Fifers urged to share pandemic memories to create COVID memorial

Remembering Together will see a host of workshops held across the region to honour the people we lost, mark what has been lost and changed in our lives, and preserve the best of what we learned and created together during the pandemic.

Katie Fowlie, an artist living in Fife, is driving phase one of the project, and phase one is all about speaking to as many local residents as possible to share their experiences, and get their ideas on what sort of memorial would be meaningful here.

She said: “Community action and the arts are two of the most important conduits for Scotland’s recovery from Covid-19.

“Through Remembering Together we all have an opportunity to combine these to great effect. In so doing we can reflect, connect, and make sense of all that has been gained, as well as all that has been lost. In so doing, we will be better placed to look ahead to the future with a shared empathy, optimism and deeper sense of togetherness.”

Katie is looking for individuals and groups from across the community to create camera obscuras in a converted horse box to act as the conduit for recording their stories and experiences over the last two years. That will result in a collective of cameras made up of individual experiences.

She explained: “The carcass of each camera will provide a surface to explore experiences through a series of wide-ranging applications; producing honest, varied, open responses to the last two years.

“Each camera will become a safe space where stories can be told, voices heard, experiences shared and acknowledged. They will allow for anonymity, quiet or bold expressions, whilst underlining the strengths of coming together during the most challenging of times.”

The collection of cameras will, in turn, enable the artist commissioned for phased two’ of the project to respond to the ideas and experiences from Fifers and turn them into a meaningful, memorial by the end of 2023.

Katie’s aim is to have phase one completed by the end of 2022.

Dates have been offered to local schools, which the public can attend any of a number of workshops being held across the Kingdom.

“She added: “We are creating individual camera obscuras at each workshop as the conduit to record people views/responses which will be exhibited as a collective at some point next year.

Cameras and surveys will then form part of Kirkcaldy Gallery's archive in response to the pandemic.”

Fife Council and Fife Sports and Leisure Trust have teamed up to provide warm spaces to help folk stay active and stay social during the cold winter months, and Katie is looking forward to offering some free creative workshops as part of their Winter Wellness social café, sharing more information about the Remembering Together Fife project.

You can join Katie at social café venues on the following dates: Monday, November 28 (12.30pm - 2.30pm) - Carnegie Leisure Centre, Dunfermline; Wednesday, November 30 (12.00pm - 2.00pm) - Michael Woods Sports & Leisure Centre, Glenrothes; Friday, December 2 (10.00am - 12.00pm) - Kirkcaldy Leisure Centre; Monday, December 5 (10.30am - 12.30pm) - Cupar Sports Centre; Tuesday, December 6 (1.30pm - 3.30pm - Levenmouth Swimming Pool & Sports Centre; Thursday, December 8 (10.00am - 12.00pm) - Cowdenbeath Leisure Centre; Thursday, December 15 (2.30pm - 4.30pm) – East Sands Leisure Centre, St Andrews.

You can also share your views in a short survey at https://forms.gle/mYRh7S2RAmFi9zqb6

More details on the project at facebook.com/rememberingtogetherfife