Sensing Place

Co-Project Lead & Producer

Mar 2016 - May 2017

Sensing Place is an action research project led by creative producer Andrew Ormston (Drew Wylie Projects) and myself with a view to harnessing the power of storytelling and archive film to explore new models of participation in places often perceived as remote and/or rural with reduced cultural infrastructure and capacity. Taking place across East Ayrshire, Dumfries & Galloway and the Scottish Borders, Sensing Place aims to bring local communities into creative and curatorial processes as equal partners.

We commissioned storyteller Jean Edmiston, film curator Lydia Beilby and filmmaker Anne-Marie Copestake to work with communities culminating in three events that celebrate untold stories and traditions from across the Southern Scotland - past and present. These events have varied in format across the three areas from presenting memories and artefacts in Kilmarnock train station to a skills-sharing Bring Your Own Archive workshop day in CatStrand, New Galloway, to a new interactive exhibition of films, found objects, images and texts on display in the Live Borders Heritage Hub building in Hawick.

Sensing Place’s national partners are: TRACS (Traditional Arts & Culture Scotland), Film Hub Scotland, National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive, and Regional Screen Scotland. Sensing Place is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland, and part of BFI's Britain on Film.

IMAGES: Lucy Parnell