Taking the train from Aberdeen to Huntly was, at least to me, like embarking on adventure that lead from one end of the saturation spectrum to the other, the train being the slider on your scale. It was as if editing a grey and monotone picture into a vibrant and lively image. A fresh breath of air and stroke of fresh paint on a faded canvas.
Our class trips to Huntly Deveron Projects opened up many questions for me. Many of them to do with what I will call ‘artistic space’.
Deveron Projects have created a unique oasis of socially-engaged art projects and they have collaborated with artists from all corners of the world, tackling socially and politically relevant topics and issues.
Having done research on Huntly and the Deveron Projects for class, I had an overall sense of what to expect. Still, I was quite struck by the special atmosphere that seems to surround Huntly and I wondered: Where does an artistic space begin and where does it end? Huntly is, to my mind, undoubtedly an art space, but is Aberdeen? I would say not, at least not entirely and certainly not in the way that Huntly is. Now, if Aberdeen is not an art space but Huntly is, where is the line between the two? Is it a gradual shift from one to the other, or is there a line? Where does Deveron Projects, as an artistic space, begin and where does it end?
Another thought that came to me: do we behave and perceive differently when moving through an art space?
Upon arrival in Huntly the class was taken on a guided walk through town, exploring what ‘The Town is the Venue’ means. We were taken from one little shop to the next in order to admire pieces of art, which showcased previous art projects hosted by Deveron Projects.
While walking through Huntly with my classmates, I thought about the way in which we, a group of art students, were moving through the post-modern art gallery that is Huntly. We weren’t just taking a casual stroll through a random Scottish town. We were quite aware that the space we were moving through was an designated art space. To my mind, having been aware of this changed the way in which we moved through Huntly quite significantly.
For instance, some of us immediately took to Huntly and its art installations, simply because we were inspired by the concept of Deveron Projects, while others were perhaps slightly disillusioned by Huntly as an art gallery, as it did not meet the expectations of what some would expect from a ‘gallery’, in the more traditional sense of the word. Would we have perceived Huntly differently if we hadn’t been aware of this background?
Ultimately, I don’t have an answer to any of these questions. On the contrary, the more I think about Huntly and Deveron Projects the more questions I have. In that sense Huntly Deveron Projects have most certainly achieved one of their main objectives: to get people thinking about socially engaged art.
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