This public event and study afternoon was the second in an annual series, which began with 'Through a Northern Lens: Women, Picture, Place' (2016). The series 'Northern Lens', devised by Nicky Bird and Dr Frances Robertson, shares ideas, histories, aesthetics and questions that are attached to the 'North'. 'Through a Northern Lens: Place Image, Archaeology and Heritage' (2017) did this through close discussion of particular places that – from an urban view – would appear to lie in Scotland’s 'peripheral places.'

The event developed conversations and research links around themes including layered sites of history; individual and community memory; communication of memory; tangible and intangible forms of heritage; archaeology and destruction; folklore and knowledge; transportation; utilitarian bridges and their impact; fragility; cultural memory; material culture; art researcher practices and pedagogies.

The opening speakers were: Nicky Bird (Reader in Contemporary Photographic Practice, School of Fine Art), who discussed the methodologies and outcomes of her Timespan commission ‘Ghosting the Castle'; Dr Frances Robertson (Lecturer & Researcher, Design History & Theory) examined the cultural, political and material elements contributing to hydro-electric power schemes inserted into the Scottish Highlands after World War Two, in ‘Power in the landscape: Regenerating the Scottish Highlands after WWII’; and Stuart Jeffrey (Reader in Heritage Visualisation, School of Simulation and Visualisation, GSA) demonstrated through recent fieldwork his work in heritage visualisation, the analyse, interpretation and representation of heritage from built to intangible forms, in ‘Turning vampires to basalt: the transition of the Isle of Staffa from cultural to natural wonder’. The Respondent to these three presentations was Dr. George S. Jaramillo (Lecturer and Research Associate, The Innovation School, GSA). Dr Jaramillo is an architect and heritage specialist, with interests in rural landscape, industrial material culture and ruins.

The closing speakers were: Dr Gina Wall (Deputy Head, School of Fine Art, GSA), who focused on practice and research, in particular on the intangible elements of landscape and how she traced the ‘spectre’ within her photographic practice, in the landscapes of Iceland and Scotland. Sheena Graham-George (PhD Research Student, School of Fine Art, GSA), followed with how her practice involves working with a combination of sound and ceramics to explore the cyclical nature of time and memory as they intertwine; to uncover and reveal the spectral in the landscape, to locate and make manifest the unseen, the forgotten, the absent which are at the heart of the physical and cultural landscape of the cilliní. The Respondent to these two presentations was Dr Rachael Flynn (Consultant, Creative & Academic Development Team, School of Media, Culture & Society, University West of Scotland). Thematically, Dr Flynn’s practice-led work explores familial stories of migration and diaspora of Scotland and Ireland – with particular focus on the interconnectivity and ‘inherited’ inferences of these – alongside the wider collective themes related to these discourses.

The event was chaired by Jenny Brownrigg.