Durness Development Group have been awarded funds from the Scottish Arts Council for the Commissioning of 3 artists for a period of 3 months each to work with sites of historical and scientific interest and develop work that will be accessible to the local community and beyond. 

The project will involve artists to work at locations specifically on 3 key sites of historical and scientific interest in Sutherland. The project will be managed by an arts director with a local administrator and will utilise the digital arts studio in Durness as a base.  It will include contact time with young people in this social inclusion area and workshops in Farr, Kinlochbervie High Schools and Durness, Kinlochbervie, Tongue, Farr Primary Schools should they wish to participate.

 The artistic interpretation of the site will develop over the period of each artist's residency and culminate in an exhibition/event. There will also be documentation of the residencies on a virtual Mackay Country website and a CD Rom containing images, sound files and video interviews which will be produced toward the end of the year offering a high quality model of this project for distribution in the area. It is envisaged that local artists will also benefit from the project through workshops and invitations to apply for the residencies themselves.  Support to the artists will be in the form of studio space, a peer support technician, artistic director's assistance and the support of the facilitating organisation. Artists will be selected who have specialist experience of addressing different aspects of site specific interpretation for example in  Social/historical/contemporary information/ Archaeological Political, social and narrative history

The unique sites located in Sutherland will offer each of the artists an opportunity to research the sites and develop their work through exposure to each of the site's unique history and structure. The artists will be encouraged to develop links with other professionals in the areas of study in order to expand their range of knowledge and imaginative vision toward the final exhibition. The artists will present a site specific exhibition that incorporates elements of this research and their experience within the highland community. They will have the freedom and support to be experimental within their practice in order to realise this and the facilities within the digital studio in Durness with assistants to assist them. The project will be well documented in order to encourage dialogue and debate among the arts community and the wider community.
Each of the artists will deliver workshops within the digital arts studio and surrounding schools in order to share their skills and research around the sites with the young people and wider community in Mackay Country and involve people who have few or no opportunities to participate in this aspect of the arts. The actual sites have yet to be finalised. This project is supported by the National Lottery through the Scottish Arts Council with a grant of £35608 and partnership funding from Highland Year of Culture 2007