The Shape of Passage Selected for Perpetual Motion at An Lanntair
17 October–5 December 2026 · Exhibition · An Lanntair, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis · The Shape of Passage
The Shape of Passage has been selected for Perpetual Motion, a new exhibition presented by the Scottish Society of Artists at An Lanntair in Stornoway.
The exhibition brings together 36 works by SSA members responding to ideas of migration and movement, considering the circulation of people, animals, objects, systems and ideas. Alongside the selected works, Perpetual Motion features invited artist Ade Adesina, whose intricate relief prints explore identity, environment and the shifting contexts through which we understand our place in the world.
The setting of An Lanntair gives the exhibition particular resonance. Based in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, the arts centre sits within a landscape and culture profoundly shaped by migration, from historic clearances and emigration to contemporary patterns of depopulation and movement between the islands and mainland Scotland.
My selected photograph, The Shape of Passage, was made during a morning ferry journey from Oban to the Isle of Mull. Rather than treating travel simply as movement between destinations, the image focuses on the structures through which that movement takes place, using framing, geometry and the surrounding sea to consider the experience of being temporarily suspended between places.
The work was previously exhibited in London as part of On The Road at Versus Arts Gallery. Its inclusion in Perpetual Motion places the photograph within a broader conversation around migration, transition and the systems through which people move between landscapes and communities.
The exhibition opens with a public preview on Friday 16 October at 5pm, before running from 17 October to 5 December 2026 at An Lanntair, Kenneth Street, Stornoway. A related showcase of work by Hebridean artists, curated by Hulabhaig, will subsequently form part of the SSA Annual Exhibition in 2027.
