X + Y

island = Papay

Reid Gallery

The Glasgow School of Art

20th September to 1st November 2025

curated by Jenny Brownrigg

SurvØY was developed over four years as a contemporary artist ‘island almanac’, surveying and monitoring scales of change in the context of the island environment of Papa Westray, one of the most northern Orkney islands. In particular, the exhibition focuses on a 

year-long cycle looking at multiple viewpoints for resilient, caring, adaptive systems, providing a benchmark for future generation islanders, islands and communities in times of rapid environmental change. It is placed in the historical and cultural context of long-term island surveys by pioneers such as Praeger, Tim Robinson and Murdoch McKenzie, along with landscape poets and film makers such as Nan Shepherd, Margaret Tait, Isabel Hutchinson, Hans Jürgen von der Wense.

Islands are highly sensitive to changing natural ecosystems, in relation to weather, land and sea. Change is magnified and intense, observed and recorded phenological data is a vital indicator for future trends. For SurvØY Saoirse and Jonathan measured, monitored, observed, recorded, collected and archived change. Weather change, daylight change, climate change, sea level change, reactions to change, tidal change, migratory change (in birds), geological change and seasonal change. Working with and within an island, this artist-led survey challenges notions of island time, island identity, and the cyclical/orbital nature of an island environment. Creating an island equation:

The intersection of line and time.

The intersection of time and line.

The intersection of island and time.

The intersection of time and island.

The intersection of line and circle.

The intersection of circle and line.

Øy.

(ØY being island in old Norse) 

Embark on a journey, to fathom an island. 

A cross section through an island core.  

SurvØY manifests in the coming months as an exhibition with limited edition vinyl; an online transmission from Orkney as Holm Sound @holmsound, an offshoot of @Oyfestivalpapay; and a SurvØY journal publication.