Artwork will tell the story of the Galson Estate

Virginia Hutchison from Lewis will work with Urras Oighreachd Ghabhsainn (Galson Estate Trust) on the Isle of Lewis.

Virginia will create an installation in the form of waymarkers representing personal and collective conversations about the community ownership of the estate.

She said: “Countering a fractious history of private landownership in Scotland, community landowners like Urras Oighreachd Ghabhsainn have embarked on a strategic programme of development that involves the whole community in the processes of decision making.

“I’m delighted to be collaborating with the Urras to find creative methods of recounting the collective experiences of the buyout and the events that led up to it.

“How this narrative is developed alongside the Stove Network and Community Land Scotland, will be invaluable to the development of the Urras and to other communities who are about to embark on the process.”

The Galson Estate is community owned – some 56,000 acres of coast, agricultural land and moor in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. It comprises 22 villages with a population of nearly 2,000 people.

The estate passed into community ownership in 2007 to be managed on their behalf by the Trust.

Artists and Community Landowners aims to raise awareness of community landownership both to communities and to Scotland by taking new approaches to telling the stories of post purchase community landowners, and the wider story of community ownership across Scotland.

This project will explore what happens when a community takes ownership of an estate, woodland or urban farm and how that affects the community itself and its relationship the land.

Linsay Chalmers, development manager at Community Land Scotland, said: “We are bringing artists and community landowners together to work collaboratively over a period of four months finding creative and active ways to hear, learn and share their stories.”

“The relationship between people and the land inspired Scottish artists and musicians for hundreds of years, but the story of modern community landownership is yet to be fully explored. We wanted to work with artists to tell this important part of Scotland’s modern history“

“We hope the project will ultimately culminate in an exhibition of their works for everyone to see.”