An Aberdeen grandmother who has gone back to university to study art has created a spooky sculpture for a city-wide celebration of the arts.
Shelagh Brown, a mature student at Gray’s School of Art at the Robert Gordon University, has been selected by the organisers of this year’s Look Again festival for her piece, The Diabolical Dance.
Her exhibition, based on records dating back to 1596, tells the tale of 24 women who were caught dancing around the Mercat Cross at the Castlegate on Halloween.
After being accused of witchcraft the group of young women were put to death, which is represented by the 24 pairs of shoes embedded in concrete that form the installation.
Mrs Brown’s offering is just one of dozens of pieces by a wide variety of artists which will be cropping up across Aberdeen over this weekend as part of the festival, which aims to encourage north-east residents to re-discover the hidden histories and secrets throughout the city.
She said: “A few of us at university last year looked through the city archives about various topics, and the one that interested me the most was stories of the witch trials.
“The shoes act as a symbol of the women, and they’re in concrete blocks because as soon as you were accused of being a witch, there was no way back – you were going to be burned, because whatever people said stuck.
“And when these ladies were seen dancing around on Halloween, they were dubbed devil worshippers, and not proper Christians.
“So the concrete in a way represents how the destiny of these women was essentially set in stone the moment they were accused, their feet are stuck and they couldn’t move away from being a witch.”
The installation will be at the Mercat Cross from Thursday to Monday. For more information, visit www.lookagainfestival.co.uk
