Gathering is an innovative mapping of the
Highland landscape in poems, essays, photographs, and maps, conceived by
Scottish artist and poet Alec Finlay. The work guides the reader to modest and
forgotten places in this complex region.
Finlay
worked from Adam Watson’s published collection of names, one of the most significant
modern contributions to Scottish folk-culture consisting of over 7,000 local
place-names, covering every ruined farm, shieling, hill, glen, spring, burn,
and wood in the region. Over a period of years, Finlay expanded Watson’s
catalogue into a generous ‘ecopoetic’ and ‘place-aware’ account of the
Cairngorms, accompanied by photographs showing the hills in all their seasonal
variety. Essays guide the reader to names that reveal the haunts of wolves and
wildcats, and cast a vivid impression of the great pinewoods that once grew
there, and may again.
With these local names as a guide one becomes
aware of a wonderful range of locations that have been overlooked – forgotten
shielings (summer huts), and springs, or lost forests, as well as modest patches
of berries, and places that have names because they were once useful to peasant
farmers. I term this approach place-awareness, and I hope it will give readers
a new appreciation of the region.’ - Alec Finlay
A
multitude of perspectives – of the walker, hiker, climber, stalker, gun, forager,
birdwatcher, and geologist – are gathered together, weaving varied perceptions
of the landscape and revealing the ways in which these reflect human uses and
human desires. By combining poetics, ecology, and folk-cartography, Finlay’s
‘place-aware’ philosophy offers readers and visitors alike a remarkable new
insight into this evocative and vulnerable landscape.
Gathering was created for The Fife Arms
hotel, located in Braemar within the heart of the Cairngorms, which will reopen
in December 2018 after a complete restoration. Finlay has contributed to the names of the hotel’s 46 rooms
and suites, with each room a homage to a place, person, event or activity with
links to Braemar. Finlay’s artwork will feature throughout the hotel, and his
poems will be carved into the wooden headboards in some of the guestrooms.
Gathering is now available from Studio Alec Finlay.
bibliography
Adam Watson: The
Place Names of Upper Deeside
Adam Watson: Place-names in much of North-east Scotland
Adam Watson: Place-names in much of North-east Scotland
Gathering was commissioned by Hauser & Wirth, for the Fife
Arms Hotel, Braemar; the project was launched in 2015 and will conclude in
2018.