Photography by Tom Barr
Essay by Kate Davies
For the sixth edition of Ootlier, Tom and Kate explore the legacy of the military remains at Rubha nan Sasan - "the point of difficulty" - where a hastily-constructed coastal defence battery at Loch Ewe was abandoned eighty years ago.
During the Second World War, the landscape around Loch Ewe underwent a radical transformation into “Port A”, Britain’s principal anchorage for the naval and merchant vessels involved in the Arctic Convoys transporting vital supplies to wartime Russia. More than a fifth of Scotland’s landmass was appropriated for military purposes, and Wester Ross is one of many places where the objects and structures of total war have become part of the twenty-first century cultural landscape. The military remains around Loch Ewe are unusually complete and well-preserved, especially at Rubha nan Sasan (the “point of difficulty”), where a hastily-constructed coastal battery was abandoned eighty years ago.
What do we make of such remains and how do we understand their important story within the bigger picture of Scottish places and spaces? Tom Barr’s startling photography offers fresh perspectives on a landscape as unsettling as it is distinctive, while an introduction by Kate Davies explores the particular challenges of seeing—or not seeing—the concrete legacies of “the point of difficulty.” Rubha nan Sasan asks us to question how we respond to the history of conflict and the material traces it leaves behind."
56 pp. Full colour. Printed by Bell & Bain in Glasgow.