Commissioned by the Crawford Arts Centre, this new work by Mhairi Sutherland uses a range of lens-based media including lightboxes and a large scale video projection to form an installation. The artist's practice explores the relationship between still and moving photographic images, elements such as editing, selection and the use of text. It is intended to juxtapose simple low tech methods of production with current technology used information and communication.

In 'Blackout' the artist has focused on the major RAF base at Leuchars and an historical nuclear command centre (now marketed as the 'Secret Bunker' museum) as sites associated with secretive activity. The centrepiece of the exhibition is a large scale video projection of a trainee tornado pilot at Leuchars getting prepared in his flying suit within what is known as the decontamination chamber.

Archival research with the Imperial War Museum has also been involved. The psychological and emotional experiences of place/displacement, absence, loss, memory, nostalgia and longing are also explored in the work. An interest in photography and cinema itself as subject matter is woven into the work through the inclusion of references to an early cinema house. These feature in a lightbox and wall text listing the films shown there in 1945.