A NEW, free, public audio walk and sculptural installation exploring the layered relationship between landscape, ecology and human presence is to launch in the Isle of Mull.
Called Invasive Species, the walk is designed as a multi-sensory experience within the woodland paths and shoreline of Tobermory’s Aros Park.
It has been created by theatremakers, Fast Familiar, in collaboration with games collective, Play:Vienna, and An Tobar and Mull Theatre as part of the latter’s three-year artistic programme, We Know Where We’re Going, which is linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Blending sculptural installation, narrative audio, music and landscape, the experience unfolds across a 45-minute walk through the park.
Shaped by local voices and storytelling, it invites audiences to move beyond passive observation and instead experience the landscape as layered, lived-in and continually formed through interaction.
The experience includes a new series of sculptural works called Spectrum of Belonging, created by Bafta Scotland-nominated artist and filmmaker Yulia Kovanova and landscape architect, artist and writer Ross Maclean.
Seven sculptures crafted from raw materials act as markers within the landscape, each representing different species found on Mull, from native flora and fauna to non-native and invasive species introduced over time.
The multi-sensory installation is aimed at encouraging audiences to move through the landscape as active participants, discovering hidden stories, reflecting on ecological balance and reconsidering what it means to belong in a changing environment.
“Invasive Species captures the idea that culture can change the way we see, hear and inhabit the world around us,” said Rebecca Atkinson-Lord, of An Tobar and Mull Theatre.
“On an island like Mull, where ecology, history and belonging are woven into daily life, this project feels both urgently contemporary and profoundly rooted in place.
“We’re thrilled to be commissioning bold, multidisciplinary work that invites audiences into a deeper relationship with the land, with each other, and with the future we are shaping together,” Atkinson-Lord added.
Rachel Briscoe, CEO of Fast Familiar, added: “It’s so easy to think of nature as something ‘over there’ – beautiful, timeless and entirely separate to humans.
“The reality is completely different – our surroundings, even when it’s as beautiful as the Isle of Mull, is changing constantly, in dialogue with human actions.
“Invasive Species is really about that – gently destabilising ways of thinking that keep us disconnected from the planet we share.”
Invasive Species launches on Tuesday, July 28 and runs from 3pm-7pm each day
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