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Place & Memory: Stage Two

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Between February and June Catherine MacPhee (from Highland Archives) and I organised reminiscence events in Dunvegan, Breakish, Edinbane, Glendale, Braes, Sleat, Kilmuir, Waternish and Plockton (Staffin, Kyle and Raasay have gone silent since initial contact but hopefully we’ll get them back involved soon). The aim was not nostalgia or therapy or fund-raising, but a way of getting people back into their community spaces without agenda or any great strategy beyond using a public resource and helping that resource to thrive again.

Many hadn’t been in their local hall for years. Some had previously been regular attendees prevented by the pandemic, but many had simply fallen out of the loop, gradually persuaded by a shifting social landscape that these community spaces weren’t relevant to them or that they were some how no longer welcome. There is a perception in some areas that the village hall is merely a hobby for committee members, something to be looked after rather than shared around, the entry barred by gate keepers, no longer somewhere to gather at a moment’s notice or lit up by the warmth of spontaneity.

But these beliefs are so often baseless, drawn from miscommunication or presumption, inferred from a world where familiar things are gradually eroded. These halls are there, they exist and they are for everyone. And they are mostly all water tight and sometimes even warm.

The emphasis on memory in this project has not been because there is something intrinsically old fashioned about a community hall. There is a big difference between out of date and timeless. These structures take on the shape and colour of the people that use them, they reflect and reinforce us. Memory is just something we all have in common, so where better to start when searching for common ground.

So for the next stage of this collaboration with the Archive Centre, we will be returning to each hall for tailored events based on what people have expressed an interest in or what themes people were particularly enthusiastic about. In some cases this may have nothing to do with stories or archives but it all ties in with community and shared experience.

More information on upcoming Summer and Autumn events will be announced here in the coming weeks and through SEALL’s social media.

Stage One Update

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Catherine and I have now held Place & Memory events in Dunvegan, Glendale, Edinbane, Skeabost, Braes, Breakish, Sleat, Kilmuir and Waternish, with only Plockton and Staffin left to go out of the halls that responded to our project pitch.

As stage one of this initiative nears completion I thought I’d write a few initial thoughts in response to the events. As an incomer to the area I’ve always been sensitive to the possibility of people thinking I might be barging my way into things and throwing my weight around blindly. I felt it was important that this project be centred on the communities involved rather than any imported agenda that I brought with me based on my own creative leanings – so whilst the project end goal is an album of new material written by me and local musicians, the unifying thread running through the whole thing is community. Specific communities, not just the general amorphous theme of COMMUNITY that can be interpreted in any way that suits an artist’s vision or political ambition or funding application tick-box. People, basically. Real people.

So I’m thrilled that the local response to these events has been so warm. All have been different, as different as the individuals that attend, but all share a positivity ranging from a joy in common experiences, to finding shared connections, or just being able to get out and see people again. We’ve had all ages, from children in single figures to their grandparents and great grandparents. Politicians have attended, historians, academics, casual grazers popping in out of curiosity, tourists, new inhabitants, long-established families and local legends.

The biggest challenge wasn’t in the content or logistics of these sessions, but in building back those social muscles so many of us have felt wither over two years of pandemic. But this can be an advantage – we don’t need to mimic familiar occasions or fit into existing expectations, after all we are primarily asking what people want from their public spaces, local history and memory just seemed like the best way into a conversation. So we deliberately left these events quite unstructured, no lecture or itinerary, no opening speech or provocation or leading questions. No scripts. No projected outcomes. Just people.

This can feel a little unsettling at first. Some committees were a bit dubious.
“So people are just going to come into the hall and talk to each other?”
“Not just talk, they’ll drink tea and eat cake as well”

Some hall organisers seemed quite anxious about the lack of structure. Many of these buildings have become event spaces in a very specific way, rather than community hubs. They’ve drifted away from being public property and are now more like venues – there is either an event or there is no event, rarely anything in between. A lot of people no longer feel like their village hall is somewhere they belong. It’s no one’s fault, just a side effect of the way society at large has shifted over the years. But belonging is absolutely vital to community. I’m certainly not saying we should put an end to structured events (my career wouldn’t have amounted to much without them) but they can be a turn-off to some. At almost every event we encountered at least one person who told us they hadn’t been to the hall in years, that they didn’t think it was for them anymore. Those who want to go to a concert or a dance or a play will always go, but those who just want people, conversation, a space they can share in, a place where they can gather – where do they go?

We felt it was important not to push anyone into anything, after all this project is as much to do with listening as it is speaking, more so if anything. We had exhibition boards with photos and documents curated for each location. “Is there a particular order to look at them in?” asked one person, “no, you don’t have to look at them at all if you don’t want to” we replied. The boards were just an excuse, something resembling formality to lend a little credibility for the benefit of any doubters. The conversations were the interesting part and it wasn’t long before the stories were flowing, people finding connections between each other they didn’t know or had forgotten existed, blood ties and shared experiences, old school anecdotes, stories passed down through the generations dating back to the clearances and beyond.

But it was the little details I enjoyed most…
“There used to be a dance here twice a week. The floor sloped in those days and often as not we’d all end up in a pile at one end.”
“Neighbouring villages used to call us The Seagulls because we were always first down to the fishing boats when they came in.”
“There were snakes back then… where did all the snakes go?”

We’re now approaching the end of the initial stage of this and have tentatively begun putting these fragments into some sort of order, not telling anyone’s stories specifically but rather reflecting them through a frosted glass. I’m looking forward to formalising the music with collaborators and seeing what comes out of all this.
Something tells me it’s just going to be the start of a bigger conversation!

Neach An Taighe – General Press Release

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Memory, history, creativity and community: Creative Scotland’s Culture Collective backs ambitious new project to celebrate village halls in Skye & Lochalsh.

Culture Collective is a Scotland-wide initiative designed to stimulate and rebuild local and independent arts programmes after the debilitating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Aiseirigh is a group of multi-disciplinary artists assembled by arts promoter SEALL to head up the Skye, Raasay and Lochalsh division of this year-long endeavour, focusing on education, music, visual arts, storytelling, nature and community engagement.

Part of this is the Neach An Taighe project aiming to celebrate community spaces, not only in their capacity as venues for events but as places where people can gather – gather both as a noun and as a verb – a gathering of individuals, gathering experiences, relationships, talents, stories… It is this theme of gathering that sits at the heart of the project.

Aiseirigh‘s Louis Barabbas (a Dunvegan-based songwriter and retained firefighter) has teamed up with Highland Archive Services’ Catherine MacPhee to organise a series of free local history and reminiscence events in village halls across the region, using pictures and materials from the archives to stimulate discussions about place and memory where attendees are also encouraged to bring their own photos and tell their own stories.

But remembering is just the beginning. In response to these shared memories, Louis will collaborate with Skye musicians Iseabail Strachan and Angus Mackenzie to write a collection of new songs and instrumentals inspired by local stories of life in the area. These songs will then be recorded at pop-up studio sessions in those same village halls using local musicians. Everyone will be welcome to watch as the tracks are put together, even join in if they wish.

Once all the sessions have happened and the album is complete there will be a further series of events to mark the record’s release featuring live music and a screening of the accompanying making-of documentary.

“We want to create something that really shows off the versatility of these places” says Louis, “where the hall itself is a feature not just a location. By the end of the year we will hopefully have something that is not only influenced, assembled and exhibited in these spaces but also intrinsically about these spaces, about community and shared experience, a collaborative record that is inspired by conversations and hopefully sparks more conversations in turn.”

The events will span 2022, aptly designated “Scotlands Year Of Stories”, with the local memory sessions scheduled for late Winter and Spring, music recording happening over the Summer and early Autumn and the album launch events pencilled in for the end of the year.

All the events are free to attend and everyone is welcome. If you are a musician, storyteller, historian, videographer or sound technician that would like to get involved, or are just generally interested in the project you can get in touch with Louis via louisbarabbas.com or Catherine via Portree Archive Centre.

Songwriters’ Circle

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My background is in songwriting, both for myself as a singer-songwriter and for other artists. Since my band the Bedlam Six split in 2016 I have been mostly writing for theatre commissions rather than personal pleasure. It wasn’t until I stopped performing live that I realised how lucky I’d been in having an immediate outlet for my work – I’d write a song and had the option of performing it whenever I liked. During the pandemic almost all live performance instantly stopped, leaving songwriters with nowhere to air their work, bringing home the everyday reality of non-performing songwriters – that all this material has nowhere to go. Songwriting is such a therapeutic form of self-expression but the composition is only half of it, often the sharing is key!

With that in mind I looked around to see if there was anywhere I could go to try out new work or help others develop theirs. There is a brilliant folk club at the village hall in Breakish and a well respected regular session at the Old Inn in Carbost, but many of the established music nights around Skye and Lochalsh have been chased off by the changing priorities of the hospitality sector and a lot of the others have yet to recover their contributors post-lockdown (though hopefully this will change with time). 

In an attempt to plug some of the gaps I have set up two free monthly get-togethers for songwriters of all abilities: one in Dunvegan Hall on the first Tuesday of each month and one in Kilmuir Hall on the second (though dates can be subject to change – check the FB pages for updates). These are designed to provide a safe non-judgemental space for people to share work and pick up constructive advice, not to mention an excuse to meet up with like-minded people after a lot of enforced isolation!

Back to Louis Barabbas page

Neach An Taighe – First thoughts after initial hall meetings

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I spent my first couple of months in the Neach An Taighe roll speaking to hall representivitives, curators and committees to get a sense of what was already happening in community spaces and what people would like to happen. Once I’d spoken to everyone that had an interest in participating I wrote some initial thoughts to get people up to speed and spark more conversation. The paragraphs below are that letter… 

At the beginning of this venture there was no clear plan, just a general sense of intent. There is still no official itinerary in place, but as more hall representatives talk about their thoughts and wishes, the needs and attitudes of their communities, plus how their halls navigated the problems of the 2020 lockdowns, some ideas have begun to solidify. Conversations with hall committees and curators across the region have shown what a diverse range of activities these spaces already enable. Some buildings are used almost constantly, others not as much as many would like. There is no single event that works everywhere, but we are keen for as many halls to be a part of this celebration as possible. 

Many people, both among the halls’ representatives and in the communities that surround them, are still uneasy about large in-person events (particularly as covid cases threaten to rise). There has been much discussion about filmed and recorded sessions, not only as a way to keep the halls in use without relying on dances and live events, but also as a social archiving resource and a method of regularly engaging with communities online. Some have suggested that professionally filming music sessions, creative projects, personal stories, local history, folk tales, poetry and general snippets of life could be an effective way of bringing together all the region’s activities in one place as a kind of cultural snapshot – possibly presented as a feature length film, video series, exhibition or website. Hopefully such an assemblage would then go on to inspire further activities in turn. Some halls are already filming music sessions and uploading them to social media (one has even offered to help other halls build similar set-ups so they can do the same), it would be brilliant to grow a collection of material (not just music, but all sorts of activities) that spans the whole region, something that can be continually added to in years to come, shining a spotlight on the community halls that make these moments happen, reminding people what is available to them. 

Projects such as these often have a blind spot when it comes to non-performers though. Concerts, ceilidhs and open mic nights are relatively easy to organise but leave a lot of people out. We are really keen to connect with non-musicians and non-artists to find ways of engaging with as many parts of the community as possible. This could be by recruiting people to help organise an event, operate a camera, make food, offer up a story or write something for someone else to read/play. Or it could be something deeper behind the scenes, such as creating backdrops, decorations or stages, or even helping to alter the way sound behaves in the various spaces. 

For one subject that has come up multiple times is acoustics. Some rooms have a real issue with reverb, making social events difficult (particularly for people with hearing problems – a lively room can really mess with a hearing aid). A question worth considering is, if funding were secured for materials, would there be an appetite for organised sessions wherein people could come together and build acoustic treatment for their local hall (eg baffle boards – wooden frames containing insulating material covered over in fabric attached to the walls at strategic points)? This could be a way of practically integrating DIY activities common in schemes like The Men’s Shed with wider community events and arts groups; as an added bonus it could act as an informal way of sharing experiences and stories. And to stretch the local theme further some have suggested it could be possible to use treated local wool as the insulation material, connecting yet another aspect of life in this part of the country. Whatever the specifics, an undertaking of this sort could be a way of uniting several strands of the community, simultaneously improving the sound quality of future live events as well as encouraging people to invest time, skills and energy in their local gathering space. 

These are some of the topics, ideas and proposals that have surfaced since the project began. They are not exhaustive by any means. There are still lots of people to talk to, lots of opinions to hear. Not everything will work, but it’s all worth talking about. I hope no one will feel left out and that we can all benefit in some way from this initiative. 

Back to Louis Barabbas page