Margaret Tait
Film Screening: Where I am is Here by Margaret Tait
Date 4th June, Talbot Rice, Edinburgh.
The namesake of our Where I Am programme, Talbot Rice will be showing the 1964 work, Where I am is Here, alongside a range of work spanning artists’ moving image in Scotland from the 1930s to the present day.
Peter Todd essay on Margaret Tait
“Images of the social, the communal, politics or the political feature in Tait’s films. North Sea oil, No Uranium signs in shops and the crowd of demonstrators filling a street with their presence. There are banners against proposals to drill for Uranium on Orkney and the Greenpeace boat, Rainbow Warrior, at harbour.” Peter Todd reflects on Margaret Tait’s work at LUX Online.
About the artist
Born in 1918 in Kirkwall on Orkney, Margaret Tait qualified in medicine at Edinburgh University 1941. From 1950 to 1952 she studied film at the Centro Sperimentale di Photographia in Rome. Returning to Scotland she established Ancona Films in Edinburgh’s Rose Street.
In the 1960’s Tait moved back to Orkney where she made a series of films inspired by the Orcadian landscape and culture. Tait also wrote poetry and stories and produced several books including three books of poetry. Margaret Tait died in Kirkwall in 1999.
“Where are we?…we are exactly where she would like us to open our eyes and ears, in a hold between rural and citified, past and present, part and not part”.
Ali Smith on ‘Where I Am Is Here’ (1964)
