My HEART is in THE HIGHLANDS
(With apologies to Robert Burns and Bob Dylan)
The Highlands and Islands of Scotland are constituted as much through cultural and political imaginaries as through geography. My practice approaches landscape as a form of portraiture, positioning photography as a phenomenological encounter between subject, place, and representation. Rather than treating landscape as a fixed or neutral entity, I examine how it is continually produced through lived experience, historical narratives, and visual practices.
Photography functions both as a mode of inquiry and as an active participant in the production of place, mediating relationships between environment, identity, and power. Working within the landscapes of the Highlands and Islands, I aproach dominant representational paradigms that naturalise ideas of authenticity, beauty, and the romantic. These enduring visual and cultural frameworks shape individual and collective understandings of place while simultaneously limiting alternative ways of seeing.
Through image-making, I seek to expose the contingent nature of these representations and to reframe the Highlands and Islands as contested, relational, and culturally produced landscapes. My work positions photography not as a means of documenting place, but as a critical practice capable of questioning how landscapes are imagined, experienced, and continuously remade.
My project is ongoing and has been supported this year by Creative Scotland. This invaluable support enables not only the production of my work but also its ongoing development and eventual resolution. I will be posting images as I progress and hope that you find them interesting. My journey is universal. Any feedback or insights are, of course welcomed.
John Kippin
Artist and Photographer
North Uist, Western Isles. 2026.
BIOGRAPHY
John Kippin is a British artist and photographer whose work explores landscapes shaped by social, political, and economic change. Emerging from the experimental art scene of the 1970s, he has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, including at major institutions such as the Serpentine Gallery, the National War Museum, the Photographers’ Gallery, London; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead and the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. Alongside his artistic practice, Kippin has played a significant role in photography education and research, serving as Professor of Photography at the University of Sunderland, where he is an Emeritus Professor. He is currently living and working in the Western Isles. His work often examines post-industrial environments, national identity, and the impact of power and commerce on public spaces and places. Recent publication include From a True Story (Kerber, Berlin); In this Day and Age (with Nicola Neate) Kerber, Berlin and Romanitas, MuseumsEtc, Edinburgh.
