Aberdeen artist Martin Aitken transformed Fittie Community Hall into an immersive audio-visual installation ahead of its renovation.
Featuring images and sound to celebrate the people of Fittie as well as the community’s history and relationship with the sea, Martin’s Time and Tide installation is open to the public this weekend.
The artist said: “Time and Tide offers an insight into the unique stories from a village which is brimming with history.
“I come from a technical background, so I was very excited to marry my experience with technology with my passion for storytelling.
“We’re using projection, lighting and audio – music composed by my colleagues and audio stories from the residents of Fittie recalling their memories and relationships with the village and hopes for its future.”
Once the art installation has completed its weekend run, the Fittie Community Hall will close for phase two of its redevelopment.
Martin said: “It’ll be closed for about eight weeks. They’re doing works on the roof, getting new windows and when it reopens, the programme of events will pick up and grow.
“The hall’s choir, baking classes, yoga, and film nights will all resume when the hall reopens.”
Martin, who recently published a children’s book, is one of four artists and producers working with the Fittie community and harbour area, through Safe Harbour: Open Sea, which is part of a wider Scottish Government-funded initiative called Culture Collective.
This initiative was launched at the end of 2020 and aims to use arts and culture to address the impacts of Covid-19 and wider social, economic and environmental influences on communities around Scotland.
It strives to bring creativity and culture into the heart of community life as well as much-needed work opportunities to the region’s cultural sector.
The project’s team have been hosting workshops on environmental sustainability, creative storytelling and building an oral archive of local memories, stories and hopes for the future which will feature in the Time and Tide installation as well as being used to create a visitor trail.
Open Road co-founder Lesley Anne Rose said: “Martin and the whole Safe Harbour: Open Sea team hit the ground running with the project in the summer.
“This is the first time the community hall has been used in this way and we’re keen to demonstrate that community venues can be places where people can access culture and the arts, tell their stories and get creative.”
Don’t miss the Fittie Community Hall exhibition
Don’t miss the Time and Tide art installation at the Fittie Community Hall on New Pier Road.
It is open to the public this weekend – Saturday January 29 and Sunday January 30 – from 10am until 4pm.