Changing Places 2…………FOREST HOUSE

4th November 2006 – 13th January 2007
Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Arts Centre, Lochmaddy, North Uist, Outer Hebrides.

Projected onto screens cut to the same shape as the metal house is a film of swaying, lush, subtropical New Zealand forest – as opposite to the empty, sky-full landscapes outside the gallery as can be. This is what is not on the island – but might have been. The word “clearance” is evoked by this film of forest. And inhabiting the shape of a derelict North Uist house as it does, we could wonder “Was this the place the islanders emigrated to?”  2009 has been designated Scotland’s Year of Homecoming, but this piece raises the question “What is it that constitutes our home?”

Central to the concept is the notion of displacement and yet connection with the other side of the world. New Zealand is not only at the exact opposite end of the planet but is a place many Scottish people have migrated to. Apart from the climate, the landscape has many similarities to the Hebrides, as has the way of life.