Swimmers' cyanotypes: bonding land, water and kin on Loch Faskally

Artist Eve McGovern Miller’s upcoming exhibition ‘The Land Remembers What the Water Tells Us’ includes a series of cyanotypes made from wild swimmers on Loch Faskally. Collaborators Helen Reid and Julia Harriman tell us about the unique artistic process that involved members of the Dell Dippers lying beside the water under a February sky

Eve McGovern Miller, a recent graduate from Dundee’s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, works with the waters of the land to make her art. Interested in how the human body relates to the landscape, and considering the tensions at play between humans and the ecologies they seek to manipulate, Eve’s work inspires us to contemplate how we relate to the natural world around us.

Eve is currently working towards her first solo exhibition on 26 April at Birnam Arts, an arts centre in Highland Perthshire, after being scouted at her degree show by Visual Arts Programme Manager Helen Reid. Entitled ‘The Land Remembers What the Water Tells Us’, Eve’s exhibition will include a series of cyanotype photography made from swimming within the River Tay and in Loch Faskally.

Helen explains, “I was extremely moved by Eve’s work and knew as soon as I saw it how potent it would feel exhibited in our Arts Centre in Birnam, a stone’s throw from the banks of the River Tay. A natural progression of the cyanotype work, in my opinion, was to connect Eve with some local swimmers, and in doing so root the work to the community, a key aspect of our arts programme at BA.”

Reaching out to a swimming group

This led Helen and Eve to collaborate with creative facilitator and producer Julia Harriman, and the Pitlochry-based outdoor swimming group The Dell Dippers, founded by Julia in Feb 2021. Julia comments: “I set up The Dell Dippers as a way to connect with people during the pandemic. Since our inaugural swim of two people in Loch Faskally, we now have about 40 regular swimmers and over 1000 members! The group has brought so much joy, friendship and solidarity to people.

“I have a passion for participatory arts which genuinely benefit and involve local communities and for nature-based creative work. Therefore, when Helen approached me about this project, I was very keen to propose it to the swimmers. We have a small group of women who are curious to be involved in creative projects that take them outside their comfort zone, beyond their swimming experience.

“We have a small group of women who are curious to be involved in creative projects that take them outside their comfort zone”

“Previously, I’ve worked with them to create a dance-swim performance with a choreographer (Thomas Goetz) and to make poems about the pandemic with artist Alec Finlay. They were intrigued at how the cyanotypes would work and if they could cope with lying down for 45 minutes on a cold February morning! However, the results were spectacular and surprising, and the session became as much a healing, bonding experience as an artistic one, with the seven women helping each other dampen their hair using a bucket and laying around together under the open sky beside the loch.”

One swimmer agreed, “I had had a challenging week but lying on the grass, meeting lovely new people, staring at the beautiful trees and chatting was very therapeutic and helpful”

Another swimmer commented “When Julia says there is a creative opportunity for us swimmers, I just say yes, as I know it’s always going to be interesting!”

The swimmers gathered with Eve, Helen and Julia on 7 February 2025, at Ladies Dell, on the shore of Loch Faskally.

The cyanotype process

Artist Eve explains what happened on the day: “The physical process of creating a cyanotype is simple, however it is in the temporal one where the magic lies. As the swimmers were helping one another to dampen their hair with water from the loch, I combined the two chemicals before swiftly coating the paper in readiness. Ideally the paper would be allowed to dry out beforehand but seeing as it was a fresh February morning with snow on the hills, I was keen to get going.

“I laid each swimmer’s hair onto the paper, ensuring they were comfortable and aware of the process – quite impressed by the preparedness of the swimmers and just a touch envious of their sensible hot water bottles.

“Part of the allure in creating cyanotypes is that you never know how each one will turn out”

“Cyanotypes are temporal in that each photograph requires a different amount of time, dependent upon the sun. Of course, this would be a cloudy day so it took around 30-40 minutes for the initial deep blue to turn into an aged bronze colour telling us it is time to be developed. During this time the swimmers were chatting gently, or being still within the space created, with fellow swimmers, dog walkers and runners passing by, we were looking upwards through the trees to the sky above.

Watching the magic happen

“Developing these prints was cold work. Part of the allure in creating cyanotypes is that you never know how each one will turn out. Once complete, we stood at the edge of the dell, looking at cyanotypes, noticing the differences in each other’s photograph but finding the similarities within the landscape around – in the bare trees, the rippling of the water and within our own bodies.

It was a real tonic to spend time with such an engaged, warm and dedicated group of people who have been able to form a strong connection to this other body of water. I hope the work encourages folk to think about their own formed connections with land, water and kin, and maybe hope to spend a wee bit more time within these spaces.”

Eve’s exhibition at Birnam Arts, which will include her cyanotype works, opens to the public on Saturday 26 April and runs until Sunday 8 June 2025. Eve will be running a workshop on Saturday 31 May where members of the public can have a go making their own hair cyanotypes on the banks of the Tay. For more information please visit birnamarts.com