CHRIS FREMANTLE

Launch of Phase I of Arthur Watson’s work at CairnGorm Mountain. Great to see this project coming to fruition. I still think it is a shame that Winifred isn’t part of it: pacem.

I think I first went to meet Bob Kinnaird in March 2001.

It all started with a phone call from Judi Menabeny, then the visual arts officer for Badenoch and Strathspey (?). Bob had contacted her looking for help to develop the arts as part of the development of the funicular. At that time the Funicular was a big story attracting a lot of negative press. Anyway, Judi called me and I went over to see Bob. I was immediately struck by the landscape – who wouldn’t be? But to me it was the bulldozed airstrip that you can see from 10 miles away. That is the first visitor experience.

Quickly we set aside the idea of the sculpture park on the mountain, and looked to do something that addressed the relationship between the organisation and its context. Clearly Bob’s thinking about the living mountain has developed in the process as well.