Art and Memory - Ealain is Cuimhne.

Will Maclean & Marian Leven --->
Dalziel + Scullion --->
Malcolm Maclean & Torcuil Crichton --->
Uig School P4 to P7 --->

Curated by Malcolm Maclean

One of art’s key functions is as a mnemonic, or an aide to memory. This can be a personal memory, unique to us as individuals, or it can be a more public collective memory that is shared by many. Public art - from Calanais to war memorials - remind us of our common history and major events that have had a profound and often traumatic impact on our community. They tell stories that should never be forgotten and act as reminders and question marks in the landscape.

This exhibition brings together recent public art installations commemorating the Lewis Land Raiders, the Iolaire disaster and the Metagama – key formative events in 19th and 20th century Lewis. They tell their stories in very different ways but they are all collaborative works by artists for whom Uig is their ancestral or adoptive home.

Posters and Flyers

Will Maclean & Marian Leven

In collaboration with Arthur Watson Stonework by Jim Crawford and lain Smith.

Photography by Robin Gillanders

Professor Will Maclean is one of Scotland's most internationally successful artists with work in art collections worldwide. His recurrent themes are Highland history and Gaelic culture with particular reference to the Clearances and the Land Issue. His series of public artworks commemorating key events in the Lewis land struggle have received numerous prestigious awards. These include the Saltire Society's 2013 award for Uig's Suileachan monument, which was a close creative collaboration with his artist wife, Marian Leven. The works exhibited here come from a major retrospective exhibition of Will's work, Compelled By Memory, held in Edinburgh's City Art Centre in 2022.

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Dalziel + Scullion

Matthew Dalziel and Louise Scullion have recently made Uig their permanent home. They have run their fine art studio for almost 30 years, working with sculpture, photography, video and sound, to engage with environmental subjects. They often collaborate with other disciplines to find ways that art can amplify the ecology of a place; it's authentic features and unique character. The work exhibited here was made in collaboration with the Hebridean composer and musician lain Morrison to mark the centenary of the sinking of the HMY lolaire on New Year's Eve ir 1918, an event that tragically took the lives of 201 islanders returning fram WWI, including ten men from Uig and lain's great grandfather, from Coll.

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Malcolm Maclean & Torcuil Crichton

Photography by Richard Davies, Chris Murray, John Dyer, Murdo Macleod, Murdo Macdonald

Torcuil is a journalist, writer and broadcaster from Lewis whose career has ranged from the West Highland Free Press to the reporting lobby of the House of Commons. He has been involved in numerous art projects and is now Labour's prospective candidate for Nah-Eileanan an lar in the general election.

Malcolm is an artist, curator and producer whose family have lived in Uig since the 1600s. He was the founding Chair and Creative Director of An Lantair, CEO of national Gaelic arts agency Proiseact Nan Ealan and Chair of UNESCO Scotland.

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SGOIL UIG / Uig School P4 to P7

Artwork by Uig School P4 to P7 for the Metagama Centenary Schools Project Uig School was amongst the many schools on the island to mark the centenary this year of the sailing of the SS Metagama in 1923, which took over 300 young islanders (including four men from Uig) to new lives in Canada and the US. Coming on the back of WWl and the lolaire disaster, this mass emigration attracted the attention of the world press and had e a devastating impact on the Hebrides. As a result, the name of the Metagama retains a profoundly important place in people's memory to this day.

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