The project was led by artist Jack Ky Tan, whose aim was to investigate whether contemporary visual arts in Western Dumfries and Galloway had the potential of being developed, by exploring what was needed to support it and whether there is an audience for it in the area. To do this, space and opportunity for six artists – seven in total, including Jack – to connect was provided. The group would meet eight times over a year-long period and would support and develop contemporary artwork alongside each other, having the opportunity to showcase together in two short work-in-progress (WIP) shows and a larger show of finished work.

The group consisted of local artists Anne Waggot Knott, Del Whitticase, Frances Ross, Hope London, Sarah Stewart, and me– make sure to check them all out, because they are all extremely talented and passionate about their work!

ROAM Meeting Sign

Now that I have told you about the project itself, I want to talk about my experience being involved in the project – of course, these are my thoughts. I don’t speak for anyone in the group.

I was in a bad place before I applied to ROAM (West). The year was very overwhelming, and I was struggling to feel motivated, I wasn’t enjoying photography anymore. I had seen the project advertised beforehand and had already made my mind up about not applying. However, after I received an email, explaining the project and being told that I would be a good fit, I applied. I was extremely nervous about the first meeting, I had no idea who the other artists were, and the thought of having to commit to the project, and create work was a bit daunting.

The first meeting was 8th of November 2022, and it was more of a “Get to know”, and “What to expect”, meeting. Each artist brought in a piece of work that represented them as an artist, so I decided to bring in my portfolio. While the group flicked through the images, I introduced myself and spoke about the meaning behind my work. The rest of the meeting we discussed what the project timeline looked like and what was expected from us. On my way home, I felt better about the project and thought all the artists involved were great, I even felt inspired by some of the work. Great meeting! However, I couldn’t help but feel like I didn’t belong in the group. I didn’t exactly know what “Contemporary art”, was and I struggled to see my work fitting with the group.

Before our second meeting, Upland wanted to announce the project and each artist, so we each had to write a small biography about ourselves and what we hoped to get out of the project. We also decided that it was a good idea to have the second meeting right before the pop-up exhibition to discuss how it was going to look. When the day of the second meeting arrived, I was still really doubting myself, especially after explaining the work I was planning to show – I was adamant that my work didn’t belong in a contemporary show. The rest of the week I kept asking myself “Why am I even doing this? This [photography] isn’t what I want to do anymore.” I’m going to leave after the pop-up exhibition.

The day of the pop-up show arrived, and I was feeling slightly apprehensive – I was worried people would question why my work was in a contemporary show. The work I decided to show was a piece of work that I made throughout 2022. I titled it white horses and it was a reflective piece that focused on depression – the depression I had been dealing with throughout the year. (I will write a post dedicated to that project, where I will go into more detail). The group met early that day to get set up. We each presented our work – for the first time and discussed how it would be showcased. I started to feel better after this because the group could see the work and understand it better rather than trying to visualise it. But also, there were similar themes within each of our work and this helped me believe in myself a bit more – my work does work with everyone else’s, I do belong in this group. The pop-up show was a complete success, we received positive feedback and those who were invited were interested in what was going to happen next.

white horses ROAM (West) pop-up exhibition

The next couple of weeks I was feeling positive about the whole project and working on what I would showcase for our WIP show.

A couple of months before the project started, I was listening to Cheesy Hits on Spotify with my fiancé – judging the songs they classified as cheesy hits, because they were bops. When the song “Country Roads” by Hermes House Band started playing. I mentioned the fact that that song always makes me sad – which is ironic since it’s a song that’s always played at parties – because I feel as though I don’t belong anywhere, and it always reminds me of that. I couldn’t sleep that night thinking about it when a project idea came to me Country Roads, a working title.

I decided that this idea would be that I exhibited at the WIP show and the final show – but how could I develop it? Since I was in a positive mindset, it was easy for ideas to come and flow, I had already decided that I wanted to make this work slightly different – this was supposed to be a contemporary art exhibition and I felt like only having some images wouldn’t work. I was trying to think how I could showcase the work for the WIP show when I had a great idea. I would split the project in two – one half would focus on the rural-ness of Dumfries and Galloway and the other half would focus on my hometown, Milton Keynes (MK). (Again, I will have a written piece about this project, so I won’t go into too much detail). I made a presentation with plans to show it to the group at the meeting.

However, not even two weeks after our pop-up exhibition I received devasting family news that would halt my progress and make me question whether to stay on the project. The next meeting wasn’t until the end of March, so I still had a few weeks to come to terms with the news and make my decision. I struggled trying to continue going about life as normal and I wasn’t quite ready to go to the meeting, so I let Jack know that I wouldn’t be able to make it. I honestly thought I was going to leave the project. However, after some positive news, I started to feel like I could continue with life a bit better, without feeling as guilty, and so I decided to stay on the project. I am glad I waited a while before making my decision because the project did help take my mind off everything else.

The next meeting the group went looking for exhibition locations. As the entire project was focused on rural art, it made sense to have an outdoor exhibition, even if this was a bit scary for some, it was something I had previously thought about, so I was excited. We went to three different locations, Kilsture Forest, RSPB Crook of Baldoon, and Carsegowan. Kilsture Forest was a beautiful location and I made sure to take a lot of photos so that I could try and connect with the area. RSPB Crook of Baldoon was too open and not ideal. Carsegowan was amazing! I instantly felt a connection to the area, and I thought that it would be the perfect location to showcase my project. We all met at Bladnoch Distillery to discuss each area, and the group all seemed keen to have it at Carsegowan but there were some obstacles we would need to clear first, such as permission. After talking some more, it became apparent that Carsegowan would not work, a lot of work would need to be done and it wasn’t achievable in the time we had. This conclusion was very disappointing to me. I could visualise an amazing exhibition here, surrounded by buildings claimed back by nature, hidden and beautiful. But alas, it wasn’t to be. Kilsture Forest it was.

Kilsture Forest, RSPB Crook of Baldoon and Carsegowan

While I continued to develop my project idea for the WIP show, discussions about the show started to happen and things changed. We went from having something like the pop-up exhibition to having talks about making the show a public program, with panels, and I was terrified about the idea. When we first spoke about the project, it was mentioned we would have a WIP show, and I felt like the project had shifted in a different direction – one I wasn’t comfortable with. If that had been mentioned in the project proposal before I applied, then I wouldn’t be a part of the project.

However, after voicing my concerns, I was reassured that I didn’t have to participate in the event if I didn’t want to, I could sit in the audience instead, and this helped me feel slightly better. It wasn’t until our next meeting that I found out that others in the group weren’t too confident with the idea either and this helped me a lot. It was reiterated that we didn’t have to participate in the discussion, and we could just introduce ourselves and our work and/or we could join the discussion later if we wanted.

A roundtable event was the chosen output for the event, and this allowed the audience to join the table give their input and leave when they felt like they had said their piece – there was no pressure for anyone to be at the table. July 15th, 2023, the day of the event had arrived, and I was extremely nervous. Although I planned on leaving the table once I had introduced myself, I still wasn’t confident talking about my work – what if I messed up badly and no one had any idea what I was talking about? But I survived! And I didn’t leave the table, although this was because a lot of the group left, so I felt like I couldn’t leave. Instead, I stayed and joined in with the discussions and once the event was finished, I spoke to some of the people who came – something I didn’t expect to do. After the event, I felt positive about the whole situation, and I was proud of myself for participating.

Roundtable Event. Image by Amy Marletta.

After the roundtable event had finished, we had what was our last meeting before the exhibition, where we confirmed our final exhibition projects – at this point, I already had the biggest part of my project finished. Things that I still needed to do included: editing rural images, getting images printed, destroying images, an artist statement, choosing my exact location, and installing work. I made sure to photograph locations throughout the year so, I had more than enough images to go through. As I continued working through my images, the group hit a bit of a bump. I won’t go into it too much, but there was an important question that we had to discuss and depending on the outcome, decided the entire project. A Zoom meeting was set up and we each spoke about how we wanted to handle the situation – whether to cancel the exhibition, make it invite-only, or continue as before. This situation halted progress slightly because we weren’t sure what was going to happen. I knew that if the exhibition were changed to invite-only I wouldn’t participate. For me, one of the benefits of being a part of this project is having a wider audience view my work, it’s something I rely on. People in my circle aren’t exactly interested in the arts, so it can be difficult trying to persuade them to come along to these events and if the event had shifted to invite-only, I wouldn’t have anyone there to see my work. Thankfully, the consensus was to continue as normal, however, only if the situation was addressed and people were aware of the artists’ passion for the project.

I confirmed my location with Anne, who kindly offered to make zine maps for visitors. I finished up my editing and selected twenty-four images to send to print. I then started to write my artist statement – if there’s one thing I hate, it’s writing an artist statement. I looked through some of the other statements that were finished, for some inspiration, but they were all so different that I decided to go with the flow. I knew I wanted it to have all the information about the project but be easy to read and understand. While I’m not very confident at public speaking – or speaking in general – I am quite good at writing about how I feel – being able to think and re-word something if it doesn’t sound quite right makes everything much easier – and that’s how I ended up with my artist statement, it was just a personal and honest piece of writing. I thought that that would be the best way for people to understand my project. Once I had finished my statement, I sent it off to Jack so that he could proofread it and make any necessary changes to help make all the statements cohesive.

Exact location

My images arrived with more than enough time to get them ready for installation. The only problem was I still didn’t know how I was going to install them. Remember when I mentioned how I’d thought about an outdoor exhibition before, well, I never thought about how I would ever install the work, just the idea of an outdoor exhibition. Wednesday, two days before installation day and I was still uncertain how I was going to show my work, until that night. I could not sleep; I was too busy worrying about my work when suddenly I had a thought. I would secure my rural images around two trees using fishing wire and have the images hang down in two groups of six, like a windchime, to help create that movement I lost by not doing my short film, – originally I had planned on creating a short video documenting the destruction of the work, however, the filming didn’t go according to plan and since the exhibition was being advertised as WIP, I decided not to waste time trying to make a video that I wouldn’t be happy with and instead do this at a later date – I would also have a deck chair looking at the trees, with a small bin to place some of the MK images and the rest would be scattered around like litter.

Now I finally knew how to install my work; I began preparing my images for installation. I decided to tear twelve images, scrunch up twelve and then leave six rural ones untouched. I decided to hole-punch the top of each image and tie them together using some fishing wire when it came to getting that windchime effect I was looking for. Each “windchime” had two rural images each – stuck together, un-scrunched and untouched. This was easy to do, but it was difficult keeping them untangled.

The next morning, I set off to Kilsture Forest to install my work, feeling very confident. That was until I arrived at my location and realised the trees were further apart than I originally thought. I decided to tie the work to the trees anyway to see how it would look. It was the day before Storm Betty, and the winds were already quite strong; securing the work to the tree was proving too difficult, and even if I managed to the chances of it surviving the wind were slim. I had to re-think. I went back to the idea of securing the work to the tree root plate and after getting the work secured, I was very happy with how everything looked.

Home – KILSTURE ROAMING Exhibition

As the day turned into night, Storm Betty wreaked havoc. Between the wind and the rain, I was adamant that my work would not survive the night – after all, I had attached it using fishing wire and zip ties. It’s paper and wet paper rips easily.

The weather was awful on the morning of the exhibition opening. I checked my emails, relieved when I saw emails from others who were just as worried about hosting an exhibition in the woods. After some back and forth there was an obvious decision, the artists didn’t want to risk the safety of visitors who braved the weather. So, we postponed. I spent the rest of the morning thinking did my work survive? Thankfully, Jack told the group that he would go and check on all the work, and I was in complete disbelief to receive an email, saying my work was fine. It survived?!

The rest of the day, I worked on creating a project sign, so people could find my work easier – I had created one to print out but, my printer decided it didn’t want to work. Typical. To do this, I decided to use old images, I cut out the letters “H”, “O”, “M”, and “E”, as well as other bits and pieces and stuck them onto the paper that I had already painted different shades of green. I also wrote a warning sign, making visitors aware of uneven ground. The next morning, I got to Kilsture early to put up my signs and put out the rest of my MK images, thankful I decided not to put them out when I installed the rest of the work.

The exhibition was a relaxed, informal environment, we wanted visitors to be able to walk the trail and see the work at their own pace. However, I did make the effort to speak to several guests who all loved the work and were glad to have this kind of experience on their doorstep. I made sure to go around the exhibition by myself so I could take in everyone else’s work, it was all amazing.

Overall, I would say that being a part of this experience was extremely rewarding. Being a photographer can be isolating and I often feel lonely. I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of this amazing group of passionate artists, working together to create work focused on something so important to everyone involved. The project helped me feel a part of a community and I am grateful to have met some great people – inside and outside of the project. The events we held pushed me and helped me build my confidence, they also made me question how I want people to perceive my work. I didn’t let my struggles stop me from doing something I enjoyed. I was able to keep the two separate, whereas usually that would have overwhelmed me and interfered with my work, and I would’ve quit. Before I started the project, I had completely lost my passion, but now I am excited about the future and what it holds. This project helped me grow not only as an artist but also as a person.  

Home – KILSTURE ROAMING Exhibition

~ SC

ROAM(West) was supported by Upland CIC and Creative Scotland

This first post will be an introduction to who I am and what this blog will entail.

So, firstly, who am I?

My name is Savannah Crosby and I am a walking photographer – who dabbles in videography.

A quick about me.

Like I mentioned above, I’m Savannah and I class myself as a walking photographer. You might be asking yourself “What is a walking photographer?” and for me that just means I make work based around walking, exploring themes such as mental health and the natural environment, hoping to create a sense of place and escapism with the use of metaphors and symbolism.

I’m currently based in Dumfries and Galloway, South West Scotland and this is where I make the majority of my work. Photography first started off as a hobby, however in 2016, I decided to enroll into college and gain some skills and knowledge about the photography world. As well as my HNC and HND photography certificates, I have two degrees, a BA(Hons) in Photography from the University of Cumbria and a Master of Arts in Creative Media Practice from the University of the West of Scotland. Since graduating in 2021, I have been trying to get my name out into the world by participating in a number of projects.

I’d lie and say that this is my first attempt at blogging, but it is not. I once started a blog about eight years ago and posted about twelve times in four years… I’m just not very good at it :D. I also had to make a blog as part of a university assessment but that was looking at one specific project over a number of posts, and not something I want to continue. So, I wanted to start afresh.

What is the purpose of this blog?

Well, I want to start a sort of photography journal – a place where I can brainstorm ideas and keep track of project development. Like my work, this blog will be real and honest – I want people to be able to understand my thought process and my work as well as to get to know me and I decided that this would be a great way to do it.

I also plan on having written pieces about previous projects. Again, this is something I have wanted to do for a while, but I didn’t know the best way to do and decided that I should incorporate that here too. As well as written pieces about individual projects, I want to talk about the project opportunities that I have been fortunate to be a part of that have helped me create some of those final projects.

I plan for my next post to be about the most recent project I was a part of – ROAM (West) and what being a part of a collaborative group, looking at rural contemporary art was like.

Bye for now.

~ SC