Window to the West / Uinneag Dhan Àird an Iar
The project led to a major exhibition Uinneag Dhan Àird an Air: Ath-Lorg Ealain na Gàidhealtachd / Window to the West: The Rediscovery of Highland Art, held at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh in the winter months of 2010/2011. Here are some reviews:
“… artists have been working to make visible this potent but hitherto invisible living legacy; to find an iconography that will allow us to see and so reclaim this part of our identity. Window to the West at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh brings these artists together, but also puts them in the company of others who have been there before them.” [Duncan Macmillan, ‘Repopulating the Gàidhealtachd landscape’ The Scotsman, 23 November, 2010]
Image: Banners designed for the exterior of the City Art Centre, Edinburgh, based on art by Calum Colvin, left, and David Forrester Wilson.
“In this wide ranging rediscovery the focus is also on excavating the lesser known both ancient and modern.” [Sarah Urwin Jones, The Herald, 27 November, 2010]
“… scholarly and practical connections have already culminated in a major bronze work at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig – a collaboration between Will Maclean and Arthur Watson – and the willow framework which was a basis for casting the bronze has been re-made as a pivotal part of a major new exhibition in the City Art Centre, Edinburgh. The large-scale gathering of visual works from the Gàidhealtachd – Uinneag Dhan Àird an Iar (Window to the West) – now occupies two floors of one of Scotland’s great galleries …” [Ian Stephen, West Highland Free Press, 10 December, 2010]
“The show poses as many questions as it answers. This is a ground-breaking exhibition …” [Giles Sutherland, ‘Highland art gets its turn in the limelight - and not before time’, The Times, 21 December, 2010]
‘… engaging with the historic legacy without once slipping into banal sentiment.’ [Kamila Kocialkowska, The Skinny, 27 Jan 2011]
“… this exhibition moves on, not to propose that we forget the tragedy, but that we also celebrate the enduring richness of the Highland tradition.” [Duncan Macmillan, ‘Repopulating the Gàidhealtachd landscape’ The Scotsman, 23 November, 2010]