Wild Industry is a poetic exploration of how wind power is changing wild landscapes in the Scottish Highlands
detail of video (in progress)
Image Description: The image shows a close-up view of various grasses and plants.
This practice-based research led by Alison Craighead and Jon Thomson examines how windfarms are changing wild landscapes in the Scotland Highlands, in particular how people are responding to these material changes; what it means at an individual level but also in relation to the world’s wider transition to net zero carbon emissions at a time of climate emergency. The initial focus is on the island community of Fairisle which is one of the UK’s oldest off grid communities and the artists hope to explore their community-based development of power generation – something coming from the ground up rather than the top down.
Working in collaboration with Professor Jon Thomson (University College London) under the artist name, Thomson and Craighead, they will produce moving image artworks; an essay film and/or a series of documentary portraits which will be shoot in Shetland and Fair Isle in the Spring and Summer of 2025. Their approach will be poetic following in part from the tradition of the film making of Orcadian artist, Margaret Tait who often described their films as, ‘Land Poetry’. This extends previous research that examines what a documentary can be. A good example is the short film about War (2009/2010) which is made only out of information found on the worldwide web; or Stutterer (2014) in which the first sequenced human genome is used like a musical score to generate an endless montage of found documentary footage made during the twelve years it took to complete the Human Genome Project; or Saffron (2018) which is a documentary portrait of a ‘world foods’ shop owner in Inverness.
Fair Isle Electricity Company Ltd.
Image Description: The image shows a wind turbine standing on a hilltop against a clear blue sky. The turbine is relatively small, with three blades, and is mounted on a tall, slender metal tower. A small, square structure is visible at the base of the tower. In the background, another, smaller wind turbine is visible on the horizon, along with some low hills and what appears to be a coastline.
Through their discussions with the owner the artists make visible some of the complex diversity found in the Scottish highlands which can often seem absent in such a scattered low density population. Landscape will remain central to the Fairisle moving image work and they will be looking for ways to render landscape unfamiliar, so we re-see it in novel ways. This extends on a recent landscape photography project; Gas Giant (2022) where they have been making lightboxes displaying images of rocks and pebbles found in the NW Highlands of Scotland but shot as if they are astronomical bodies in space, thus connecting two different deep times within and beyond the planet.
Thomson and Craighead will also begin looking at methods of displaying the completed work using only off grid power. This is a speculative and significant medium term challenge, but by the end of their development process, they hope to be in a position to apply for future funds to go into production and begin building their off-grid display mechanisms.
self-powering tests for media players
Image Description: hardware prototype board over a white surface
Jon Thomson & Alison Craighead (Thomson & Craighead) make artworks that explore the changing socio-political structures of the Information Age. In particular, they have been looking at how the digital world is ever more closely connected to the physical world having become a geographical layer in our collective sensorium. Time is often treated with a sculptor’s mentality, as a pliable quantity that can be moulded and remodelled.
Alison Craighead is Reader in Contemporary Art at University of Westminster and Reader in Art at Goldsmiths University of London and Jon Thomson is Professor of Fine Art at The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. They live and work between London and Ross & Cromarty
