‘Projectroom2020’ - A Letter From Shetland
A new collaborative online gallery project called ‘Projectroom2020’ [no longer available online] was recently launched in order to give artists a way to show work during lockdown.
It's very encouraging and exciting to see new art in this way when travel is now impossible, and there's further support here in a brilliant section of selected online resources.
Very many thanks also to Projectroom2020 for including my short piece of writing where I talk briefly about coronavirus and Shetland (below).
As I write, just two and a half weeks have passed since the first cases of coronavirus was confirmed here in Shetland. Yet in just 18 days, everyday life has profoundly changed - as it has for almost everyone, everywhere.
If cities are the ‘centres’ in our urban-centric times, then our network of stepping-stone islands would be considered the peripherals. Located far off the north coast of Scotland, we might seem about as ‘far away’ as anyone could imagine. And yet Shetland has always been well connected - by sea it is more of a crossroads rather than an outpost. The islands welcome many visitors every year, and Shetlanders also travel widely. It was almost inevitable then that coronavirus - which survives because of connectedness - would arrive hear sooner rather than later.
With a population of only around 23,000, the first confirmed cases here felt suddenly very close and real. That something originating so far away could cross sea and distance to infiltrate a small island community was somehow all the more terrifying. Overnight, simple ways of being like sharing a word in the street or stopping to say hello, were more hesitant and anxious. The islands have a lively and varied range of arts activities and workshops throughout Shetland’s long dark winter months – but as more cases were confirmed, these were quickly cancelled (including the last of a series of drawing workshops I was teaching). For this learning and sharing to just stop - along with all other aspects of the islands’ ‘internal network’ of arts and crafts – highlighted just how interdependent everything was. All venues, exhibitions, events, cafés, shops, amenities and offices were crucial parts in sharing art within and also beyond Shetland. In a ‘remote’ place, just as much as anywhere, there is no splendid isolation – everything depends on other people.
Despite Shetland’s infection rate being high in relation to its population, it was subsequently ‘recommended’ by a national newspaper as a good place to self-isolate. Other rural places in the UK have sadly suffered from flocks of visitors who defied travel advice in search of fresh air - or distance from others. However, just one of the many things the pandemic has taught us is that there is no ‘away’. Nature is often seen as something ‘other’ to escape to, but by going into nature we’re often trying to simply gain distance from human environments. By seeking away-ness, we only further emphasise our connectedness.
Distance or apart-ness are of course also relative. Another way coronavirus has affected my own creative work is that I’m now prevented from making the (relatively short) journey to Orkney later this year as part of a bursary. The restrictions we’re living through have led to a shrinking of our individual inhabited environments. Now even movement between islands within Shetland must be ‘essential’ – mainland Shetland is now as ‘far away’ as anywhere.
Here however, we are fortunate to have open space. I feel extremely thankful to be able to safely take a short walk or cycle on the island I live on. Perhaps like many others, I’ve been finding new aspects of my immediate environment that I’ve never seen (or looked for) before. I’ve also been returning to un-finished projects that I could never find time for.
We always wish to be moving, to be travelling forwards to another place or to a projected future. To return to something (or to simply enjoy the freedom to move, without really going anywhere) is not often valued in our society of endless growth and progression. To appreciate processes and materials, to enjoy the simple routines and patterns of art making and creativity, is something I can take comfort from and also find focus in just now, and hope others can too.
