Kit Lee Smith Y4
Orkney’s Udal Heritage Around half of Orkney’s 3,000 archeological sites are under threat from anthropological climate change. Once the Neolithic capital of Britain, the archipelago is now racing the ceaseless tides to document and preserve our forebearers actions.
The project aims to take advantage of the Udal laws repurposing the foreshore as a sanctuary for local rescue artifacts. It acts as a museum not of sterility but of threat, each component of its structure groans, glistens and reacts to the daily traumas of its precarious location. Instruments punctuate the seascape deflecting the coastal currents whilst the sandstone monoliths direct the encroaching tides through the structure underneath the feet of the inhabitant. Reimaging the traditional coastal defenses, inhabitable bladders hang in front of the archives contracting and contorting to the whims of the climate.
The project explores the relationship of ownership of land or heritage proposing a stewardship or a new ‘common’ owned by the local community, the foreshore, a Udal community. A decentralised hub celebrating the common effort in rescuing the tangible past of the islands and the resulting understanding, acquisition in the working of the rock beneath their feet.
