Slow Water

Victoria Clare Bernie's practice is concerned with the representation of Scotland’s landscapes, coasts and rivers, forests and hills. Slow Water (2011) was created during a Leverhulme Trust Artist-in-Residency at the Scottish Association for Marine Science Research Laboratory (SAMS), based at Dunstaffnage near Oban in Scotland. Ten years ago Scotland was immersed in questions of environment and development and four years away from the European Union Water Framework Directive goal of 2015 as the deadline for getting all European waters into good condition. A lot has changed since then but the questions of water and stewardship remain. How do we work and live and care in the modern Scottish landscape?

During her time at SAMS Victoria worked in collaboration with marine and freshwater scientists and the Hydro to research and create a form of ‘liquid atlas.’ A mapping of the present condition of water in Scotland. Water as resource and delight, water to drink, to power, to sustain fisheries and maintain landscapes. Working with digital video, drawing and photography, Slow Water seeks to identify and record an alternative image of Northern and Western Scotland as a worked and working landscape, in contrast to the more familiar image of the Highlands as an under-occupied, melancholic and untouched terrain. The exhibition as a visual document is at once beautiful and unsettling in its ability to depict the particularities of water science, the microscopic inhabitants of a sea loch and the monumental charms of industrial infrastructure.

Everything Flows is a specially curated coastal exhibition trail, programmed by Street Level Photoworks in partnership with regional venues and supported by EventScotland as part of the Year of Coasts and Waters 20/21.

#everythingflows21 #YCW2021

Opening Hours: Wednesday + Thursday - 10-3pm | Friday 9-5pm | Sat 12-5pm