Yesnaby Art & Archaeology Research Project

The Yesnaby Art & Archaeology Research Project (YAARP) is an interdisciplinary and collaborative, multi-year Art & Archaeology project based in Orkney. Led by the University of the Highlands & Islands (UHI) Archaeology Institute - devised and co-directed by archaeologist and UHI lecturer Dr James Moore and Orkney-based visual artist Rik Hammond - YAARP focuses its research and practice on the landscape, archaeology and history of the township of Yesnaby, on the west coast of the Orkney Mainland. The project draws together local archaeologists and artists from Orkney and further afield

YAARP undertakes experimental and creative investigations into landscape visualisation and interpretation by developing and employing a range of creative techniques and equipment - including GPS/GIS, mapping, geophysical survey, ambulatory practice, photography, video, drawing, painting and archival research, in combination with phenomenological and psychogeographic approaches to landscape. The project aims to develop creative and collaborative ways to experience, record and interpret Yesnaby, and its human history. This aims to develop our understanding and public awareness of this important but comparatively unknown archaeological resource within Orkney, and additionally to provide members of the wider project team with new skills and tactics to interpret and visualise landscape and cultural heritage.

The Yesnaby Art & Archaeology Project aims to investigate the ebb and flow of human activity of Yesnaby, Orkney over the past 5000 years. Alongside this the project is exploring the relationship between the practices of art and archaeology, and considering the use and value of these combined methodologies in interpreting and presenting the past.