From Hill to Sea

Description

Fife: almost an island. Betwixt and between the cities of Edinburgh and Dundee; an ancient Pictish Kingdom, bounded by the Firths of Forth and Tay. Where a Brutalist New Town is built on a 4,000 year old henge and 18 feet menhirs brood on a ladies golf course, under the shadow of Largo Law. 

Spectral trees drift above the plague graves of Devilla Forest, whilst sky-facing cup and ring carvings lie hidden on a hillside above Burntisland, a distant echo of their post-industrial landscape counterparts near Inverkeithing. 

Ideas crackle, tussle and fizz, throughout the ether over this land-formed Scottie dogs head. Kirkcaldy’s famous son Adam Smith tossed a large brick into the pool of economic theory with The Wealth of Nations written on a site now housing Greggs the Bakers. Take a walk with the ghosts through Little Moscow where Lawrence Storione founded the Anarchist Communist League in Cowdenbeath and West Fife elected Willie Gallacher as the first Communist MP in 1935. In Lumphinnans you will find Gagarin Way, a street tagged in honour of the Soviet cosmonaut. 

In Methil and East Wemyss, walk the streets and landscapes which inspired the painter William Gear, a member of CoBrA, the post-war, European, avant-garde movement that fed into the Situationist International. In Rosyth, ‘The Wilderness’ most definitely does exist. Stumble across industrial relics in the most unlikely places. 

Moving outwards, there are encounters with the uncanny in Edinburgh; a freedom fighter of the International Brigades, and a psychedelic tiger, in Glasgow. Kurt Schwitters and Kittiwakes in Newcastle. Bounce on Sacrilege – Jeremy Deller’s blow up Stonehenge and contemplate Debord and Huizinga. On a train from Falkirk to Glasgow, a performance of John Cage’s 4’33”.

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