A short film made on the Summer Solstice 2025, a provocation curated by Kel Portman. Sub titled, Walking an Orbit on the Longest and Shortest Day, I walked an anti-clockwise circuit in Granton, Edinburgh at dawn. It included a swim in the cauldron of the Firth of Forth, and an encounter with one of the Covid Memorial Trail sculptures by Skye Loneragan and Stewart Ennis.
Below: 10 walking artists celebrate the summer solstice:
‘Widdershins, A Witch’s Walk’ (short film) was my contribution. Widdershins, a spell for the Summer Solstice. Scots: Anticlockwise. Deosil, Gaelic: turn right, towards the sun, ‘May things go right’. A Witch’s Walk, contrariwise – Fox (tod) shapeshifter – Crow (corbie) familiar – Clootie – Mugwort – Ragwort – Wych Elm – Cauldron – Spoons for stirring. Song: The Witches Reel 1591. Sculpture: Skye Loneragan and Stewart Ennis. Location: ///only.voices.passes
Contributing artists: Claudia Zeiske, Janette Kerr, Jaqui Stearn, Kara-Louise Slattery, David Tidsall, Jaak Coetzer, Neil Greenhalgh, Martin P Eccles and Kel @kelarrowsmith
One of the portraits of members of the local community I met while walking the Granton Boundary Free postcard for residents, designed by Tamsin Grainger Detail, Personal Mapping. Textile work re. ‘My Body is My Map’ Hand drawn / painted map of Granton showing other-than-human inhabitants we live with One of the Walking Like a Tortoise events Showing members of the local youth club around the History Hub Walk Map, Granton, Edinburgh
I’ve been repairing my sound walk, No Birds Land, in the Trinity Tunnel of the Edinburgh cycle paths.
Tomorrow morning there’s a community walk along the Trinity Path where it’s situated and I’m going to say a bit about how I made it and why, play it to them, encourage participants to Stop and Listen to the Birds, and put the installation into the context of the tunnel, the old railway, and the history of the area.
It’s a wet and mucky job as the rain comes in and runs down the walls, bringing with it all sorts of minerals and deposits in a wonderful array of subtle and extreme colours. The there are the mosses and lichen, spiders and flies, and lots of tiny feathers embedded there too.
Mosses and minerals inside the Trinity Tunnel, Edinburgh The wet walls of the Trinity Tunnel, site of No Birds Land
As well as the pleasure of working in this environment and discovering the little messages and additions folk leave or add, it’s the interaction with the walkers, runners and cyclists I enjoy.
The first man stopped running and asked about what I was doing. He shared his experiences of going from light to darkness, activated the QR code, and thanked me.
Another woman kept running but called she called out, “That looks lovely!”
I offered a card to a couple of guys sheltering under umbrellas, who said “Yes please”. Then one said he’d already listened on a previous occasion and smiled.
Keith – he told me his name: – stopped and used the QR code (his son had told him about the ones along the Water of Leith). He asked me if it was the same sort of thing and I explained. “Nice to meet you”, he said, asking my name, and walked off, listening, so that my recorded Sound Poem rang out in the #trinitytunnel
A huge white, wet, fluffy dog barked and barked. I like to think he was v enthusiastic about No Birds Land as a work of public and activist art!
Sadly, someone has stolen the sign from the south end of the Trinity Tunnel #edinburgh Local graffiti on the opposite wall of the Trinity Tunnel, Edinburgh
If you’d like to join us, here are the details: Join the Drylaw Neighbourhood Monday Morning Walking Group and me for a tour on 28th July of the Trinity Path. You will learn about and listen to the No Birds Land soundwalk (funded by RSPB and Sustrans, shortlisted for a Sound Walk September Award) and Trinity area local history.
Either meet at Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre (DNC) at 10am (free return bus) or at the path entrance on Trinity Rd near the junction with Lower Granton Road. What3Words ///since.page.tells at 10.45am.
Ends approx. 12.15 at Trinity / back at DNC by 1pm.
Bring a pack lunch and drink if you like, plus something to sit on and keep you dry in the event of showers.
On May 5th, I joined Tom Jeffreys (organiser) Tiki Muir and Emily Cropton on the final day of a walk to raise awareness and funds for Palestinian families. Fundraising link
I made a flag to carry on the day.
The smile is in green, red and black, referencing the Palestinian flag
Jumana Emil Abboud
It features a quote from the artist, Jumana Emil Abboud (b. 1971, Shefa’amer) who is Palestinian. Her practice is grounded in her homeland’s cultural landscape and she draws on the traditions of folklore, myth-making and storytelling that once animated community life, particularly around times of family or community gathering, such as seed-sowing, water collection, or harvest. In her work, she uses drawing, installation, video and performance, often collaboratively, Exploring personal and collective memory and practices of sharing and re-telling as ways to address experiences of loss and longing, she highlighs the impacts of decades of dispossession and annexation. (adapted from the Campleline website where her work was shown in 2023.)
I seek out the presence of a woman; or perhaps it is she who seeks me out … I attempt to express her intimate voice. To copy the embroidered smile (or frown) of her soul; her womanhood.
Jumana Emil Abboud, from the catalogue to Story Time: an exhibition by artists living in Israel / Palestine. Institute of International Visual Arts, London: Arts Council England. Sherbany, Anna (1998).
Walking in solidarity with the people of Gaza
The shape of Gaza was transposed onto Edinburgh and Midlothian and a solidarity walk was planned around its outline. In total, 23 people walked at one stage or another. This was the second event, the first being in the Scottish Borders and the north of England in 2024. Then, £4000 was raised, and this time it is over £6000. Tom writes:
In placing one map on top of the other, the first thing you notice is how tiny Gaza is. 25 miles of coastline; a population of over 2 million people; bombed for nearly two years, with barely a pause for breath, and no possibility to hide or escape.
Tom Jeffreys (instagram @tom_jeffreys)
The group, Bonnyrigg
We walked and shared stories, poetry readings and more, remembering and celebrating artists and writers from Palestine (Mira Mattar, Hasib Hourani) who express what is happening on the ground, as well as in hearts, there. The event was moving and it was important to be doing it together, both for mutual support and to emphasise the impact.
A retrospective blog in the series about a virtual visit I made to Shetland in 2019. I had booked my ferry, planned my itinerary, and, most importantly, arranged a series of walks and talks with Shetland women on the theme of ‘A sense of belonging’. Then the lockdown happened.
NorthLink Ferries cancelled my ticket so as to keep residents safe, and I had to be creative. Happily, the women I was looking forward to meeting agreed to walk and chat with me by telephone and Zoom instead.
Kathryn Spence
Kathryn Spence (centre) and company, while working on ‘Just Dance’ shown at The Mareel, Lerwick, Shetland 2017
Kathryn Spence works for Shetland Arts as their Creative Projects Manager, as well as being a freelance artist, professional contemporary dancer and choreographer. She started by telling me about herself when we walked and talked together, she in Shetland and I in Kent, England. ‘There is quite a young community here on Shetland, though not in the Highlands of Scotland. Boys did apprenticeships (in the oil industry especially) straight after school, and many of the girls stayed to be with them.’
‘I didn’t know there was such a thing as being a dancer when I was young; there wasn’t that provision available. I was away for 12 years, in Glasgow, and then London to train. Then I worked in the Highlands with Plan B, and in Edinburgh where there are lots of opportunities to climb the ladder, but I kept in touch with my school friends every summer, and so when I returned ten years later I slotted back in.’
I’ve always known that I’m from here. It’s such a homely place, a community of all ages, and the landscape, the slow pace of life compared with other places I’ve lived; these are all reasons I’ve always known I wanted to come back.
Kathryn explained that living ‘in the country’ means living as part of a small and close-knit community. In Shetland, as in many other Scottish island communites I have visited (eg Orkney) people seem to depend on each other more than on the Mainland. She said that, in her opinion, it’s not even the same as living in the Highlands of Scotland, which are also sparsely populated. Her husband grew up there, on a farm near Invergordon, and therefore imagined they would be living in a secluded cottage when they moved to Shetland, far away from others, but in fact they are well connected. Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun and herself an islander (from Orkney) understands. She writes (in her review of Tamsin Calidas’ ‘I am An Island’) that ‘the reality of island life requires more interaction with, and support from, neighbours than anywhere else … it’s made of community and culture’ (The Spectator).
The Outrun book cover. Published by Canongate Books
‘A sense of belonging and a sense of community is instilled in us from a young age’ says Kathryn. ‘There are a lot of high profile celebrations and festivals (see below) which makes Shetland quite individual, and when you’re growing up you’re told that your dialect is different from anyone else, plus we are far away from everywhere in the middle of the North Sea, which is spoken about an awful lot, and so that is another thing to be quite proud of.’
Painting by Janette Kerr that is currently (May 2025) on the walls of the Kilmorack Gallery in Inverness-shire as part of her exhibition ‘Flow’. Janette lives and paints in Shetland.
Kathryn cites the landscape as contributing to her sense of belonging, as do the other Shetland women I spoke with. ‘I have lived in other very beautiful places, but I love the land here and I am drawn to it. What I like is the extreme: one minute you’re at the cliffs, the next at the beach, all condensed, closer. I think that all these things help to create a sense of community.’
Lerwick, the capital
Shetland / Lerwick Sumburgh (Airport) in the south
Kathryn works in Shetland’s capital, an 18 minute car commute from her home. ‘Lerwick is similar in size to Invergordon in the Highlands – a small Scottish port town and not much happens there – but there’s an awful lot happening in Lerwick. It’s partially because it’s a capital. Invergordon is near Inverness so it doesn’t have to have everything, but Lerwick is far away from everywhere else you do have to have everything.
It is very small, but convenient, and now we have the Mareel where bigger dance companies can come and perform which is great. If I want to spend a night there I can either get a bus and be dropped off at my doorstep at midnight (there’s a really good service in the south part of the island because of the airport in Sumburgh which is half an hour’s drive from Lerwick, or even take a taxi if it’s a special occassion, which is dear at £40, but that’s £20 each and down south it would be the same cost for much less distance.’ (Spoken in 2019).
The Mareel, taken from Wikipedia
We talked about people being flexible in order to be and stay in work all year round, another theme that came from my conversations. ‘That is something that comes from the islands – as soon as you put roots down anywhere you have to be prepared to be adaptable. I work in the arts and there’s just the one arts organisation here [Shetland Arts], so if I was to lose that income I would need to diversify.’ Consequently, she teaches some dance classes and has trained as a yoga teacher to help her stay fit – what with her choreography and this, she has quite a few strings to her bow! ‘It’s always about connecting with people through movement, the language of movement.’
Kathryn’s Shorestation Residency with sculptor Tony Humbleyard. Photo by Kathryn Spence
This was not the only fascinating conversation I’ve had with local women which covered the topics of ritual – celebrations like weddings, festivals and funerals (the latter, sadly, were very tricky during of the Coronavirus pandemic.) There was mention of long-standing traditions like the famous Up-Helly Aa Viking fire festival (in Lerwick and other sites across Shetland), but I won’t write much about that as there is a lot of information available on the internet. Suffice to say that some women were very keen ‘to be allowed’ to join in the all-male shindig back in 2019.
Up Helly Aa fire festival January 2025 Photo Janette Kerr
Update: In January 2024, the BBC’s Ken Banks reported that, ‘Shetland’s famous Up Helly Aa fire festival has seen the traditional dramatic burning of a replica Viking galley. For the first time in the event’s 143-year-old history, women and girls joined the main “squad” at the head of the torchlit procession through Lerwick. Up Helly Aa – the biggest fire festival in Europe – is held on the last Tuesday in January. The annual event sees people celebrate Shetland’s Norse heritage.’
Thank you to Kathryn for telling me about belonging in Shetland, and to Janette Kerr for giving me permission to use her photos. A separate blog will be dedicated to my upcoming visit and meet-up with Janette.
I will be in Shetland between 12-22 May 2025. Please let me know if you would like to do a Shiatsu / hospitality exchange. tamsingrainger.com
Walking without a donkey 