Output details

NEMETON. (Curated within ‘Window to the West: The Rediscovery of Highland Art’, City Art Centre, Edinburgh,19th November 2010 – 6th March 2011. Associated catalogue, ISBN: 978-0-9568242-0-2)

Shaw was part of the research team on the five-year ‘Window to the West’ AHRC funded research project led by Prof Murdo Macdonald. Nemeton exhibition and book represents Shaw’s main outputs for this project. Shaw’s work comprised the largest body of work by a single artist in the entire Window to the West exhibition.

Nemeton is an investigation of visual aspects of the Gaelic Otherworld, and is a collaborative exploration of relationships between landscape, epistemologies, and consciousness. A nemeton is a ‘sacred’ site, or a place that manifests or facilitates the interchange of ideas or states. The project addresses issues such as subjective/imaginative interpretations and how these relate to scholarly and popular/tourist definitions, the interpretation of historical data at these sites, and comparative elucidation between native and non-native interpretations. Research was place-led, and in relevant instances collaborative. Visits to particular sites, or journeys across specific landscapes, functioned as the focus for critical, reflective, and analytical work, which provided the basis for the work in the exhibition and the related publication. Results are visual (drawing, painting, photography, film), textual (critical and creative essays) and sonic (field recordings, songs). All research for Nemeton is contained in expanded form in the Nemeton book, edited by Shaw (ISBN: 978-0-9568242-0-2), 339 pages containing critical essays and images by Shaw (288 pages), Prof Murdo Macdonald (41 pages).