Photographer Joan Wilcock in Kyleakin, c 1950s (SL/D110)
(Above: Tana (Catriona) Finlayson pictured in Kyleakin, 1964. Photograph by Joan Wilcock, SL/D110/8/12)
Over the past year, the Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre has been working on a collaborative project with ATLAS Arts and the Kyleakin Local History Society to explore the Joan Wilcock Photographic Collection. The collection of over four hundred 35 mm slides was created by amateur photographer Joan Wilcock (1895-1994) during her regular holidays in Skye from the late 1950s to the 1970s. Miss Wilcock was born in Manchester and lived latterly at Alderley Edge in Cheshire. ‘Travelling the Archive’ has been led by artist Nicky Bird, who used the Joan Wilcock Collection as a catalyst to explore people’s memories of Kyleakin in the 1960s and 70s.
The research phase is now complete and the project will be launched with an event in Kyleakin on Saturday 19 March. The programme begins at 3pm and includes a talk, an exhibition and a memory walk around Kyleakin.
Nicky Bird has distilled the images and the memories she has been gathering to create a night-time outdoor exhibition for the opening event. A selection of the images will be installed and projected onto buildings, windows and the water in the locations in which the original photographs were taken. A souvenir booklet has also been created showing the original images alongside a present-day photograph taken in the same place. The booklet is presented in the style of a guide to Kyleakin that was available in the village in the 1960s.
For more information on the programme contact ATLAS Arts project Coordinator Rosie Somerville on 01478 611143 or check the ATLAS website. A taster of some of Nicky Bird’s work for the project is also available here.
