Artists and conservationists team up to explore Shetland’s unique natural and cultural heritage

The series will consist of three sets of workshops, each led by a different artist. Each block of workshops will consist of one guided walk followed by a series of workshops where participants will explore the natural and cultural landscape around them through each artist’s specialist medium: music and sound recording with Jenny Sturgeon, botanical illustration and lino printing with Diane Garrick, and silversmith and textile art with Helen Robertson. The workshops are free and lunch is provided. The workshops series kicks off on Saturday 28th June with a guided walk of Huxter Ancient Water Mills with Jenny Sturgeon.

Shetland’s landscape is dynamic. Shaped by volcanic eruptions, humungous mountains of ice, the delving of tree roots and the acid of the bogs that now adorn this land between the seas. It has also been shaped by us, from our first traces in the roundhouses and brochs that imprint themselves onto the land, to our crofts and fishing fleets, to the roar of cars and the sprawl of our habits and wanderings. Ourselves and these other forces aren’t separable. They come together and tell the tale of the land we now know as Shetland, each one laying the groundwork for the next, each one important.

To explore that relationship, endangered species conservation programme, Species on the Edge, is launching its Art in Nature series, working with local artists to exhibit the woven history of our culture and its natural surroundings. Participants will ignite the jewels of flame and sea using silversmithing and textile design with Helen Robertson, define the botanical brilliance of a burnside used to cast tools and jewellery of our past with Diane Garrick, and capture the turning of stone and the cry of the Whaap with Jenny Sturgeon to create music that encapsulates our landscape.

Each artist will be providing three to four sessions; the first is a guided walk focussing on the cultural and natural history of an area, followed by two to three workshops with the artist, learning a new craft, learning about the landscape and its history to create a final piece that encapsulates them all.

Register for the workshops on the Species on the Edge website: https://speciesontheedge.co.uk/events/art-in-nature-workshops-shetland-multiple-dates/

To find out more, contact: gareth.powell@rspb.org.uk