An Cuiltheann

Digital pigment print in an edition of 15. Image size 97 x 71 cm, paper size 107 x 81 cm.

An Cuiltheann (The Cuillin or Black Cuillin) is a range of mountains located on the Isle of Skye in Scotland that features as one of the 43 ‘core wild land areas’ in the Scottish Natural Heritage map of 2014. Since the 19th Century the Black Cuillin has been a destination for many artists and writers (such as Turner and Wordsworth) seeking the ‘divine’ or ’sublime’ in nature and more recently an attraction for walkers and climbers promising what some describe as the ultimate mountaineering experience in the UK. According to legend, the Cuillin take their name from the Gaelic hero, Cúchulainn.

It is often said that Britain has no wilderness…

“We lack - we need - a term for those places where one experiences a ‘transition’ from a known landscape… into 'another world’: somewhere we feel and think significantly differently. They exist even in familiar landscapes: there when you cross a certain watershed, recline or snowline, or enter rain, storm or mist. Such moments are rites of passage that reconfigure local geographics, leaving known places outlandish or quickened, revealing continents within counties.”

The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, Robert Macfarlane.