Artist’s exploration of ‘Atom Town’ wins £5000 prize

Published On Thu 20 Aug 2015 by Grant Hill

University of Dundee lecturer Gair Dunlop has been awarded £5000 to create new art work chronicling the history, cultural impact and evolution of the UK’s nuclear industry.

Gair has received the cash as part of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art (RSA) Morton Award for lens-based media. He will use the prizemoney to create a multi-screen video installation combining elements of fiction, archive footage and documentary from slowly decommissioning atomic research laboratories and facilities at Dounreay, Harwell Archive, Torness and Hunterston.

The resulting work will be exhibited at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 2016/17, and will feature ‘Atom Town’, a 22-minute film Gair made looking at the subject. It has been already been screened internationally and won acclaim for its portrayal of the controversial industry.

As well as his role at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, part of the University, Gair is also Chair of the New Media Scotland board. 

“My artworks explore the interconnections of people, places, and technologies,” he said. “They investigate and play with different eras of discovery, social change and fantasy. The core interest is how dreams of progress affect real people and the places they live.

“The relationship people have with nuclear power after the ‘gold rush’ of the mid-20th century is obviously relevant to this. At a time when the first generation of nuclear power stations is being decommissioned and the UK Government is pushing ahead with a new nuclear era while the Scottish Government has ruled this out, questions about our connection to atomic energy are more pertinent than ever.”

The Morton Award was established in 2006 for artists working in a lens-based media to research and develop a new body of work. The award is open to artists who were born in Scotland or have studied at a Scottish art school or have been resident in Scotland for at least 3 years. The award culminates in an exhibition of the resulting works at the RSA Annual Exhibition and acquisition of select works into the prestigious RSA Permanent Collection. 

Every year the RSA administers over £100,000 directly to artists through their annual Awards, Residency and Exhibition Prizes Programme. Duncan of Jordanstone graduate Tim Sandys is another artist to have recorded success in the latest round of awards, being named winner of the RSA Barns-Graham Travel Award.

Working primarily in sculpture, Tim Sandys’ work is concerned with structure, the man-made environment and community. He will use the £2000 prize to travel to North Platte, Nebraska, where he will create a visual and ethnographic study of The Bailey Train Yard and its community environment. The Bailey Yard is the largest facility for the management of freight transport on the planet with approximately 14,000 carriages traversing the yard daily.

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