Myth-busting Highland attraction is a finalist for world’s biggest museum prize
A village visitor attraction aiming to “bust” romanticised myths about the Highlands is in the running to be named the UK’S museum of the year.
Timespan, in Helmsdale, which has a population of around 800, is one of five contenders for the annual Art Fund Prize, the biggest of its kind in the world for museums and galleries.
The attraction, in Sutherland, has recently committed to “reframe” the history of the area by exploring how it has been impacted by colonialism and climate change, and responds to “urgent contemporary issues” through its displays of historic artefacts and modern visual art exhibitions.
Its efforts, which included operating as a community hub during the pandemic and an online exhibition of “alternative narratives” which created a new map of Helmsdale, have seen it shortlisted for the £100,099 Art Fund Museum of the Year Award.
Other contenders include the Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds, the Centre for Contemporary Art Derry~londonderry,thefirstsite arts centre in Colchester and the Experience Barnsley attraction in Yorkshire.
Timespan, which is aimed at charting Helmsdale’s “remarkable resilience and an intimate enduring relationship with ancient land and sea”, has been running since 1987 and now features geology and herb gardens as well as a shop, bakery and cafe.
Recent initiatives include tackling the “whitewashing
of Scotland’s imperialist past” and “colonial amnesia” over its involvement in the British Empire by exploring links between the Highland Clearances and the Caribbean slave trade, the impact of leisure tourism, the history of Helmsdale’s land ownership and management, and “environmental exploitation”.
The village’s arts centre explores the "boom and bust"
of the herring fishing industry, a "feverish" 19th-century gold rush, the "shameful" burning of the last witch in Sutherland, and the last wolf shot in the area.
Its website states: “Timespan is a cultural institution with local, global and planetary ambitions to weaponise culture for social change.
"Timespan is a place for art, research, heritage, local hismuseum
tory, future propositions and action.
"We believe that cultural institutions are a political and public space which belong to society, and have a responsibility to shape a brighter new world based on principles of equality, emancipation and inclusion.
"Our ambition is to make art and heritage work meaningfully for our community and
as tools for global cultural and social change.
“We believe our museum should reconfigure our local history in a global context and imagine a brighter future, and we want to bust the romanticised myth that the Scottish Highlands are sublime empty landscapes of brooding heather and mighty stags.”
Art Fund director Jenny Waldman said: “Art Fund
of the Year 2021 attracted a flood of applications. Our five finalists are all embedded in their communities and alive to the possibilities of reaching far beyond their locality digitally. They have each shown extraordinary innovation and resolve.”
The winner will be announced in September.