3. Resistance
Strong Women and Lazy Beds
Fabricated Land is an ongoing body of work composed of photoweaves of abstract aerial imagery. Each weave tells hidden stories of the past’s influence on the present. This month I am sharing and discussing my ideas around new images from the series.
The land of Coigach and Assynt along the wild Atlantic coast was once connected to North America and resembles an alien landscape. Indeed, scenes of the witch planet Dathomir were filmed here for the climax of the Star Wars series Ahsoka.
The place has a reputation for fearsome women dating back a long, long time ago in a crofting community far, far away. In 1852, twenty policemen were beaten and stripped naked by local women resisting arrest. In other Highland glens, women were at the forefront of protest against the Clearances, but Coigach was one of the few communities to successfully resist eviction. More police came soon after but failed again, so the landowner eventually gave up trying to clear tenants off the land.