In September 2023 the Orkney International Science Festival hosted SUN, a touring art and science collaboration between Solar Physicist Professor Robert Walsh and British artist Alex Rinser at St Magnus Cathedral. 

Commissioned as part of overall GMB100 activities marking the centenary of the writer’s birth, 'Travellers' was erected in the George Mackay Brown Community Garden in Stromness, in April 2022, and funded through Orkney Islands Council’s Culture Fund.

Creative duo, local writer Gabrielle Barnby and visual artist Orla Stevens, drew on old maritime materials donated by the Orkney Historic Boat Society - embellished with words of young people from Kirkwall Grammar School and original text from GMB’s final posthumous collection ’Travellers’

NHS Orkney, in partnership with Orkney Islands Council’s Art Development Service, invited artists to submit proposals to help create a distinctive identity for the new Hospital and Healthcare Facilities Hub area, now widely known as The Balfour while it was being built. This was supported by the charity Art in Healthcare. 

This was an important and high-profile public art opportunity in a much-anticipated new hospital. The aim of this project was to create a lovely public space with the artwork reflecting the community. 

Local pupils from North Walls Community School have been undergoing training with a range of professionals to help them fulfil the role of Junior Curators at the Museum when it reopens.

In September, pupils were visited by experts from National Galleries Scotland Mara Barth (Learning Officer) and Freya Spoor (Curator) - who took them through a two-day workshop to become Junior Curators. 

The Balfour Hospital Art Collection The Balfour Hospital, a new purpose built hospital designed by Keppie Design and built by Robertson Group at a cost of £65 million, opened in July 2019. Balfour Hospital is a rural general hospital in Kirkwall, Orkney, and managed by NHS Orkney.