In 2016 ATLAS Arts, in partnership with Artangel, brought Bethan Huws’ film Singing for the Sea (1993) to the Isle of Skye. Huws’ film documents a group of eight Bulgarian women, the Bistrista Babi, who Huws invited to travel from their home in the heart of Eastern Europe to the edge of an island, to the north east coast of England. She then asked the women to sing to the North Sea.

This film installation marked the start of A Work for the North Atlantic, a year-long programme of commissions, exhibitions and workshops exploring singing and the sea. As part of this ATLAS commissioned a new piece of work by Richard Skelton.

Skelton has created a multi-channel composition that evokes Huws’ work and its re-sited presentation in the Scorrybreac boathouse, Portree. He has turned his attention to the west, from the North Sea to the North Atlantic. Exploring traditional songs, field recordings, and inspiration from the landscape of Skye, its seascape and the stories that accompany them, Eilean Fuinn suggests that the sea and the landscape are "endlessly singing to each other" over the vastness of geological time.

Richard Skelton - Eilean Fuinn exceprt

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