PROCESS | Remembering together fife
In 2022, Greenspace Scotland was given funding by the Scottish Government to initiate and commission artists in every local authority across Scotland to co-create something with communities to sensitively mark the pandemic. The Scotland-wide national project is called Remembering Together
I was privileged to be appointed the role of Lead Artist for Fife, and began a period of community engagement to discover what communities felt would resonate.
Following a period of extensive consultation, communities demonstrated their desire to forge something with a positive impact and legacy in response to acknowledging this difficult shared experience. They decided that the Fife element of the RT project should have a focus on investment in its people at its heart, specifically kickstarting our collective journey to wellbeing. This would provide a path to a positive legacy growing out of a shared trauma.
Communities focussed on the vital role Fife’s landscape played daily during lockdown and were keen to mark this period by co-creating something which celebrates our rich landscape, encouraging us to spend more time outdoors engaging with it. They noted barriers to accessing activities designed to boost our mental health and voiced their desire to overcome this.
Included in each gifted artwork of PROCESS:
PROCESS - Working camera obscura, housing the box contents
INLOOK - Handbound book, project overview
OUTLOOK - Handbound book, containing simplfied ‘how-to’ instructions
LIBRARY of LANDSCAPE | PROCESS - Botanical Inks from Fife’s Landscapes
FLORIOGRAPHY of FIFE | PROCESS - Flowers, retracing lockdown walks
CONNECT - Paint-Your-Own Postcards for creating botanical inks and anthotypes
ROOT - 8 organic wildflower seed packets & floriography meanings
Hidden compartment contaning: brushes, glass vials for storage, glass pipette dropper, cloves for preserving, shell palette/inkwell foraged along the Fife Coastal Path
Below are online copies of the two handbound books, INLOOK and OUTLOOK, contained within the boxed publication PROCESS, documenting Fife’s collaborative response to this project. INLOOK describes our collaborative journey, and OUTLOOK contains simplified ‘how-to’ instructions of some creative processes undertaken by individuals and community groups, with the hope that others will share in learning these mindful processes.
Each part of PROCESS has been carefully made by hand by the artist, with careful consideration given to each material used, with printing and production costs being carbon balanced. 500 copies of this boxed publication will be gifted across Fife to civic spaces including schools, colleges, libraries, community centres and collaboraters in early 2025, in addition to this digital publication being accessible online until 2030.
inlook & outlook:
(Please scroll through pages to access content)
inlook
An overview of the co-creation project across Fife 2022 - 2024
(500 copies Litho printed on hemp paper, handbound by the artist)
outlook
Recipes and a simplified ‘how-to’ guide to inspire further exploration into some of the processes explored during the co-creation project across Fife 2022 - 2024
(500 copies Litho printed on hemp paper, handbound by the artist)
library of landscape | botanical inks
(500 copies Litho printed on 100% hemp paper)
floriography OF fife | retracing lockdown walks
(500 copies Litho printed on 100% hemp paper)
connect
6 paint-your-own postcards, suitable for botancal inks & anthotypes, 100% cotton fibre
Glass vials to store botanical inks/photographic emulsions, cloves to preserve, brushes, glass pipette, a shell inkwell/palette (not pictured) foraged from along Fife’s Coastal Path
Root
Seed Wallet containing 8 organic wildflower varieties, printed on paper made from spent brewer’s grain.
Each packet will cover allow you to sow an area of 1sqm
(Paper seed packets & stickers100% biodegradable)
CREATING THE BOOKS
Once I had written INLOOK & OUTLOOK, the pages were Litho Printed onto beautiful paper made from hemp fibre.
For each book, I then needed to score and fold 64 pages by hand, attach the covers to the end pages, before finally gluing the remaining book pages together. Each book was then left to dry in my book press overnight.
Making 1000 copies of INLOOK and OUTLOOK by hand has been a real labour of love. Finally - 64,000 scores and folds later - the books are complete and ready to be gifted across Fife!