Plans are now rapidly taking shape for stage 2 of the project.

Exhibition of the ‘Future Fossil Collection’   has now been allotted a perfect space within the fascinating Ullapool Museum, designed by Telford. Space has also been designated for the inclusion of the  beach litter ‘Timeline’ created by pupils of Achiltibuie Primary School upon which they will place their own birth dates and the objects they found on their beach. The exhibition will open at the beginning of May.

Beach Litter Investigation is now set to take place on Isle Martin the closest of the summer isles in Loch Broom thanks to the permission of the Isle Martin Trust. The Island was once inhabited and then a RSPB reserve before coming into ownership of the community. I am delighted to becoming their first ’artist in residence’. A big thank you to them. While in residence I will be mapping and investigating what I find on the islands westerly storm beaches over 10 days, I will be joined by pupils from Ullapool High School on 2 of the days. After the surveying and mapping I will be collecting the litter into different material categories from which I will be make my litter rafts.

Recycling Journey with the help of skiff rowers (with a few of whom I recently ventured out onto the loch with) I am looking to tow the litter rafts to Ardmair Slipway for collection by the Highland Council recycling team. My aim is to document the journey of each of the rafts through the waste services – for recycling or not.

This second stage of the project is being funded through Crowd Funding and private sponsors as Creative Scotland unfortunately declined funding for this stage of the project even though it ‘understands the importance of the ideas contained in the littoral project and is aware of your ambition to bring those ideas to a wider public through your artistic work. Your proposal was considered to have met all of the fund criteria and would be an interesting project and follow up to the research and development that was supported by CS. However extreme over-subscription of the budget meant other applications were prioritised. It has therefore not been possible to support your project on this occasion. The total request for this round of funding was £5.3million with a budget of £1.1million.’

Creative Scotland has encouraged me to apply again, which I will of course do for the next stage of the project, but for now I am focusing on setting up and running the project activities above. As a consequence of the short fall in funding I will be asking for as much support as possible from the Ullapool community and my sponsors. Many thanks in advance!