News
Article commissioned by the Museum of Unrest for their Collections on the theme of Community Arts, published online in Autumn 2025.
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In this article I reflect on my experience as an artist who has become increasingly embedded in Shetland – an archipelago in the North Atlantic comprising more than 100 islands, sixteen of which are inhabited. My involvement with Shetland began in 1985, and I moved to the islands permanently in 2000 when I obtained very part-time hourly paid work on the new (and recently discontinued) contemporary textiles course at Shetland College, University of the Highlands and Islands (now ‘UHI Shetland’ since a merger in 2021).
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Image: Recount (2013) Cold War Projects. Sumburgh Post.
International arts project launched 10 October 2025 ​
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I was really pleased to take part again in TELEPHONE, an online exhibition presented in the form of a digital game played by artists. My film, Transmission, is included in the project. The project consists of 1,395 individual, interconnected and original works by artists from 930 cities in 65 countries, including three other artists, Jennifer Leask, Susan Timmins and Helen Garbett, who either live and work in Shetland or have Shetland links as they're all graduates of our UHI Shetland Masters degree course in Art and Social Practice. TELEPHONE works like the children’s game of the same name. A message is whispered from person to person and changes and evolves as it is passed from player to player. In this case, a secret message is passed from art form to art form, so a message could become poetry and then painting and then music and then film, throughout all possible forms of art. Each finished work of art is passed to two or three other artists, so the game branches outward exponentially like a family tree.
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Image: film still from TELEPHONE (2025).
My film Anunder was selected for screening in Homemade 2025 at the Mareel Cinema in Lerwick, Shetland. The two-day event took place this past weekend, with screenings on Saturday 6 September (which included the audience vote) and Sunday 7 September. Homemade is an annual event where local filmmakers are invited to submit their short films, with no rules other than they must be four minutes (or less) in length. .
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Image: film still from Anunder (2024)
Ethics of Socially Engaged Art: Power, Politics and Representation​
New book published by Routledge on 18 July 2025, edited by Anthony Schrag.
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I have contributed a chapter, 'I Live Here: Reflections on Being A Socially Engaged Artist in a small community'. I write from the perspective of an incoming resident, where for nearly three decades I have occupied multiple roles: artist and visitor; teacher, incomer; researcher; participant in other people's projects; and sometimes consultant to visiting artists and researchers. I consider my experience of working in a small community where socially engaged artists are openly visible and constantly scrutinised, carrying multiple identities into everything, sometimes raising questions about ‘conflict-of-interest.’ Within this context, I reflect on how work evolves, or unfolds, with an ‘ongoingness’ that responds to the small community, with projects overlapping and interconnecting and relationships drawing on encounters in different contexts and even from different time periods. I reflect on the particular skills and qualities needed to work ethically in small places and how these overlap with ethical engagement in other contexts. I also discuss factors such as language, time, uncertainty, boundaries, values, collaboration, and decision-making.​
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Image: Mirrie Dancers. Site Selection in Unst. 2009.
Dialogues: A Hybrid Art Project
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I am taking part in this project with Dorothea Rust.
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Our dialogues are based on concepts of soil. This Dialogue, which is #11 in the overall project, picks up from our exchange in 2021 as part of the project Hidden Flowers Bloom Beautifully. Dialogues: A Hybrid Art Project focuses on the exploration of hybrid spaces of exchange and art interventions that blend physical and virtual realities in new configurations. The project promotes notions of connectivity and interactions that blend private/public conceptions of space. The first round of Dialogues took place in July 2022. The project is curated by Elisavet kalpaxi.
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Image: Vulnerable Thoughts in Peripheral Places. Dorothea Rust and Roxane Permar, 2021. Detail from the archive published from our online exchange on Padlet.
VACMA Winter 2024/25 Recipients
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I am grateful to receive one of six VACMA awards given by Shetland Arts Development Agency and Creative Scotland to participate in Kindred: Living in the Landscape 2025, an international exhibition and event in Norway including support for production of new work, Bloodlines and to research a project between Shetland and Norway exploring the power of islands through cross-cultural and inter-generational dialogue. The new work for exhibition in Norway will be developed further to show in Shetland. You can download the exhibition catalogue here.
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Image: film still from Bloodlines #3 (2025)
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"Scotland played a unique role during the Cold War, a 40-year nuclear stand-off between the USA and the Soviet Union. Despite looming conflict, people in Scotland mobilised in a variety of ways in reaction to this changing world. Thousands of women activated in response, becoming key members of previously male-dominated organisations such as the armed forces and civil defence.
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Others were motivated to protest new and dangerous installations arriving in Scotland that directly impacted their lives and strengthened their personal beliefs. The Cold War Scotland exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland tells their stories. Here, we explore the stories of six fascinating women and their Cold War connections."
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Cold War Scotland explores the stories of Scots at the centre of this global conflict. The impact of the war still lingers in Scottish politics, culture and memory. Scots played an active role in the global conflict as soldiers within intelligence services and as part of voluntary civil defences. The exhibition draws on Scotland’s rich history of Cold War-era protest and activism.
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Cold War Scotland is an output of Materialising the Cold War, a collaborative research project between National Museums Scotland and the University of Stirling. The project explores how the Cold War heritage is represented and how museums can adapt to tell this story in future. Materialising the Cold War is funded by a major grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
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In May 2024 I was privileged to attend the Arctic Congress in Bodø, Norway, a wonderful town in the Arctic Circle. One of my films from Landscape in Pain #164615072023 was included in the exhibition New Genre Arctic Art, curated by Timo Jokela, ASAD Network of UArctic and University of Lapland. Link to catalogue here.
I also organised a panel called 'Art and social practice in support of young people dealing with societal threats' that featured four colleagues from the Arctic Sustainable Art and Design (ASAD) Network of the University of the Arctic. We gave three presentations: 1) 'Dealing with Environmental Challenges in the Arctic - The Marine Debris Project' by Mette Gårdvik, Associate Professor in Art Education; Wenche Sørmo, Dr.Scient. Associate Professor in Natural Science; Karin Stoll, Associate Professor in Natural Science Education; all three presenters are researchers at Nord Universitet, Nesna Campus. 2) 'Communities in Artistic Dialogue - Sharing the visualisations of the Arctic’ by DA Annamari Manninen, Lecturer in Art Education, University of Lapland and 3) 'The Landscape in Pain: Art for shifting relations with the land - Roxane Permar, Professor in Art and Social Practice, Centre for Island Creativity, UHI Shetland, University of the Highlands and Islands.
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Community, Culture, and Belonging: an Environmental Justice Zine
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Community, culture, and belonging are key pieces of humanity often set upon the back burner of technological development – normalizing technologies destructive to people and the planet. This digital zine investigates these themes through the lenses of environmental justice and technology. Ten multi-media creative works and three honourable mentions that explore these ideas are here.
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Image: Landscape in Pain #2243_20210626
New Article: The Importance of Place
I was delighted to be invited to write a guest article for the Luminate web blog about my practice.
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The article for Luminate, Scotland's creative ageing organisation, was published on 1st August 2022. I am a great fan of Luminate, for their advocacy of creative activity for older people as well as for older artists, like myself. In 2013 our Cold War Projects received a Luminate Commission for Recount. It was such a joy to work with their Director, Anne Gallagher, who made the effort to come to Shetland. Subsequently she has generously offered her time to give talks for students on our MA Art and Social Practice. at UHI Shetland. Luminate is now ten years old and has developed so impressively. Earlier this year I was invited to take part in a Roundtable discussion to help them identify ways to move forward. It is a "listening" organisation not only because it asks the people with whom they work for feedback but because they act on this feedback.
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Image: Recount, Sumburgh Post. Cold War Projects 2013.
Nordic Connections: Learning from the past to shape the future
New Scottish Government grant - Arctic Connections Fund
In my role as Research Fellow in UHI Shetland, I was part of the team which delivered this pilot project, along with my collaborative partner in Cold War Projects, Susan Timmins. We explored two issues that threaten contemporary society — catastrophic climate change and nuclear disaster — through dialogue and mutual creative enquiry by young people, university researchers, partner organisations and individual members of the local island communities. The project linked two communities, the island of Unst in Shetland and two islands, Onøy and Lurøy in northern Norway. The islands share histories as well as a deep concern for the future viability of our planet. Through the course of the project we also learned about a range of other common issues and qualities linked to daily life. Partner organisations include: Baltasound Junior High School, Unst; Nord Universitet, Campus Nesna; Northern Isles Community Development, Shetland Islands Council; Onøy/Lurøy Skole; Centre for Island Creativity, Shetland UHI; Moray College UHI; Unst Heritage Centre.
Image: detail of the prototype game, developed by Finlay MacDonald. Y
The Home and Belonging Exhibition took place from February to May 2022 at Da Gadderie, Shetland Museum and Archives, as part of the Festival of Care: Tending the Light.
The exhibition is part of the larger Home and Belonging project, which was an arts-based exploration of home and belonging founded on mutual creative enquiry by care experienced young people alongside their communities. The project started in 2019 and was led by the Centre for Island Creativity at UHI Shetland in partnership with Who Cares? Scotland. This work is supported with funding from the Life Changes Trust. The Trust is funded by The National Lottery Community Fund. The core of Home and Belonging is the #ShetlandCrew: a group of amazing young, care experienced people who are working to improve things for those who come after them. I was part of the core team with Dr Siún Carden (UHI Shetland) and Sian Wild (Who Cares? Scotland). The exhibition includes a wide range of work the young people have made with film maker Rozi Peters, poet Jen Hadfield, Minecraft artist Adam Clarke, theatre director Tony McBride and me. I led a short project during the first year of the pandemic based on the Swap Shots project I originally created in 2007.
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You can access the catalogue here.
Relate North 2021: Everyday Extremes
A selection of images from my body of work Landscape in Pain was selected for the annual Relate North exhibition, Everyday Extremes. I also gave a presentation in the Symposium of the same title. The exhibition presents a diverse collection of visions and insights on the broader perspective of collaborative practices in design, art, research and education within the Arctic region. ​Everyday Extremes focuses on a more specific perspective of human and non-human wellbeing in the Arctic region. The concept of extremes aims to highlight and describe the particular sensitivity that enables and supports creative and sustainable interaction between human/non-human actors and the everchanging, severe environment of the Arctic. The virtual exhibition includes artworks by 50 artists and designers from 8 different countries. In addition to visual arts, there are artworks using video, installations and design products, architecture and painting. The virtual exhibition is designed and arranged by the Arctic Design School, National Research Tomsk State University, in collaboration with the ASAD thematic network coordinated by the University of Lapland. The Curator Svetlana Usenyuk-Kravchuk is the head of the Arctic Design School and a senior researcher at Tomsk State University.
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Liink to the virtual exhibition is here.
Download the exhibition catalogue here. ​
Hidden Flowers Bloom Most Beautifully
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Contemporary art from Shetland and Switzerland blooms in new exhibition
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This group exhibition brings together the work of 16 contemporary artists from Shetland and Switzerland is open during August 2021.​ It is the result of ongoing dialogue between eight artists based in Shetland and eight artists based in Appenzell Ausserrhoden, a rural area in the east of Switzerland. Each artist has explored the perceived geographic limits of the art world, viewed from these two rural locations.
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Artists Paul Bloomer, Daniel Clark, Amy Gear, Aimee Labourne, Vivian Ross-Smith, Roxane Permar, Andrew Sutherland and Roseanne Watt make-up the Shetland cohort, whilst Caroline Baur, Florian Gugger, Martina Morger, Maria Nänny, Dorothea Rust, Harlis Schweizer, Birgit Widmer and Wassili Widmer represent the Swiss contribution.​ Hidden Flowers takes place at Mareel in Shetland from Saturday 31 July to Friday 27 August 2021. The exhibition is supported by the Swiss Arts Council (Pro Helvetia), Creative Scotland and Shetland Arts with support from Swiss galleries and individuals - Steinegg Stiftung, Dr. Fred Styger Stiftung, Susanne and Martin Knechtli-Kradolfer-Stiftung, TISCA Tischhauser Stiftung, Metrohm Stiftung, Stiftung für Ostschweizer Kunstschaffen, Kulturförderung Appenzell Ausserrhoden and Innerrhoder Kunststiftung.​
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Photo: Film still from my series of digital images and films, Landscape in Pain. Photo used is courtesy Sustainable Shetland.
New Web Site - Landscape in Pain
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This wind farm (VEWF) is industrial scale and will become one of the largest onshore wind farms in Europe. Construction commenced in September 2020, after many years of public debate and local dissent. It coincided with lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It has been painful to watch the VEWF construction make visible inroads to the landscape, like an occupying force, violating our land, which has been made vulnerable and helpless in the face of the human hand of destruction. I have questioned the potential impact of low level noise and infrasound since it was first proposed, and made work about this issue for an exhibition over ten years ago in Shetland at Vaila Fine Art. Making art work for this project helps to mend the pain I feel as well as creating artefacts that record my response to the destruction. The VEWF has severely divided the Shetland community, and is a cause for collective pain.
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On Line Mail Art Exhibition for the research project, Landscape of Mutability, initiated by the University of Glasgow.
Participation in this project involved sending three postcards to the researchers by late May 2021 for an online exhibition. Participants across Scotland, were asked to explore how landscapes are experienced in a time of limited movement. This project aims to help us reflect on the insights brought by enforced immobility and consider how different media can contribute to a sense of community. Lockdown restrictions have enabled me to refresh my connection to Shetland and reacquaint with the Shetland landscape more deeply, bringing sharp focus to my view of it. In particular I have experienced increasing despair about our relation to the environment. It has been painful to watch the VEWF construction make visible inroads to the landscape, like an occupying force, violating our land. My friend and colleague Susan Timmins suggested doing something about the Viking Energy Wind Farm, such as writing postcards to future generations of Shetlanders to apologise for the horrible legacy it is creating. My post cards for this exhibition have formed the starting point for a new project, Landscape in Pain.
The Telephone Project
Artists present an online exhibition of a worldwide game of TELEPHONE ONLINE LAUNCH: April 10, 2021
Three artists from Shetland, Joan Fraser, Roxane Permar and Susan Timmins, are among artists from 73 countries who played a game of TELEPHONE, in which a message was passed from art form to art form. The message could become a poem, then a painting, then a film, then a dance, as it was passed 7,684,788 kilometers or 4,776,126 miles between 489 cities. An interactive, online exhibition of these hundreds of original, interconnected works was launched on Saturday, April 10, 2021 at 9am EST.
Only a handful of staff members know the original message of TELEPHONE. The participating artists were only aware of the work that directly preceded their own, and do not know how their own work was translated or further translated in subsequent works. When TELEPHONE became publicly available, it was the first time that any of the artists got to see the exhibition in full.
News posted here dates from April 2021. For other news items, see my curriculum vitae. Most recent items are at the top. Scroll down to read older items. You can find additional news about my practice related to work linked to my project Landscape in Pain (2021 and ongoing) here.