Weavers of Grass

Poet Chrys Salt and musician Richard Ingham present a spell-binding, multi-media show linking two weavers living 5,000 years apart. The performance incorporates paintings and images by artist and filmmaker Ken Smyth.

The award winning duo, poet Chrys Salt and saxophonist Richard Ingham, continue their innovative 15-year collaboration with this fascinating new project - Weavers of Grass. Chrys evocative narrative sequences teamed with Richards mesmerizing jazz and contemporary classical interpretations bridge the gap between two extraordinary individuals - outsider artist Angus MacPhee and tzi the Iceman - two weavers of grass separated by 5000 years.

Hebridean crofter Angus MacPhee went off to war in 1939, fell ill with a form of schizophrenia and was sent to Craig Dunain Hospital outside Inverness. There, for the next fifty years, he chose to remain almost totally silent but using the ancient skills of the islands went about weaving amazing garments from grass, flowers and leaves harvested from the hospital grounds.

tzi the Iceman is the natural mummy of a man who lived between and 3105 and 3350 BC. Bronze Age man also wove garments out of grass. The exact circumstances of his violent death are unknown, so remain open to a poets imagination!