We have been artists-in-residence with The Stove for five months and are now into the final month before our film and sound installation, HAME, opens on 2nd May as part of The Stove’s Open House series of events to mark the launch of 100 High Street.
HAME explores relationships with Dumfries and Galloway through the words of those who call it home. During our time working here, we have been very privileged to record conversations with over 45 people throughout D&G.
Guided by these conversations, we have gathered footage from around the area using our trusty Black Cab, chauffeured by the excellent Will Marshall. Our experience, perspectives, and knowledge of D&G have gradually evolved and transformed through these conversations and our own explorations.
We have been recalling when we first moved here from Glasgow, following the Sat Nav to our house, exploring our own street, and seeking directions to the shop. Journeys through the unfamiliar have gradually become dotted with reference points—places we’ve passed through, stopped to film, or interviewed someone. Names of towns and villages that previously floated in an imaginary space now slot into their geographical locations. Buildings, bridges, trees, and rivers that were once void of meaning now sprout stories and conjure images.
Through the process of filming and recording whilst journeying through the area, we have become more acutely aware of its rhythms and the interconnecting threads of feelings, memories, and knowledge of those living both within it and thinking about it from afar.
We have heard stories about everything, from ancient stone markings in Eggerness to hiding places at Annan Harbour, to recollections of a Palmerston football match in 1958. There have been childhood dens, daredevil antics, and trees that sprouted chocolate biscuits. Grub-collecting hotspots, smelly spots, and “J” spots. Bad corners, best views, secret beaches, and spooky ruins. Sunday mass in a chip shop, raves in a woodland, and the 2 am ‘accidental’ purchase of a stretch limo in a pub. We’ve learned how to appropriately pronounce ‘Kirkgunzeon’, ‘Caerlaverock’, and ‘Red Cola’, have finally worked out the parking system in Dumfries, and now know how to find anyone’s house in D&G (over the wee bridge, round the bend, and up the hill).
As ever, the more we explore, the more questions arise. Layers of perspectives overlap, clash, and muddle, and the more we realise how much we do not know. Yet, through this, a kinship and care have developed. And this seems to be the binding thread connecting everyone we have spoken to. Everyone, in one way or another, genuinely cares.
Perhaps what has most surprised us, though, is how the process of the last few months has changed our own perspectives so much that we now feel at home here ourselves and are on the lookout for a place to stay beyond the project (you know the place—over the wee bridge, round the bend, and up the hill?).
We hope you can make it along to the opening of HAME on 2nd May and look forward to seeing you there!
Emma & Mark Dalbeattie, March 2015
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