‘Fragments of the Tay’ was a community sculpture project celebrating out relationships and connections over time with the River Tay. Facilitated by artists Susie Johnston and Susie Dalton, local Perthshire communities developed three sculptural works. The participants worked with found objects, clay and detritus, as well as their own memories and stories, in a series of workshops in Pitlochry Festival Theatre, the Scottish Crannog Centre, and Birnam Arts.

The resulting sculptures represent three different facets of community engagement with the Tay. The Cairn, installed in the Scottish Crannog Centre, symbolises the memories attached to the landscape. The installation in Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s Festival Garden celebrates the botanical diversity of the Tay in a series of impressions of plants into porcelain clay. The long chain of handmade porcelain beads, currently on display in Birnam Arts, represents the traces of material culture found along the banks of the Tay.

This project was commissioned by Pitlochry Festival Theatre and supported by Perth and Kinross Countryside Trust.