Helmsdale, a remote village in the far north of the Scottish Highlands. Founded in 1986 by the Helmsdale Heritage and Arts Society, it was established to preserve and share the local area’s history and to serve the community through culture.

Timespan has evolved from a small community heritage centre into an internationally recognised institution working across heritage, contemporary art, digital research, education, community development, and social justice. Timespan delivers a holistic and integrated cultural model, combining a local history museum, a contemporary art gallery, a public archive and library, a digital laboratory, a youth programme, an online broadcasting platform, a herb and geology garden, a shop, and a café.

Helmsdale, like much of the Highlands, is shaped by a long history of land dispossession, forced migration, labour struggles, and changing economies, from fishing and crofting to gold mining, oil, and renewable energy. These histories profoundly inform Timespan’s approach. Rather than presenting heritage as a fixed celebration of the past, the organisation interrogates history critically, connecting local memory to wider narratives of colonisation, social inequality, extractivism, and climate change.