Image courtesy of Clare Cooper
Our inaugural programme launched in March 2017 and ran through to October 2017. Three projects took place through out the year, all drawing on the Cateran Trail’s extraordinarily rich history, heritage and archaeology, each offering local people and visitors new ways of interpreting and learning about this ‘common wealth’. All of the projects involved contemporary local, regional and national artists and makers.
The opening of The Story Box in May 2017, photo Clare Cooper
The Story Box transformed an iconic decommissioned red telephone box into a community-led audio art installation in Alyth Town Square. It captures oral histories of the people of Alyth. In a similar way to Dr Who’s ‘Tardis’ and allows the user to hear stories from four different eras, including the most recent catastrophic flooding events in Alyth in July 2015. Marian Bruce, who lives in Alyth, first came up with the idea in 2013. “By lifting the receiver in The Story Box you will be able to travel backwards in time or forward into the future and hear stories about the townsfolk from each period.” Stories, songs and sounds have been collected from people of all ages and backgrounds including children from Alyth Primary School and Alyth Youth Partnership and the archive has been designed and made with the help of digital and sound artists Rory Gianni and Shona Main and traditional singer songwriters Christine Kydd and Ewan McVicar.
You can come to Alyth Town Square and listen to the stories housed in The Story Box until Spring 2019.
A Story of the Cateran Trail in 100 Objects launched in November 2016 with a campaign to crowdsource ideas for 100 objects that tell the story of the Trail’s history right up until the present day. Folk who live and work around the Trail and those who visit were asked to propose people, places and landscapes and objects associated with them, that they believe tell an important part of the story of this part of Scotland. The final 100 Objects were chosen in April 2017 by a Community Panel Chaired by Councillor Bob Ellis, one of the founders of the Trail and formed the basis of a new booklet, an Exhibition at Alyth Museum which opened in July 2017 which will return for a second season in 2018, a series of walks and talks related to some of the objects and a set of teaching resources for local Primary Schools.
You can download the Booklet that accompanied the Exhibition ‘A Story of the Cateran Trail in 100 Objects’ here.
New aerial photography of the Cateran Trail and new place name research acted as inspiration for the third project called Common Ground. An artist residency led by one of Scotland’s foremost contemporary textile artists, Deirdre Nelson, offered local people of all ages the opportunity to take part in workshops to design and make new Cateran textiles using the photos and place names. These workshops culminated in an exhibition of the newly designed textiles and their sources of inspiration at The Barony, Alyth and the Wellmeadow Cafe Blairgowrie and formed the basis of a new booklet about the Trail’s landscapes and the artist residency and a series of walks and talks related to the archaeology of the area.
You can download the booklet, which is in two halves via the following links:
Seeing Common Ground
Stitching Common Ground
You can view 50 of the amazing aerial photographs below:
and download a Catalogue of what each photograph shows – just follow the numbering on the screen.
You can download the place name research via the following links:
Stage 1: Blairgowrie to Kirkmichael
Stage 2: Kirkmichael to Spittal of Glenshee
Stage 3: Spittal of Glenshee to Kirkton of Glen Isla
Stage 4: Kirkton of Glen Isla to Alyth
Stage 5: Alyth to Blairgowrie
Mini Trail
One of of guided walks up Barry Hill, photo Clare Cooper
You can download the Walks & Talks Leaflet that accompanied the Common Ground and 100 Objects projects here.
You can view the rolling calendar of our and our partners events by clicking through to our Events tab here.
You can also have a look at our What’s Planned page to read a bit more about what we are planning to do next and keep up to date via our mailing list, twitter, Instagram and Facebook page.
“Prosperity consists in our ability to flourish as human beings – within the ecological limits of a finite planet. The challenge for our society is to create the conditions under which this is possible. It is the most urgent task of our times.” Tim Jackson