‘Rain’ @ National Library of Scotland project update: Scotland’s Green Libraries Grant Fund
Category: #CILIPSGoGreen, Blog, News
Image: Rain project team on a (rainy) day-trip to Edinburgh
by Dr Emily Munro, National Library of Scotland curator and project coordinator
This summer we were delighted to receive Green Libraries funding to assist with work engaging people with lived experience of migration with our collections. Our project to identify a group of co-creators to work with us began in September and resulted in seven creative individuals being selected to collaborate with us on making a piece of sound art on the topic of rain.
Over the next few months, poet, musician and storyteller Dr Tawona Sithole will work with myself and the group to explore the themes of rain and migration. Aided by sound artist Ros Fraser, the group will shape an exciting new sound and spoken word piece that will be recorded and installed at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh as well as made available online.
Extra support has been provided by Hope Wang, a doctoral researcher with the UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Education, Language and Arts at University of Glasgow. Hope has been an invaluable presence, helping to shape the dynamics of our diverse group with her warmth and expertise.
Rain, as we know, is ubiquitous in Scotland. The spirit of the project is to enable an exchange between experiences and cultures that may challenge the assumption that rain is experienced in the same way by different people, particularly in a warming world. Climate change has exacerbated water shortages in some parts of the world and increased rainfall in other places, leading to an estimated 21.5 million climate refugees (UNHCR). Scotland is regarded as one of the wettest countries in the world but is still at risk from drought.
Image: Tobermory falls, in flood. From The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom by Alfred Barnard (1887)
Looking at ways to describe rain, the way rain materialises through different languages, and how we relate to rain through our lived experiences and heritage as well as through culture, science, story and myth are likely to be fertile ground for creativity and intercultural understanding.
Image: A ‘word cloud’ of words for rain in our different languages (supplied by Hope Wang)
Most of the creative workshops will take place at the National Library of Scotland’s premises in Kelvin Hall, Glasgow. During Green Libraries Week, we visited the National Library HQ in Edinburgh for a special tour of the current ‘Dear Libraries’ exhibition, led by exhibitions officer Ciara McKenna and learning officer Beverley Casebow. After lunch, curator Dr Dora Petherbridge treated us to a view of some books, maps and posters that related to the project’s theme. The visit was rich in content, discussion and feeling with many thoughts and ideas emerging. Most importantly, we all got to know one another a little better before the work of making begins.
Image: Group visit to National Library of Scotland: photos by Emily Munro, Hope Wang. Map of rainfall. Still from NLS moving image archive.
Key to our project is connecting the co-creators to a range of library collections, including literature, maps and films. Visiting an existing exhibition to understand the ways in which this material can be displayed and interpreted is an important step in our process to work collaboratively on a creative piece of work that will be shared with the public. We are excited about the possibility of carrying the co-creators’ stories onwards and, once it is ready, we would love for other groups and libraries to use our completed sound recording as a tool for understanding and exploration in the future.