On Friday 29 November opened ArtMovesFife’year-end reflection/celebration at the St Andrews Botanic Garden featuring work by Fife-based artists from the 2024 ArtMovesFife programme. Running for three days, the programme included a mini exhibition, with artist talks, and workshops/showcases.
Gillian McFarland, one of our Collective Artists founded ArtMoves Fife along with artist Kate Downie, an initiative that started in 2023 and has gone from strength to strength over the last year.
ArtMovesFife is a collaborative artwork centred around collective journeys on foot, by bicycle, by bus, boat or train exploring all corners of Fife (not just the scenic bits). These local journeys have become the test bed for discussion, ideas and art-making for positive environmental change through creative engagement.
It places local artists at the centre of their communities as drivers for environmental improvement.
The recent moves have been “A to B, Station to Station” Aberlour to Burntisland
where the group followed the coastal path and railway line, and incorporated art-making, walking, and meeting local artists all with the goal of “attentiveness and noticing”: birds, passing ships, seals, trains, geology and everything else.
“A to B, Station to Station” was quickly followed by “We Are Sixty-Four!” St Andrews to Glenrothes (and back). Where participants were ask to join Gillian and Kate for a “hop on, hop off experience on the wiggliest, rattliest bus route in Fife—namely, the epic Moffat & Williamson No. 64” bus that plies between St Andrews and Glenrothes, taking in 14 towns and villages along the way. With stops in Strathkinness, Letham and Falkland for art-making, not to mention ArtMove actions on the bus itself!
We’re thrilled to be partners with ArtMovesFife and are incredibly proud of all the hard work Gillian and Kate have put in to making it a reality. We’re also delighted that the communities are linking and growing together as ArtMovesFifers join up in the Collective and Collective artists join in with the ArtMoves Initiatives.
Tansy Lee Moir, one of our Collective artists has recently been attending the journeys and has had work on display with the WayMarkers exhibition at the The Boilerhouse, St Andrews Botanic Garden, where her series of experimental charcoal prints ‘A to B, a coastal journey’ were on display.
We like ArtMovesFife have a keen interest in connecting people, place and planet, and look forward to continuing to explore our partnership… an ArtMoves event for Collective members perhaps… you’ll have to wait and see next year!
“I particularly enjoyed sitting quietly and drawing sounds, so have incorporated these quirky little marks into the images, along with other abstract charcoalyness suggesting the sounds and memories of the day.”
“I used the charcoal transfer technique I’ve been developing to layer, change and extend my markmaking for these works and the four drawings in sequence form a journey remembered in charcoal. I’m delighted they are joining the other artists’ work for the event and a huge thanks to Kate Downie and Gillian McFarland for their inspirational artistic leadership.”