New sound work set to bring ruins to life

An audio collage which brings new life to the ruins of St. Peter's Seminary and Kilmahew Woods by Cardross in Argyll is set to have its first public airing at an event on Saturday 23 March. Michael Gallagher, of the University of Glasgow's School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, worked in partnership last year with with Kilmahew heritage, landscape and conservation groups and Glasgow-based arts charity NVA to produce Kilmahew Audio Drift No. 1, an audio work about the past, present and possible future of the site. St Peter's Seminary is one of just a handful of listed buildings built in Scotland in the postwar period. Designed by modernist architects Gillespie, Kidd and Coia and considered a classic example of the style, it was used as a seminary and then as a drug rehabilitation centre between 1966 and the late 1980s, when it was closed. It has since fallen into a state of extreme disrepair. The 48-minute Kilmahew Audio Drift No.1 weaves together stories from people with connections to Kilmahew and sounds from the site to produce an audio collage.