HJALTLAND: THE BUILDINGS OF SCALLOWAY

Exhibition: Tue 22 June – Sun 2 August
Private View: Tue 22 June
Lecture: Wed 23 June
Workshop: Thur 1 July

Scalloway is the second largest settlement on the Shetland Islands, with a population of 1000. Its buildings reflect its dramatic position in a bleak landscape of water and fractured landforms, and its rich social history, fluctuating between periods of prosperity and decline. Scalloway’s close ties with an unstable fishing industry are evident in the architecture, which ranges from the grandiose to the makeshift.

Bristol-based Artic (visual artist Reuben Knutson and musician Pete Judge) spent the whole of March 2004 in Scalloway, thanks to the Shetland Arts Trust, recording their responses to its buildings in images and sounds.

Their work highlights the interactions between the buildings themselves and their occupants and visitors, contrasting the public and the personal, and the exterior with interior (visually and sonically). It also explores the physical nature of the buildings, from their construction to daily usage, and how memories and identities are played out on those materials.

The ‘hjaltland’ exhibition brings a uniquely atmospheric place to the Architecture Centre, in the form of digital video, still images, text, and soundclips.

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