Solstice Nurseries will hold a plant sale on Saturday 26th May between 10.30 and 13:00 to give people in our neighbourhood an opportunity to come to our wholesale nursery and buy plants directly from us, the growers. The Fruitbat tells Voice readers:

We are a social firm (that is a not for profit organisation) which operates commercially. Solstice provides garden maintenance and is also a wholesale nursery that sells heathers, herbaceous plants, shrubs and alpine plants to the retail market.

Bobby Niven presents ISLAND, an exhibition using film, sculpture and found objects to explore the history and architecture of Inchgarvie, an uninhabited island located under the Forth Rail Bridge. With thanks to Peacock marketing manager Kylie Roux. ISLAND is based around the strange architectural history of Inchgarvie whose now uninhabited ruins tell of past lives as a castle, a prison, a quarantine and a foundry and accommodation for workers who built the Forth Rail Bridge under whose shadow it sits. Like the Inchgarvie ruins themselves ISLAND comprises distinct but related parts: the film, the grey room of concrete sculptures and the orange room of objects and artefacts. Shot on location the film evolves around a room full of sculpted birds [...]

With thanks to Claire McBain.

Entries for North East Open Studios (NEOS) 2012 may have been declared closed but VSA, the UK’s largest city social care charity supporting people in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, has announced it still has space to accommodate further artists and creators at its annual NEOS event at Easter Anguston Farm, Peterculter.

NEOS is an award-winning, not-for-profit collective of artists, makers and galleries in the North East who open their doors to the public each September. VSA’s Easter Anguston Farm has been a venue for the last four years.

With thanks to Kylie Roux.
THE OBSIDIAN ISLE – Gayle Chong Kwan

The Obsidian Isle is a significant new body of work from Venice Biennale exhibitor Gayle Chong Kwan. The installation of large-format photographs & sculptures documents a fictional island located off the west coast of Scotland, on which reside one country’s lost and destroyed buildings and places.
The Obsidian Isle explores ideas of collective history, national identity, landscape, and tourism through the prism of the senses and the distortion of memories.

Exhibitions runs 24 March – 5 May 2012

Curriculum for Excellence has afforded Harlaw Academy pupils the opportunity to embrace Citizenship in more diverse contexts that ever before, and a Staff Working Group on Citizenship was set up almost 3 years ago. For the last year the group has included pupils, who have played a major role in the running of the group and decision-making procedures. Depute Head teacher Aileen Hunter tells Voice readers.

Pupils in the group were very interested in forging a link with pupils in a school abroad, and unanimously favoured the work of the RSVP Charity which has as its Trustees several representatives in Aberdeen. This charity supports children in the Bugarama region of Rwanda by providing a daily meal at primary school, and sponsors older children to receive a secondary education at boarding school – “Education today for Zero Aid Tomorrow.”

Aberdeen Voice photographer Rob and I attended Willow’s Animal Sanctuary Open Day on 25 February and had an absolutely wonderful time. Were it not for the snow which started when we were there, Rob would have had a hard time getting me to leave. Suzanne Kelly reviews a splendid day out.

It was a nice drive to Willows from Aberdeen; the countryside is beautiful. Willows was well signposted, and a helper was on the main road to ensure people found their way.

It is a spacious and friendly haven for animals and people. Getting to know some of each was a pleasure.

I met Sue during the event, and she told me that when she and her husband moved to Scotland six years ago, they soon discovered Willows, had visited and supported them during that time and wanted to do more.