Living Barracks Portfolio

Portfolio of works

Living Barracks CDF Programme

A comprehensive portfolio of work can be accessed here


Machair (2022)
Gathering Seaweed South Uist
Gathering seaweed, South Uist. Photograph by Margaret Faye Shaw c. 1932.

This geolocative soundwalk explores the agricultural traditions and ecology of the Western Isles machair. A Gaelic word meaning fertile, low-lying grassy plain, machair is one of Europe’s rarest yet most species-rich habitats; only occurring on the exposed west-facing shores of Scotland and Ireland. Generations of low-intensity farming have shaped this unique living landscape and encouraged wildlife over millennia. Developed in partnership with the local community, this work combines spoken narratives, field recordings, and compositions with archival sound recordings from the University of Edinburgh School of Scottish Studies, that chart over 70-years of tradition. A stereo mix of the of the work is provided below.

Contemporary voices include crofters Alasdair MacEachen and Anne MacLennan, whose crofts have been in their families for generations. With a lifetime of crofting experience, both provide first-hand perspectives on working the machair and reflect on how crofting practices have changed in their lifetime. Environmental scientist Matt Topsfield provides insights into the machair’s formation, history, and ecology. Originally from Essex, Matt settled on Uist in 2010 as a project advisory officer for the EU-funded research project Machair Life. Towards the end of the walk, we hear from the next generation of crofters, namely brothers Freddie (aged 7) and Seoras (aged 4) MacDonald, who provide an excellent commentary on harvesting crops on the machair.

From the archive, we hear excerpts of Dr Emily Lyle’s 1977 interview with islanders Roderick MacKillop, John MacIver, Angus MacKenzie, and John Morrison. Through their conversation, insights are given into pre-war crofting practices, collecting seaweed and planting crops, where the absence of machinery required considerable manual labour. Despite the hard work, we learn that these practices were an important social event that brought communities together – as MacKillop exclaims, ‘it was a special day!’.

As a cultural landscape, the machair and crofting practices are a source of inspiration and are often cited in Gàidhlig music and song. As such, songs from the Western Isles feature throughout and help frame the structure of the walk, echoing the themes featured in spoken narratives. These include songs about homeland and crofting practices, such as Angus MacDonald’s rendition of ‘Eilean Uibhist Mo Rùin’ (My beloved island of Uist) recorded in 1982, and Nan MacKinnon singing the children’s song ‘Orra Bhonnagan a Ghaoil’ (Dear Orra Bonnagan) about lifting potatoes recorded in 1958. As we learn about seaweed, a 1973 recording of the waulking song ‘Mhòrag ‘s na Hòro-gheallaidh’ (Morag and the Promised) is heard that recounts a love story about a girl collecting seaweed. Light-hearted songs include a celebration of the humble potato, in the 1971 recording of Angus Fletcher singing ‘Am Buntàta ‘s an Sgadan’ (The Potato and Herring), and a selection of puirt à beul (mouth-music) dance tunes sung by Kenneth MacIver in 1959.

This work was commissioned by Dandelion and Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre, with funds from Event Scotland. Production team: Duncan MacLeod (composer), Mairi McFadyen (creative ethnologist), and Sorcha Monk (creative producer). Since its launch, Machair has been adapted for radio broadcast (Resonance FM & Radiophrenia), concert performance (GLEAM Festival), and nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for Best Sound Art. Press coverage of the work included BBC Alba, and Press & Journal. In Autumn 2024, the soundwalk was brought to Glasgow as part of the international music festival Nordic Music Days. An interactive map of the walk from the festival is provided below.

This project, along with Orasaigh, investigates the use of geolocative soundwalks to provide culture-led placemaking that opens up new avenues to investigate place, identity and community through sound. By engaging communities in the act of listening, the project aims to highlight the role of place in generating local identities, connecting people to their natural environment, and uniting communities in shared appreciation of their localities, culture and heritage.

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Orasaigh (2023)
Orasaigh beach
Orasaigh – photograph by Mike Faint (2023)

Orasaigh is a geolocative soundwalk developed in 2023 as part of the exhibition ‘Orasaigh‘, a collaboration between poet Steve Ely, photographer Michael Faint, and composer Duncan MacLeod. Commissioned by Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Arts Centre, the project draws upon the landscape around the tidal island of Orasaigh, located on the coast of South Uist at Boisdale.

Ely’s visionary poem, whilst always remaining anchored in the island, roams widely, exploring a range of themes related to Uist and the wider world – sea level rise, the crisis of the ‘sixth extinction’, history, culture, politics, conflict and class. Faint and MacLeod vividly capture the spirit of the place through their respective mediums, creating an independent yet complementary subjectivity.

As with Ely’s poem, the soundwalk is rooted in the landscape through the presence of soundscape compositions, utilising immersive field recordings captured on location. Elsewhere, material for bass clarinet and highland bagpipes, along with creative reimagining of archival sound recordings from Uist, draws upon the Isles’ rich musical heritage through Gaelic song and pibroch (an art music genre associated with the great Highland Bagpipe).

The work of the three artists combines and interacts to produce a uniquely evocative response to a rich and resonant landscape that affirms the vitality and resilience of the human spirit. The island itself becomes a dual symbol of precarity and hope in the crisis of the Anthropocene.

Mapped to a coastal walk around the island, this binaural work is structured around Ely’s narration of the poem with original compositions and soundscapes captured on location in surround sound.  This work was commissioned by Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre and is scheduled to be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 series Between the Ears in 2025 (45 minutes).

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The Metalization of a Dream
Photograph of City University Performance
Galvanize and Fretwork performing The Metalization of a Dream, City University London.

The Metalization of a Dream is an open-form composition that draws upon Queer arts practice and the DADA and surrealist-inspired collages of the visual artists Hannah Höch and Eduardo Paolozzi. As with Höch and Paolozzi’s practice, this work montages found objects such as John Taverner’s In Nomine and the writings of Gertrude Stein that are reimagined and juxtaposed with composed and indeterminate materials to form an equivocal sound world. This post-structural approach employs John Cage’s notion of the coexistence of dissimilars, where harmoniously blended elements are eschewed in favour of sonic juxtapositions ‘that fuse in the ear of the listener’ (1961, p.12). This non-linear collaging of materials drawn from different spatiotemporal situations reveals an Otherness that looks to access the subconscious, political, and absurd. 

Commissioned by Galvanize Ensemble. Premiered by Galvanize Ensemble and Fretwork at Newcastle Lit & Phil in February 2019 with funds from The RVW Trust, Arts Council of England, Britten Pears Foundation, and PRS Foundation (8-30 minutes in duration). An expanded version of the work was premiered in January 2021, as part of SOUND Music Festival, Aberdeen. To date, additional performances include Café OTO, City University Concert Series and several streamed events, namely nonclassical, NottNOISE New Music Marathon, and Lit & Phil Online. In November 2020, the work was the focus of a 1-hour radio broadcast on Resonance FM, that featured a pre-recorded performance of the work and interview.

Cage, J. (1961). Silence. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press.

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