EALA: ENGAGEMENT, ALLIANCE AND LEARNING FOR ARTS project led by Kathryn A Burnett (UWS) and Timo Jokela (ULapland) was included in the Scottish Government Arctic Connections Framework Fund Scottish Government’s Platform Stand Presentation Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland (19th – 21st October 2023).
The EALA project is a OER connections project based at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) and working in creative practice and arts pedagogy partnership with the University of Lapland. The EALA project was funded by the Scottish Government’s Arctic Connections Fund 2022-2023 to explore and expand Scottish and Arctic creative contexts and commons.
EalaCreative – the working group of participants – have used the symbol of the swan – jousten (finnish); eala (scots gaelic) – as a theme for our cultural, environmental and socio-ecological pedegogy focus.
In Finland the swan holds a very special symbolism for the nation and this Tuonela swan myth is explored by the EALA creative project team here.
We have looked west, south and east in our focus on looking north! This post speaks a little more to looking west and the islands of the Outer and Inner Hebrides.
Energy “at the margins” – powercuts! Across the islands of Scotland’s west swans (most usually Mute Swans) are often seen flying high overhead as they migrate but so too they might fly low and occasionally power would be lost (“powercut“) as they might fly into the electricity cables that hung from the wooden poles across the islands’ moorland. In Uist in the Hebrides to the west of Scotland, for example, it might occasionally happen that a “downed” swan might be found dazed and slightly disorientated in the narrow water course channels of the intricate loch and peatland bogs and the land drainage systems. Having hit the wire the swan might rest and recover in these low lying bogs and ditches.
Elsewhere across the cultural history of Scotland and other landscapes and nations the swan is a symbol of life long partnership. Images of swans paired together consumed with their ritual return nesting habitats are common across digital resources and informed our EALA logo design.
In exploring the open accessible resources available online (creative commons) for images of swans at South Uist at Loch Bee we discovered the work of Dr Mary Gillham, a wildlife scientist. An archive project offers her collection of photographs for others to view and re-use and includes many images taken in Scotland, but also in regions such as Antartica:
“Dr Mary Gillham MBE (1921 – 2013) was a pioneering naturalist and prolific wildlife author, who took an active interest in the environment for over 80 years. In 1959 Mary was a member of the first Antarctic expedition to include women scientists,” Dr Mary Gillham Archive Project
Below is just one image from Dr Gillingham’s archive – an image of Loch Bee on South Uist, Outer Hebrides. Although rather difficult to see the swans in the distance (small white dots on the dark blue water) the image offers a sense of the area’s assets low lying natural ecology of the loch, alongside its working landscape that includes crofting (cattle are seen grazing), estate management (loch fishing), and the ‘open skies’ of the islands north Atlantic ‘periphery’ situation for the nearby defence missile testing site (the”rocket range”) Range Hebrides. A view of a rusting oil drum can be seen lying in the peat moorland bog in the foreground.
“Today, the Arctic is developing into an important hub of the twenty-first century; industrially, socially and politically. We believe that the economic potential of the region should be harnessed in a way that brings prosperity and guarantees the livelihood and social-cultural progress of Arctic inhabitants and communities.”
Jokela and Coutts (2018:99)
At our EALA Project sharing site we aim to connect and create materials and resources for a focus on ‘north’ art and design for sustainability and connections between Scotland and the Arctic. What is North – as Jokela and Coutts (2018) have detailed below – can and does include regions that are experienced ‘as north’, as well as northern parts of countries. We are especially keen to direct interested readers and creative content makers to the UArctic ASAD thematic network resources available for research and learning. Editors of the Relate North series Timo Jokela and Glen Coutts talk below of the importance of testing and developing new art and design methodologies via the UArctic ASAD network, and other key art education connections including InSEA (see the recently published RelateNorth #9 DOI: 10.24981/2022-RN#9).
“… we explore the notion of the North1 and the Arctic as a ‘laboratory’ of art and design education for sustainability. The chapter is organised in three sections, the first is a discussion of the idea of northern conditions as an environment for testing and developing new art and design methodologies. In particular, we are interested in how art might address the effects of rapid changes in the social, cultural and economic setting and post-colonial situation of the area.”
Jokela and Coutts (2018:99)
Source and Recommended reading : Timo Jokela and Glen Coutts (2018) The North and the Arctic: A Laboratory of Art and Design Education for Sustainability, (pp. 99-117) in Relate North. University of Lapland Press.
When we refer to the North we mean the northern part of the world on the northern hemisphere or northern parts of specifc countries, for example northern Canada, Scandinavian and Nordic countries and countries around the Circumpolar North and regions rather than simply the direction in which a compass normally points.
Sharing platforms such as Flickr creative commons offer digital facilities for individuals and organisations to upload and share their images and content for wider re-use based on various ‘Creative Commons’ licence conditions. Examples can include images taken of places, events -such as this image above by Shetland Arts – or artefacts and can include images shared by both professional and amateur photographers, as well as researchers, archivists, policy champions and many others in many roles. You can read more about Flickr here.
Welcome to the EALA project ‘blog post’ page. Some of our explorations and OER resources based around our EALA project learning are shared here with links to available materials and downloads. This is a learning space for the EALA team and so we may look to revise, amand and improved our materials and OER elements – learning as we go – so you may see some things (posts, images and other materials) change over time!
EALA LOGO by Bingrui Sui CC-BY-2.0 at Flickr
Why EALA ? – Our EALA project has taken its title – and its logo – from the swan. The swan represents Finland’s national bird and our University of Lapland partner as well as the symbolic connection the swan holds in many cultures of ‘the North’ as symbolic of mythical creatures, transformation, and other worlds, not least here in Scotland. In the Gaelic language of Scotland the word for swan is eala. As part of the original idea for the project we wished to select an image that represented ideas of partnership, connection, mobility and the migration of knowledge and understanding. We also wanted to celebrate the ecocultures of place while we explored our Arctic and near Arctic contexts. The UWS (University of the West of Scotland) Ayr Campus is located on the River Ayr and we see swans regularly in the rivers, coasts and lochs nearby. One of the EALA participants is international student Bingrui Sui studying MA Creative Media Practice at UWS who worked to develop our original first draft design to the final EALA logo you can see above. You can read about Bingrui’s reflection on the creation of this resource here.
This EALA learning exchange project (2022-2023) explored Scotland’s links to the Arctic through an OER focus for learning and creativity exchange. OER – open education resource – is a process and ambition to create, curate and circulate materials and artifacts such as images, texts and documents for wider access and sharing. EALA as a title also offers us a simple summary of the project’s frame of reference: Engagement, Alliance and Learning for Arts. Please click on the menu for more information and we look forward to sharing our artefacts and reflections with you.
EalaCreative 