Christil Trumpet

Artists in residence

Stromness-based artistic collaborators, husband and wife team Christopher Prendergast and Matilda Tumim are currently working at Orkney's Papdale Primary School as artists in residence...

This is the first residency of its type in Orkney and has been widely welcomed by the teachers and parents alike. Matilda and Christopher, working as 'Christil Trumpet', moved to Orkney 18 years ago and have three children at school on the island.

The project began in May 2006 and is part of the National Lottery funded partners initiative. Around 50 similar posts have been created across Scotland with the aim of bringing new opportunities for communities who may otherwise not get the chance, to meet and work with professional artists. 

Matilda and Christopher accepted the post at Papdale Primary School in Orkney after stiff competition from other interested artists.

So far their aim of bringing new ideas about what art really means (as part of their role as 'models of working artists'’), to complement the curricular work of the teachers has been very successful.

About their work, Christopher says:

"Our first project with the children began with playing a game of 'consequences', where you fold up a large piece of paper and each child draws a section of a body without seeing the other parts. The results are fantastic creatures that everyone has contributed to but it also has a message about diversity.

"Although Orkney doesn't have a very diverse population, the children are open minded to new ideas and the differences between people. This partly comes from the real sense of community here. The schools are fantastic and all of the children go to school together. There isn’t the class divide you might find elsewhere in the UK.

"In fact Orkney is very cosmopolitan because you meet people in a way you never would in a big city. We have everything you could want here and it isn’t actually as isolated as other rural parts of Britain.

"There is a concentration of highly skilled artists in Orkney.  Life on Orkney for artists like us who are not at the commercial end of the spectrum, but are more research based, is quite viable. On an island such as this, everyone is used to multi-tasking. For example, I am also a social care worker and run a holiday let as well as being an artist.

"The best thing about the partners' scheme is that we are free to follow our own projects 50% of the time and work on school projects the rest of the time. This allows pupils, teachers and parents to see our work as it develops. As well as the 'consequences' pictures which we are now developing into eight-foot oil paintings, we also have 'the wave'."

Matilda explains:

"'The wave' is to be created out of a 'sea' of price tags and luggage labels, which we are handing out (blank) to every child in the school. The children are invited to make their contribution to ‘the wave’ by drawing or writing on their tags and then giving them back to us. Once the 'consequence' project is complete, we will assemble all the tags and attach them to a wave-shaped trellis."

Matilda and Christopher are both committed to helping keep Orkney a vibrant and cutting-edge place for research-based artists. They see Orkney as a perfect environment for research and discovery.

Matilda says:

"There is already a lot of scientific research on Orkney especially looking at environmental technology. We use that partly as an inspiration for our own work with projects like 'the wave'. We see the union between arts and sciences as productive and one that provides a forum for comment and debate.

"Although our post at the school runs out in May 2007 we will move onto other projects both personal and within the community. We certainly have no plans to leave Orkney. Our kids very much think of themselves as Orcadians (people from Orkney) and have broad accents.

Christopher was raised in Malawi, which was a very open rural place to grow up and has felt dislocated from his roots. Since it would be unrealistic to return there to live, he wants his children to feel that sense of belonging and to be educated locally.

"Being in Orkney has given the children a sense of security. The environment here is very good and the schools are very strong. It’s that kind of open environment where they can run free and find their own sense of independence and individual expression."

Related links

• Project website
  
• The Lottery funded partners' project
  
• Island Life: Clare Gee – Arts Development Officer