Words, colour and sound — public art celebrates Orkney 2025

A cultural feast of public art supported by Orkney Islands Council awaits locals and visitors alike during the 2025 Orkney International Island Games.

Folk will already have  noticed art installations popping up in windows overlooking the winding cobbled “main street” of Stromness.

All the Stromness Street Gallery artworks have been submitted by members of the Orkney public, some based on the concept of “games”. Over 30 artists are exhibiting around 50 artworks installed across 23 participating properties — many of them local householders — over coming days.

Also part of the Street Gallery, Móti Collective — a group of art graduates who have either studied in, returned to, or chosen to base themselves in Orkney — will also be exhibiting on the theme of ‘games’ at Northlight Gallery.

Visual art at Northlight will be accompanied by Island Soonds, an inventive and playful sound piece by Orcadian composer Brian Cromarty, also commissioned by Orkney Islands Council.

The exhibition at Northlight Gallery will be open July 14-27 July, with a preview on the evening of July 13.

Over in Kirkwall, signs of the Island Games cultural offering are also cropping up.

To the rear of The Orkney Museum, in the wonderful Tankerness House Gardens, folk will notice installations by four UHI Fine Arts degree students — Yvonne Harcus, Evie Donaldson, Emilia Gheorghe and Frances Roebuck. This display is on until 21 July (weather permitting).

St Magnus Cathedral, meanwhile, is the focal point where key projects converge. Island Voices, created by Scrivener Gabrielle Barnby, is a collection of written word gathered from across participating island groups on the theme of “islandness” and presented in a special souvenir booklet.

The Island Voices project also spawned hundreds of Haiku – 17 syllable poetry – celebrating “islandness”, which are being displayed in Games venues and athlete accommodation.

Snippets from the Island Voices project have been incorporated into Brian Cromarty’s Island Soonds soundscape and installed throughout the Cathedral, allowing visitors to hear the distinct accents, languages and dialects from around the world that are part of the Island Games family.

These sounds will echo alongside the visual extravaganza of the St Magnus Sails – a large scale collaborative installation comprising fourteen 4.2m high sails made in 1993 for the St Magnus Festival and strung from the Cathedral’s dramatic vaulted ceiling. They were last exhibited in 2017.

Both Island Voices and Island Soonds willl be launched at a special event on the evening of Thursday, July 17, in the St Magnus Centre. The event will include an open mic with Gaby and a talk about the soundscape with Brian.