Breathing With the Camera: A portrait of Orkney through experimental films

The outward representation of the Orkney archipelago, around 10 miles off the north coast of Scotland, is mainly predicated on scenic imagery, of standing stones and other archaeological settlements, sea cliffs and wild seas, fishing boats in harbour townscapes, expansive beaches with turquoise waters, all playing a prominent role in projecting a sense of ‘islandness’. Yet, this representation lacks cultural depth, using landscape as a setting based on objectified and disengaged tropes, of the ancient past, remote or wild places, or insular communities. In contrast, Orkney based artists working with film allow us to emerge into a sense of place charged by cultural, experiential and ecological qualities. In their work we see tired tropes of landscape replaced with creatively charged expressions of the island as a relational place. Across this study, the evaluation of these artists’ films is framed through a set of relational qualities, the island as a situated, imagined, sensed, ambient and resourceful place, ultimately being a constructed place where filmmaking and island life merge.