Are you LOCATIONALIZED

Are you LOCATIONALIZED was a project developed in response to ideas around location and audience that come into play when contemporary art is commissioned in places that are perceived as geographically remote. The research aims: 1 To challenge and disrupt conventions and expectations surrounding art produced in locations perceived to be geographically remote. 2 To challenge and critique notions of specialness that can attach themselves to particular locations. 3 To produce a singular artwork that incorporated a number of disparate strategies and forms over geographically separated locations. The project is framed by current critiques of site-specificity and the practice of context-specific contemporary art (R.MacKay, M.Fisher,). The project also engages with recent debates around curatorial practice and exhibition interpretation (A.Phillips, G.Wade). The project utilised a number of strategies and forms that together explored the research questions. Two outdoor painted structures (one with an audio element) were positioned against existing architecture on the islands of Skye and North Uist, interrupting their contexts and positing fugitive and alternative possibilities. A text and a sequence of photo-works were positioned as an antagonistic archive within Taigh Chearsabagh Museum and Art Gallery on North Uist. A further series of texts explored ways in which a viewer might navigate around, and think about, these elements. The project was commissioned by ATLAS Arts for GENERATION: 25 years of Contemporary Art, a nationwide survey convened by the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh and Glasgow Life. GENERATION was an engagement with the recent history of contemporary Scottish art, identifying key works and artists from 1989 onwards. A two-volume catalogue provided wider historical context and individual essays on the selected artists. The project was awarded £70,000 by Creative Scotland with a further award from Outset, Scotland. As well as local press, the work received wider media coverage on the BBC News and Guardian sites. A programme of events and talks curated by ATLAS arts further articulated and disseminated the research. The work has been the focus of study days for postgraduate curatorial students at Glasgow University/ Glasgow School of Art and Edinburgh University. In 2016 the work won the inaugural Saltire Temporary Art in Public Places award