Announcing Gaada’s 2025 Micro-Commission
Gaada is delighted to announce a new artist commission with Jenny Watt, a storyteller and baker whose creative practice is rooted in her background in food science.
This year Jenny has been visiting the Toogs Artist Workshop in Burra to experiment with creating plant-based pigments for painting and printmaking. Building on this early exploration, she will now develop a new body of work that examines Shetland’s unique ecology through colour, chemistry, and story.
Through this commission, Jenny will research and create a series of recipes for Shetland plant-based pigments, culminating in a publication and workshops for artists and the wider community. The publication follows in the footsteps of the now rare Shetland Dyes by Jenni Sim, first published by The Shetland Times in 1985, and seeks to create a new visual nomenclature of Shetland pigments – a contemporary reference for artists working with local materials.
Jenny’s project builds upon Gaada’s growing focus on sustainable and hyperlocal material practices, including the development of the Shetland Material Library, an evolving resource of natural and found materials that aim to replace imported art supplies in the Toogs Artist Workshop.
Jenny has already been testing out recipes and ideas through Gaada’s most recent Work Share event for Shetland Artists. Over the coming months, Jenny will continue developing her research with support from the Gaada team before launching the publication in 2026.
This new commission also continues threads from Gaada’s 2021-22 programme Safeland, which celebrated the work of Shetland botanist Walter Scott, and resulted in several new artist publications inspired by his Shetland by Numbers project. We continue to be inspired by Walter’s legacy and have recently had his surviving family into the Workshop to find out how his life’s work continues to influence the direction of our organisation today.
This project is part of Gaada’s 2025–28 multi-year programme, supported by Creative Scotland and the Shetland Charitable Trust. We look forward to sharing more about Jenny’s discoveries and recipes as the project unfolds.
