive island 'dreamscapes', engaging with themes of wilderness-longing and effects of global forces on islands. Led by experimentation with intuitive processes of monoprinting and collage, Aimee will explore creative thresholds between chance and imagination, chaos and structure, to generate new landscape imagery.
Research into concertina book-binding and traditional Japanese watercolour printing processes will inform hand-held work. By assembling diverse visual explorations that investigate our entangled relationship with nature, this compact form will be used to investigate vastness. In parallel, wall-based works for presentation at Mareel will explore continuously unfolding space in scroll-like journey-landscapes.
► Alex Purbrick: "Giants Dance in da Simmer Dim"
Giants Dance in da Simmer Dim is a celebration of Shetland folklore characters, brought to life through puppetry, dance and music.
Directed by Alex Purbrick, 7 creative practitioners (John Hunter, Jane Cockayne, Lauren Bulter, Matthew Lawrence, Alice Ritch, Samantha Dennis and Eve Eunson) will direct youth and family groups in designing and making two 12 - 15ft, wearable Giant and Giantess puppets, two magical beastie creatures and some Skekler style outfits for dancers. They will also be composing music and choreographing dances for each puppet. The creations will be brought together in a carnival-type event along the St. Ninian's Isle tombolo around midsummer time.
► Brian Goddard: "One in a Thousand"
Brian will produce 5 - 10 brief audio-visual slideshows combining stills photography with audio testimony taken from interviews with people who live in Burra and Trondra. The slideshows will be stitched together into a cinematic showcase, to be projected at Mareel and shown in the community.
The medium of stills with audio testimony is intended to invite a gentle contemplation; a thing of value in an age of edgy video editing.
► Eve Eunson: “Salvage - A 21st Century Fair Isle Strawback Chair”
Historically, everything in Fair Isle was made using timber that washed ashore; today, almost all of the material found on Shetland's beaches is plastic, with some low-quality timber.
As a designer rooted in the culture of re-use and salvage, Eve is keen to explore methods of re-using these polutants through the design and creation of a truly 21st Century Fair Isle "Strawback" Chair. Materials salvaged in Fair Isle will be used to re-imagine her Cubi Chair design in a limited series of art pieces, each responding directly to the materials found.
► JJ Jamieson: “Hairst Rig”
Part cultural document, part video art, part musical exploration - Hairst Rig will follow a 20-minute visual and musical journey through the harvest season, showing traditional processes on some of the oldest working machinery still in use, along with newer equipment. Visually stunning, this work will capture those practices and elevates the filmic record of work and landscape to a beautiful meditation on what is both familiar and unnoticed.
Filmed over an 8-month period, the piece will be backed by its own soundtrack, composed and played by a unique collection of Shetland musicians of all ages, experience and genres.
► Jono Sandilands & Chloe Tallack: “Nightmix”
Building on their pilot project Day Tripping and the feedback received, Chloe and Jono's Nightmix will evolve into a more immersive, interactive and technically refined performance.
Using Shetland-filmed visuals, live DJs and artists and real-time projection techniques, they aime to create an environment that responds directly to its audience. Audience inputs gathered through informal meet-ups and online interactions will be incorporated into the projected imagery, ensuring the performance is collaborative at its core.
