Artica Svalbard is Thrilled to Welcome Mhairi Killin, Our New Resident Artist

Artica Svalbard is pleased to welcome Mhairi Killin as our current resident artist. Mhairi is a visual artist based on the Isle of Iona in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, where she works with the relationships between land, sea, humans, and other living beings. Nominated for the residency by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA), her practice counters the notion of islands as peripheral and marginal, instead revealing them as progressive centres that offer unique perspectives on the forces shaping our futures.

Mhairi’s multidisciplinary work spans drawing, print, sculpture, and film, often focusing on how belief structures—religious, mythological, and socio-political—shape both the physical and metaphysical spaces we move through. Her recent collaborative project, On Sonorous Seas, brings together voices from science, art, music, and poetry to explore the reliance of both whales and military operations on sound as a survival tool, as well as the broader impact of the militarisation of Scotland’s seas on their ecosystems.

Her work has been exhibited widely in the UK and internationally. Mhairi has previously held residencies at the Leighton Colony at Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada, and participated in In Search of the Pluriverse, a Travelling Academy project by Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam.

Mhairi’s residency at Artica Svalbard is supported through Creative Scotland's Open Fund, made possible by the UK National Lottery, and will explore the critical theme of climate change’s impact on island archipelagos.