The Nether Lochaber Community Association commissioned Ali in 2025 to explore the cultural and natural heritage of Nether Lochaber through a series of activities using a multidisciplinary approach. The project uncovers stories of people and place through questioning, what is within the grasp of this community, what is the brìgh (essence) of this place? Ali spent her teenage years living in Onich, in the old schoolhouse beside the Nether Lochaber Village Hall, Brìgh: Stories in Stone reflects upon this unique understanding of heritage in terms of social, cultural and geological identities.
The resulting artwork includes the poem, A Heron’s Flight | Iteal a’Chorra-ghrithich, written for the project by Ali with Gaelic interpretation by Mary Ann Kennedy. The poem explores the liminal space between land and sea through the eyes of a Heron, and a reflection on the past and present of the Nether Lochaber community. A visual interpretation of this poem is crafted into four fabric panels created with community groups in the area. The outline of the shoreline is present in this work and place names and their meanings from Nether Lochaber combine with archival photographs, stones from the Onich beach and Gaelic idioms
Ballachulish Goddess | Cailleach Bheithir, Cyanotype print on Fabriano Watercolour paper
150cm x 90cm
Collaboration with Lucy Cooke and the children of P4-7 St Brides Primary School, North Ballachulish.
This full-size portrait created from a workshop in foraging and printmaking with pupils from St Brides Primary School. Gathering the organic matter from around the site of where the Ballachulish Goddess was found below a wall near to Alltshellach House. The landscape around the site is very different now to the iron age era. It is believed she was possibly placed there to protect prehistoric travellers crossing the dangerous straights, or as a fertility symbol or to commemorate an important female who had died. Her now distorted form, having warped when removed from the ground, is on permanent display in the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.
