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Setting the fell on fire: Allenheads Contemporary Arts: art in a rural context

I was lead editor for this book, summarising the first ten years of projects at Allenheads Contemporary Art [ACA] in a Pennine village on the borders of Northumberland, Cumbria and Durham. I collected visual and archival materials, wrote an essay (4,427 words), commissioned the other two essays

by David Butler and Rob La Frenais, wrote the Section Introductions (3,000 words), all extended captions, and all end materials (references, biographies), and the introduction by Helen Ratcliffe and Alan Smith is based on an interview with me. The ACA project and the book examine contemporary art

practice in dialogue with a rural, natural environment and consider how a local framework for art can relate to global issues and audiences.

My essay addresses embodied consciousness in dynamic interaction with the natural environment it is immersed in, and considers new Romanticism in some contemporary art.

I worked at ACA from its inception, curating projects including residencies by Marcus Coates and London Fieldworks; workshops for emerging artists funded by an magazine, and with postgraduates from Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam. In 2011 I participated in ‘Parameter’: text published at http://

www.alansmith.org.uk/parameter.html

The book and my collaboration with ACA relates to my ongoing research on contemporary art projects in remote rural locations, focussing on future ecologies. In addition to River Runs (output 4), I am Associate Curator for Outlandia, an artists’ treehouse research studio in Glen Nevis, http://www.outlandia.com, funded by Scottish Arts Council, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lochaber Enterprise, currently being developed in collaboration with Forestry Commission, University of the Highlands and Islands, The Nevis Partnership. My conference presentations on

Outlandia include Highlands Visual Art Gathering, 2009; Fort William Mountain Festival, 2009; Scotland’s Wild Landscapes, University of the Highlands & Islands, Perth, 2010; Association of Art Historians Conference, University of Warwick, 2011.