A change of art

Published on Wednesday 8 April 2009 15:53

LATER THIS MONTH, ROBERT Mapplethorpe will arrive in the capital of the Highlands. A major show of portraits by the cult New York photographer of the 1970s is the latest in the nationwide series of Artist Rooms, and a coup for Inverness.

But the arrival of this show is part of a bigger picture. Five years ago, the city was a blank spot on the country's contemporary art map. Now, there is new work by cutting-edge artists in hospitals and workplaces, even under your feet in the Old Town streets. In a few brief years, Inverness has come alive to the possibilities of art.

Area cultural officer Cathy Shankland is one of those who has watched its transformation. For her, the Mapplethorpe opening on 25 April at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery is a watershed. "To get to the stage when we feel we can have Mapplethorpe here and it will be welcomed and encouraged shows that things have progressed.

"We used to put on a contemporary show every now and again and we'd lose our audience immediately. A few years ago, we wouldn't have got away with it, but the whole climate has been changing. We've got to the point where we've the environment to do new and extraordinary things."

Few can deny the changes in Inverness since it was awarded city status in 2000. The sleepy gateway to the Highlands was becoming the fastest-growing city in Britain. But its city centre was suffering, the life drawn out of it by shopping malls and out-of-town supermarkets. A 6 million Streetscape project was launched, covering all the usual bases: paving, lighting, business development, but with one unexpected element – art.

Matt Baker, who had worked as lead artist on the Gorbals Regeneration Project in Glasgow, was appointed to the team.

It was the triumvirate of Baker, Evi Westmore, public art coordinator for the City Partnership, and Susan Christie, commissions manager at Inverness Old Town Arts (IOTA) who dreamt up a new way to take art onto the streets.

Imagining the Centre took place on a sunny Saturday in September 2006, with the help of 14 local artists, writers and musicians. Graffiti artists DUFI (Fin Macrae and Al MacInnes) staged a One Day Revolution ("Do justice to tea and cake!"). Faces of the city's Hidden Heroes filled the windows of the Ramada Hotel. Artist Sarah Barnes strung washing lines in Church Street decked out with underwear asking the question: "What's pants about Inverness?" As darkness fell, crowds flowed into the Old High Churchyard for a gig by local rock musician Jeep Solid.

"Imagining the Centre broke down a lot of barriers," says Christie, who is planning a similar event this September. "Since then a series of things have happened, each one having more of a positive impact than anyone imagined. I feel like we're moving forwards."

With the community beginning to feel engaged, it was time to commission the first new piece of public art. Baker was aware that a traditional Victorian statue of the Three Virtues (or Graces) by 19th century sculptor Andrew Davidson had been a popular feature of the city until it was removed in the 1950s. It was time, he felt, to update it.

Members of the public sent in more than 100 suggestions of "virtues for the 21st century". The matter was debated at a "philosophical salon", lubricated by wines branded in the name of each virtue. With a glass of "patience" and a few slugs of "integrity", the new virtues – warm-heartedness, perseverance and insight – were chosen.

The resulting sculpture, created by Baker and artist Sam Barlow, could hardly be more different from the old. Instead of personages looking down airily from a high building, the three outcrops of Caithness stone seem to burst up from the ground in the middle of Church Street, each incorporating a different species of birch tree. They are part sculpture, part public space.

The Virtues were launched on a chilly night in March 2008 with performances by poets, musicians and Gaelic singers. Local churchmen said blessings over them, and shopkeepers from the surrounding stores had their windows decked by local artists inspired by the "left over" virtues.

"It's very Highland of us, nothing is wasted," laughs artist Annie Marrs, who co-ordinated this part of the project. "Having a party showed that this was a culmination of a lot of people's time and thought and creative energy."

People connect with the Virtues on different levels, she says, as we watch someone rolling a cigarette on Open Heartedness. "I heard two women talking at the top of the street: 'I don't get this, it's ridiculous, it's like it's bursting out of the ground, the stones are erupting, I just don't get it'. And the thing was – they totally did!"

By that time, DUFI were working on a public project of their own. "Inverness Heritage Trust wanted a new set of interpretative stones for the Old Town," says Macrae. "We weren't the kind of people who were going to put a blue plaque on a building, but we were interested if we could put our own slant on it."

Now, their 25 StreetTexts are hewn into the paving stones of the Old Town: phrases of poetry and lyrics which highlight historic sites and play on the theme of the city's relationship to water.

Subtle rather than literal, they point to events in the town's history: the man jailed in the Tolbooth who made a break for Nova Scotia with the prison keys; the site of the original bridge across the Ness which was washed away in a flood.

When I ask Macrae if he ever thought he'd be making public art for the centre of Inverness, he just laughed. "Not a chance. Four years ago there virtually wasn't any art scene in Inverness, and no public art scene. Imagining the Centre was a catalyst in lots of ways, it brought things together and started things off.

"There's been a major change and it gives you a lot of confidence in your own work as well. Recently, Al and I applied for another public art project in Derby and we were longlisted. We wouldn't have thought about doing that a few years ago. Now we've been given this opportunity, it's allowing us to spread our wings."

At the same time as these projects were evolving in the Old Town, other art was happening elsewhere. Glasgow artist Jacqueline Donachie was working as lead artist on the new 28m Health Science Building at Raigmore Hospital, filling it with works by the likes of Christine Borland and Toby Paterson. Dalziel + Scullion had completed a major commission for Great Glen House, the headquarters of Scottish National Heritage, and unveiled it during a major art/science environmental symposium.

Susan Christie, meanwhile, has her sights set on the Ramada Hotel, a 1960s eyesore which once symbolised Inverness as a modern city. "It's a fundamental, crucial building. You can do lots of things in the old town, but if you don't tackle the Ramada, it's the elephant in the room."

Three proposals by British and international artists to transform the facade are currently being considered by the hotel group.

Meanwhile, in the Old Town's Victorian Market, another project is underway. The market is a well-preserved gem, but it's easy for visitors to miss, tucked in between streets with none-too-obvious entrances. IOTA believed a team of artists would be well placed to improve the market's gateways while engaging with its 42 traders.

Enter lead artist Nicola Atkinson and her collaborators Karen Vaughan & Hanna Tuulikki, who work under the name BW Cart. "Welcome to our studio," says Atkinson, propping open her laptop on top of one of the market's ornate litter bins. Since September, they have been engaging the imaginations of the market's traders, offering afternoon tea, going from shop to shop – the butchers to the barbers to the bagpipe-makers – volunteering to learn new skills.

A sound project, Radio VM, invited every trader to nominated their favourite song, and there were some raised eyebrows when Willie Morrison the watchmaker chose 19th Nervous Breakdown by the Rolling Stones.

Atkinson says: "The initial proposal was about the entrances, but we have been thinking about it in a more holistic sense. The traders have a real sense of ownership about the market, and they all have opinions about what they want.

"This is not art being installed from on high, or art which is democratic, but art which people engage in. The work is not going to please everyone, but everyone will know how we got to that place.

"There's a huge opportunity, not just in following the brief. You're bringing something special. You're their bit of madness, their bit of imagination. You're coming in, thinking about things differently, but you're not separate, you're an integral part of what's happening."

The work is not yet complete but, with a glass of "perseverance" and a shot of "creativity", more will surely come to pass in the name of art in the capital of the Highlands.

'Art should provide a different view'

JUST before the unveiling of the final phase of the new Health Science Building at Raigmore Hospital in January, the rooms got some unusual finishing touches. The curtains and screens in the purpose-built Diabetes Centre are far from standard-issue, they are designed by a Highland artist.

This was one of the last projects put in place by lead artist Jacqueline Donachie, who has been working on the building since 2006. "By that stage we were having to be creative with the budget," she grins. "So we said 'why not give us your budget for curtains and textiles?' "

The delicate lavender print by textile designer Jane Dunn does something to dispel the clinical environment, but it also has to withstand the rigours of hospital use. "A boil wash at 95 degrees and a polychlorine rinse," says Donachie. "The laundry were very helpful."

With a budget allocated by Highlands and Islands Enterprise under the "1% for art" scheme, she has been able to make several major purchases, including Christine Borland's Ecbolic Garden, Winter; 40 handblown glass bowls containing bleached plant specimens which shimmer above the main thoroughfare; and a suite of prints by Toby Paterson.

Mary Redmond spent six months making 12 delicate pieces of wooden sculpture inspired by Highland landscapes, nine of which are installed in the dental surgeries, at an angle where they can be easily seen by the patients in the chairs.

The works respond to the different uses of the building, which combines training for nurses and doctors, diabetes and dentistry clinics for the public and research laboratories. Donachie has taken a holistic approach, applying her artist's eye to essentials like the cafe furniture, which she had made in wood by a local workshop, as well as to major commissions.

Her own major work for the building is The Disc, a circle of concrete in the courtyard area which will be warmed with recycled heat from lab refrigerators to create an outdoor social space.

She believes art can help us change our perception of our environment. "If you come into a space every day to do whatever it is you do, art works can shift your perception about what that purpose is. Art should provide a different view. It shouldn't be lukewarm. If you make something that everyone likes initially, it won't last, it will age. The idea behind the art work has to be strong enough to withstand fashion and taste."

And she says there's something special about working in Inverness. "The Highlands has quite a can-do attitude. Elsewhere, there can be a sense of being jaded about public art. The attitude here is really great, people are really up for things, really willing to find out more."