Cara Murray
Unreal People in an Unreal Place, 2026
Soil, heather, grasses, moss, audio

Unreal People in an Unreal Place, 2026
Script

Gaelic Exercise Book, 2026

Allt nan Sgitheach, 2026
35mm photographic print

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Neil MacAlpine and John MacKenzie 
Gaelic-English and English-Gaelic Dictionary, 1975

Unreal People in an Unreal Place is an attempt to begin to materialise a personal and collective history of the Highlands of Scotland. This is the place of Cara Murray’s roots, and one that has long been obscured by an external Anglo-gaze. This work is rooted in deep research into the exploitation of the iconic romantic landscape and its people through historical and contemporary contexts of the region. This  includes the aftermath of the Jacobite uprisings, struggles for land ownership, Anglocentrism of Britain, displacement of communities, ecological degradation, and commercialisation and objectification of culture. She reflects on growing up in the Gailhealtachd unable to speak Gaelic, the buried culture she is unearthing while learning the language, her love for her home and the grief and shame of not fully grasping it.

Comprising an installation of heather terrain and buried sound that collages history, ecology, language, personal accounts and field recordings, Cara Murray seeks to grasp tensions between a deep sense of belonging to place contradicted by alienation from her culture and landscape inherited through political and socio-historical circumstances.

Cara Murray is an artist from the Highlands of Scotland working across sculpture, installation and philosophy, as well as collaborative and participatory practices. Cara’s work emerges through deep rooted research into archives of place, traditions of thought, and ecologies both human and non-human. She is interested in muddying dualistic lines between mind/body, self/other, and nature/culture, finding herself drawn to ideas and vernacular materials that decay, shift and grow beyond their initial form like soil, plant life, and archival materials. 

She trained as a florist in 2017, and graduated from Fine Art and Philosophy at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in 2025.