The Dwelling Place

This haunting portrait of the Scottish Isles looks at the effect of Lord Leverhulme’s failed industrialization of the Outer Hebrides, and the communities left behind by the march towards progress and reverence of capital. Spread across two rooms in the basement of Summerhall is a reconstruction of some of the vacant houses, left intact, which performers Jamie and Lewis Wardrop encountered on a creative expedition. At various intervals, the brothers draw us in to tell stories or play the fiddle, inviting us to sit around the projected flicker of a filmed fireplace.

Great care and attention is given to the subject matter, but as an installation it’s a little over-engineered and under-developed. We’re invited to walk around the space to curate our own experience, and although initially this recaptures something of the makers’ own journey, it quickly feels limited: when we’re left alone there’s little to look at beyond projections of the waves and documentary shots of houses in disrepair.

The narration also tends towards the misty-eyed and sentimental, and can feel strangely cut-off from its audience – the best moments are when we’re asked questions or to participate in some way, and the piece feels like it could benefit from more of this sense of community and connection.

There’s love and anger behind the making of this project, and at times a more understated approach inspires real reflection on the devastating fallout of the land clearances and wrong-headed environmental havoc wreaked by the early twentieth-century industrialists.