An immersive exhibition inviting visitors to experience the Calanais standing stones (Scotland), as part of a continuing relationship between people and place. Through an interactive app featuring intangible stories, animations, augmented reality and aerial footage, and alongside hands-on materials, the exhibition encourages reflection on how personal experiences and connections to Calanais have changed over time, and how they may continue to evolve.
Immersive Calanais: Past, Present and Future explores the stone circles of Calanais as part of a living relationship between people and place. Rather than focusing only on the stones themselves, the project brings forward the intangible stories and experiences that continue to shape this landscape today.
Through digital interaction, shared narratives, and touchable materials, the exhibition invites visitors to encounter Calanais across time — from reimagined past objects to present-day experiences to imagined futures. Visitors are encouraged to slow down and engage: to listen, touch, reflect, and contribute their own responses.
The exhibition unfolds as a journey through time. Visitors move from the Past, where reimagined materials evoke everyday life around Calanais long ago; into the Present, where digital tools and sensory materials share how Calanais is experienced today; and into the Future, a space for reflection, imagination, and creative response.
Throughout the exhibition, visitors are invited to engage with a digital app featuring images, stories, animations and augmented reality, offering layered ways to explore the site. Alongside this, they can handle materials drawn from the landscape — including stone, organic elements and crafted objects— offering a tactile way to connect with place, memory and lived experience.
The digital experience includes an interactive tablet-based application developed as part of the INT-ACT project.
The app brings together aerial footage, augmented reality, and animated sequences framed through contemporary stories and perspectives developed from research interviews. As visitors move the tablet, they can explore the stones from shifting angles and scales, revealing details that are not always visible from photographs.
INT‑ACT (Intangible Cultural Heritage: Bridging the Past, Present and Future) is a European project that explores how we can experience and share the contemporary living stories behind cultural heritage sites. Using digital and immersive technologies, the project brings landscapes, traditions, and memories to life, helping visitors connect with the past, present, and future. Through these interactive experiences, heritage becomes accessible, engaging, and meaningful for everyone.
The project works with four case study sites across Europe: Calanais in Scotland; Cromeleques das Fontainhas in Portugal; Koli National Park in Finland; and the Panagia District in Kavala, Greece.
The INT-ACT project receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation program under grant agreement No 101132719. UK participants are supported by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) grant No 10102226, under the Horizon Europe guarantee scheme.
While the exhibition is on display, Immersive Calanais also forms part of an ongoing participatory research project.
We are inviting participants aged 30yo or under and 60yo or older to take part in a two-day intergenerational research activity exploring experiences, stories, and relationships connected to Calanais. The sessions will involve reflective activities linked to the exhibition and digital tools.
Participation is voluntary, all contributions are handled ethically and anonymously, and vouchers can be provided in recognition of time and travel. If you are interested in taking part or would like more information, please contact anunezg@ed.ac.uk or fill in this form.
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