A GIANT portrait of legendary Hamish Henderson is to be created from 4000 metres of jute on a Perthshire hillside. Work will begin tomorrow on the installation which will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the poet and visionary who was born in Blairgowrie.
The artwork, by Perthshire-based Martin McGuinness, has been inspired by portraits of Henderson by the great Scottish realist painter Alexander Moffat and will be created over a hectare of hillside at the Spittal of Glenshee.
It is expected to be completed just a few days before Henderson’s birthday on November 11 and will be removed by December 8 with the jute, a material that was central to the development of Blairgowrie, re-used as a geotextile.
The portrait called “come aa ye at hame wi Freedom” will be installed on the side of Bad an Loin and is part of the No Boundaries launch programme of the new Cateran Ecomuseum, a museum without walls.
The unveiling on November 11 will also see two other outdoor installations created to celebrate the 100th anniversary.
A light and sound installation called “poetry becomes people” will feature fragments of poetry written by Henderson, Perthshire poet Jim Mackintosh and local young people with whom he has been working, which will all be projection mapped onto the roof of Glenshee Kirk and on other large surfaces nearby.
The second, “the carrying stream”, is a light and sound installation by Dundee-based digital art studio Biome Collective made from fragments of sound recordings found, created and collected through a series of walks with young people in the area and fused with archival recordings of traditional song, poetry and spoken word.
The free event is co-produced by the Cateran Ecomuseum and Scotland’s only digital arts festival, NEoN with participation from youth groups AYP, CAYAG, DD8 and SCYD and financial support from funding from the Rural Perth and Kinross and Angus LEADER programme, Creative Scotland, the Cairngorms National Park, Perth and Kinross Council Rural Events and the SSE Drumderg Wind Farm community benefit fund.
Brought up to speak Gaelic, Henderson is recognised as one of the most brilliant Scots of his age. He spent his first five years at the Spittal of Glenshee, going on to be schooled in England at Dulwich College, and then at Downing College, Cambridge.
He is considered to be the most important Scots poet since Burns and was one of the founding fathers of Scotland’s 20th century folk renaissance, making more than 9000 recordings of working people.
A Communist, linguist, political activist and intellectual, he served as an intelligence officer in Europe and North Africa helping Jewish people escape Nazi Germany and was then involved with the peace movement, Anti-Apartheid and the campaign for Scottish Home Rule. He co-founded the School of Scottish Studies and wrote songs in addition to poetry, one of his most famous being the Freedom Come-All-Ye written in 1960 for peace marchers at Holy Loch.
Clare Cooper, co-founder of the Cateran Ecomuseum and co-producer of the No Boundaries programme, said she couldn’t wait to see what would be “an extraordinary and very powerful image.’’
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