The Literature of Shetland and Orkney

The project is a collaboration between the Shetland Museum and Archive, the Orkney Library and Archive, and the University of Edinburgh. It will draw on the AHRB-funded research of the Principal Investigator into the history of Shetland and Orkney literature, and the literary record of visitors to the islands, to explore and illustrate the significance of this research in a wide public context.

The PI will work in close collaboration with an archivist from the Shetland Museum and Archive to provide the content and thematic structure for the first ever exhibition of Northern Islands literature, provisionally entitled 'Shetland and Orkney: Writing from History'. The exhibition will draw on printed material and sound recordings from the Shetland Archive and Orkney Library, and artefacts from the Shetland Museum and Orkney Museum, to illustrate the social development of literature in the islands and explore its relevance to readers and writers in the islands today.

The project is guided by three related principles. We aim to develop and deepen understanding of the significance of the archival holdings by bringing together the written word with historical images and objects. We further aim to extend and enhance public understanding of a literary history that has been sometimes neglected or forgotten, for both a local and a wider audience. Thirdly we seek to bring together academic researchers with contemporary creative writers to form partnerships that will work together to explore the nature and significance of island writing from the late eighteenth century to the present day.

In order to draw these principles together, the project will develop into two complementary directions. We will explore the history of Shetland and Orkney writing by setting literary texts in their social and cultural environments. Original printed books and magazines will show how the texts were published; artefacts from daily life will illustrate the social settings of the texts; listening posts and mp3s will give the texts local voices; illustrations and paintings will bring to life authors, characters and settings. At the same time we will explore the relevance of writers from history for contemporary poets and novelists and use historical writing to inspire new work. Eight creative writers from the islands will work together with academic researchers to discuss a piece of literature from the earlier period and will create original work in response. The outcomes will be published on the website as a downloadable file.

The project will take place over a full year. An opening workshop, 'Pentland Crossings', will bring researchers and writers together in Edinburgh to share ideas about island writing in a public workshop. The researcher-writer partnerships will then start to create a written discussion which will be archived, edited, and made available on the website. Mid-way through the project, the Orkney partnerships will participate in 'Creative Journeys', a public event in Stromness to explain the project, discuss its creative value and read selected work-in-progress. A small exhibition of Orkney literature will take place at the Orkney library. An education programme will engage school students with the literature of their locality and encourage their own creative responses. The major exhibition will run for six weeks in the Shetland Museum at the end of the project. The opening of the exhibition will be accompanied by a day of talks and round-table discussions with an educational focus, and the end of the exhibition will see a more informal forum to celebrate Shetland and Orkney writing with readings of the outcomes of the writer-researcher partnerships. The website and selected items from the exhibition will then pass into the ownership of the Shetland museum, giving the museum a new additional literary focus, and the project an on-going life.

Who might benefit:

a) Shetland Museum and Archive, and Orkney Library
b) Public of Orkney and Shetland and worldwide visitors to the website
c) Creative writers
d) Schools
e) The postdoctoral research assistant
f) Tourist boards and Scottish Government

How might they benefit:

The Shetland Archive will establish a pathway for widening access, vitalising use and extending the educational range of its holdings by moving them out of the Archive and into the social and historical context of the exhibition through the imaginative visualisation of the written word supported by audio resources and a programme of talks and discussions. Ideas and practices will be established for future partnerships between the Archive and Museum.

The Shetland Museum will gain the theme of literature as a new focus for its holdings and will establish new practices for visualising cultural history. Although the Museum and Archive share the same building and resources, this will be their first joint exhibition. The website and selected parts of the exhibition will pass into the Museum's permanent collection, giving the Museum a new, additional literary focus, and will thus continue to have an impact for a number of years.

By sharing books and papers with the exhibition, the Orkney Library will establish pathways for future collaborations with the Shetland Archive to trace possible connections and comparisons between writing and history in each archipelago.

Museum-visitors will gain an enriched understanding of the literary heritage of the islands in relation to social and cultural history and will also be enabled to explore their own ideas about writing through the interactive website and the live discussion forums in Orkney and Shetland. The website will extend knowledge of the history of Northern Islands writing to a diasporic and worldwide audience. Attendees at the public events will be able to address contemporary issues through an understanding of historical literature. This includes issues of language and dialect, the relation of region to nation and state, the geographical significance of islands, and the identification of popular culture.

Schools will gain pathways for making accessible the literature of their localities and new ways of inspiring creativity in their students with the outcomes (in the form of writing and drawing) given a lasting record on the website. A teacher's pack will enable the continuing use of the education programme in schools.

Creative writers will establish new partnerships with researchers to explore ways of responding to the history of literature of their home location in Creative Research Partnerships (CRPs) with academic researchers. CRPs generate new insights into creativity (through archived discussion), into the relationship of writing to geography, and into ways of combining historical research with imaginative response to produce new work. The CRP model can be passed on to future projects.

The post-doctoral research assistant will gain training in working with museums and archives and the design of exhibitions. She will gain experience in writing text for the exhibits and on-line catalogue and in curating museum items. She has already established links with museums and cultural institutes in Scandinavia with whom ideas about working with the concept of Northern Europe can be discussed.

Visit Orkney and Promote Shetland will gain immediate links to texts, maps and images that can be used for promoting the literature of the islands, and the more general 'branding' of Orkney and Shetland as literary locations to enhance the experience of future visitors to the islands. The Scottish Government's 2014 Homecoming project, run through VisitScotland, will gain an additional resource for attracting diasporic Orcadians and Shetlanders to Scotland as visitors.