Paper short abstract:

As Aye, (film project) - a fragment of correspondence with author and storyteller, Jess Smith, and with the 'absent presence' of Scottish Travellers in the archive and the landscape.

Paper long abstract:

As Aye, is a fragment of correspondence with author and storyteller, Jess Smith, and with the 'absent presence' of Scottish Travellers in the archive and the landscape.

Drawing on the memory and legacy of The Tinkers Heart, an ancient memorial and stopping place in Argyll and Bute, the film traces elliptical tellings of history carried on the tongue, in the body, through the lens and on the land. At the confluence of three old roads that run parallel to the new, the Heart gathers together a contested terrain of remembrance, love, loss and reparation.