Artists marking Covid pandemic

The five artists leading on Phase 2 of the Remembering Together national project have been working within their local communities to ‘co-create’ Covid community memorials across Scotland, marking the lasting impact of the pandemic.

Yunior Aguiar Perdomo, UHI Perth project lead explained: “We are working across our local Perth and Kinross communities to collaboratively create ‘Remembering Together’ memorials, reflecting on our experiences of Covid. We wish to honour the people we have lost, the losses and changes in our lives, while preserving the best of what we have learned and created together during the pandemic.

“It's a privilege to support the artists commissioned for this project, as they help us weave the threads of resilience and hope into the fabric of our local communities.”

Christiana Margiotti, UHI Perth Sector Development Director Creative and Cultural Industries added: “UHI Perth wished to lead this project because we believe that as an institution, we have a central role to play in the social and cultural capital of our region. In partnership with Perth & Kinross Council, local communities have been enabled to find healing, and in the celebration of lives lost through Covid, to find strength to move forward together."

Creative practitioner Helen McCrorie has been focussing upon a recording session within Strathearn’s Tpot Studios, starring pupils from Crieff High School. She said: “During the pandemic I worked on a virtual choir project sending messages of support to care homes in Strathearn. The videos were much appreciated by care home residents and staff and were also shared widely by the Strathearn community.

“Expanding on this, I’m bringing local people together in a cross-generational filmmaking project, weaving sound and song with local footage, to reflect on and celebrate features of the Strathearn community. Having lived in Strathearn for over 10 years, I am in awe of the great local work achieved by community groups and volunteers.”

The other selected artists are Helen O’Brien, Blairgowrie and Rattray; Alec Finlay, Pitlochry and Highland Perthshire; Gregor George, Perth City and Kristie De Garis, Kinross.

Remembering Together is a nationwide project funded by the Scottish Government and managed by greenspace Scotland following the pandemic. Within Perth and Kinross, it is being project managed by UHI Perth, Creative and Cultural Industries, and is based upon the theme of ‘reimagining the cairn’ as a symbol of collective commemoration.