Project archive

Mapping our Land

Highland Print Studio was commissioned by Highland Council to provide a cross-curricular project for six of their secondary schools. The Studio decided to develop a project that explored the history of map-making and enabled the pupils to create artwork based on a map of their local area. Depending on when and why they were created, maps have been used to record, for example, social history, ecology, biology and, of course, the lay of the land. As well as being functional objects, they can also be beautifully decorative works of art.

The pupils looked at lots of mapping imagery from past and present and worked with a professional artist to create their own map, which incorporated what they saw as the important features of their local area.

Crofter Who

Highland Print Studio received funding from Highland 2007 and Highlands and Islands Enterprise to work with Studi03 a group of artists with learning disabilities. The artists had been accessing the Studio for a number of years and had developed their printmaking skills over this period. This project was a means for the group to develop their digital media skills by producing a short animated film.

Many of the artists were big Dr Who fans, so decided to do a Highland version of the famous Time Lord. The film sees Crofter Who’s peaceful crofting lifestyle disrupted by a battle between the Daleks and the Lewis Chessmen.

Lochcarron Animation Residencies

From April to August 2007, Highland Print Studio provided 2 artists in residence, both animators, to work with community groups in Lochcarron in Wester Ross. The artists, Rachel Everitt and Mary Ferguson, worked with participants from the local writers, arts and music groups as well as the Howard Doris Centre for Older People, teaching them to create their own animated films.

At the end of the residencies, the films were premiered to family and friends at a screening in the Lochcarron village hall. The evening, complete with speeches, awards and hospitality (whisky and sherry – because that’s what the Howard Doris Lunch Club folk are a bit partial to), was a great success and really demonstrated how much people had progressed in the 4 months.

The project was funded by the Scottish Arts Council, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Highland 2007.

Six Cities Design Festival

“Less is more”, said the Modernist architect and designer Mies van der Rohe. The much-lamented ‘Innovations’ catalogue however, spits in the face of Mies and his Bauhaus buddies. Thanks to this bible of needless technology and others, we have been able to surround ourselves with ‘labour-saving’ devices we didn’t know we needed and products so awkward to use that they are rendered genuinely useless.

Highland Print Studio worked with 6 members of the public to create artwork based on their own ‘innovations’. They rewarded us with such ‘must haves’ as ‘Spec-o-matics’ – for those of us sick of losing the TV remote control, these spectacles-come-remote enable you to control your telly with a series of eye movements. Alternatively, you could invest in a flat-pack garden, or a cast iron bed that’s plumbed into your heating system. Comes with complimentary Kevlar heat resistant pyjamas and has a tap incorporated into the frame, giving you instant hot water for that early morning cup of tea.

Send me to Seaboard

Highland Print Studio received funding from the Scottish Arts Council, Highland 2007 and Highland Council to provide 4 artists in residence to work in 4 primary schools in the Fearn Peninsula of Easter Ross. Each artist was employed for a 3-month period and spent half their time working in one of the schools and the other half developing their own work here in the Studio. In each school the pupils created a collaborative artwork to go to form a feature within the school environment. These included fabric wall hangings, paintings on recycled wood and a series of triptychs that formed one long continuous artwork along a wall in the school playing field.