Dear Friends
Sending you a Gaelic greeting of good fortune and encouragement as this year draws to a close.
Our image is of a constructed textile called ‘A New Union, Europe’ created by artist Akshata Mokashi specially for Our Linen Stories. It draws on one of Europe’s founding civilisations and the Greek notion of khaos, that state preceding the creation of the universe.
Employing materials deriving from flax fibre sourced from Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, Holland and France, it is emblematic of our desire to strengthen the strong cultural bonds we share through object, heritage and contemporary design.
Our Linen Stories Exhibition in Edinburgh can be viewed for five more weeks at Dovecot Studios until Saturday 25 January and we warmly invite you to take part in the final creative cluster of events in this series. Included are Weavers Tales, a journey in design from Damascus to Galashiels, an Exhibition Highlights tour focusing on European Design and our Walks by Design in Edinburgh’s Old Town.
‘Scotland in Europe: sharing culture by Design’ is our final Twilight Talk in the current series and brings together a truly expert Panel to explore how we nurture our links with Europe through awards, heritage and contemporary design interventions. Our November Twilight Talk was enjoyed by just short of one hundred attendees and is now available to view on our YouTube channel. Please do reserve your space.
We’re excited to introduce our new programme streams in the New Year including summer’s ‘Salvage Scotland: a maritime SOS’, updates on our Flax Futures and autumn iterations of Our Linen Stories. As always, you can update via our Social Media channels.
Finally, a huge thank you to all the core team at Journeys in Design, all those who have worked so hard to share Our Linen Stories in Edinburgh and the friends old and new who have supported our programmes in 2019.
John Ennis
Journeys in Design