1.
These are the stones we have instead of trees
Helen Nisbet
Summer 2020
DOWSER Issue 1 (Summer 2020) features curator Helen Nisbet’s “These are the stones we have instead of trees.” Borrowing its title from the pioneering filmmaker and poet Margaret Tait’s ‘The Scale of Things’ (1960), this new essay provides something of a prologue for the series. A Shetlander now based in London, Nisbet draws upon her own staggered migrations south in order to articulate an account of how place manifests in a person.
Helen Nisbet is Artistic Director for Art Night and curates projects across the UK. She sits on the Acquisitions Committee for the Arts Council Collection and the Advisory Board for Art Quest and a-n.
DOWSER is a non-profit project. This chapbook is released as an open access online PDF and in a limited print edition of 200. These printed versions will be available for a contribution of £2.50, inclusive of a minimum £2.00 donation to the Scottish Refugee Council (Registered Charity: SC008639).
Issues 1 & 2 of DOWSER have been made possible by the generous support of The Glasgow School of Art and the British Art Network, through their Early Career Curator Group research bursary. The British Art Network is jointly led by Tate and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, with additional public funding provided by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Margaret Tait, Happy Bees, 1954. Courtesy of the Margaret Tait estate and LUX, London.
