Bothy Project is a unique and independent charitable organisation operating in a set of rural contexts, providing creative residences in bespoke small-scale, off-grid creative residency spaces to explore creativity, landscape and living simply.
We provide creative residences for practitioners in visual arts, craft & design, music, literature and performance, as well as thinkers, researchers, and people local to each bothy. Residents are able to use their residencies to explore creativity, landscape and living simply.
Active in Scotland since 2011, when it was initiated by artist Bobby Niven and architect Iain MacLeod, its network currently comprises Inshriach Bothy in the Cairngorms National Park, Sweeney’s Bothy on the Isle of Eigg.
Inshriach Bothy was built as a part of the 2011 RSA Residencies for Scotland Programme and sits on the banks of the river Spey within a traditional Scottish woodland area of the Cairngorms National Park.
Sweeney’s Bothy is located on the Isle of Eigg, and was created by Bothy Project in collaboration with artist Alec Finlay as part of Creative Scotland’s Year of Natural Scotland 2013.
Beginning in 2021 the bothies will operate as sentinels of communication with the best experience and learning generated by residents shared widely through a new public programme. Bothy Project is a charity supported by its trading arm Bothy Stores which donates a portion of its profit each year to support artists’ mobility and access to the Scottish landscape.