Dovecot Studios' Edinburgh Seven Tapestry is now on display at the Edinburgh Futures Institute on Lauriston Place - once the site of the city's Royal Infirmary surgical hospital. Following a period on display at the V&A London, the tapestry is settling in to its new long-term home at the EFI, which has been set up to encourage 'trailblazing' across disciplines. The installation process was a complicated one, requiring our weavers to work with the University's Estates team for over two weeks at height.
The Edinburgh Seven Tapestry on display at the V&A, London. Image credit: David Parry.
The innovative tapestry is a tribute to the Edinburgh Seven, the first women to matriculate at any British university in 1869. Dovecot Studios commissioned celebrated Scottish artist Christine Borland to design the tapestry, which took our seven weavers more than 4000 hours to create over the pandemic. An important inspiration for the finished tapestry was cloth, and its practical, material, and even symbolic properties. Borland used cutting-edge motion capture technology to record the movements of cloths in simple acts associated with care, medical training, and research. The artist chose the magenta and cyan colour scheme to represent the dyes used in both the scientific staining of cells and textile in the 19th century and to mimic the look of cells under a microscope. The artist's designs were then produced as two-dimensional digital prints and passed onto the Dovecot weavers who had to develop complex processes to interpret them.
The weaving of the Edinburgh Seven Tapestry, in progress.
Through shading, pattern, and negative space, the tapestries on the loom took on a vivid, three-dimensional quality that reflected Borland's process. The tapestry was brought to life with both traditional and modern techniques, using linens, cotton, and nylon yarns. Unlike traditional tapestry, the artwork has an organic shape based on a cellular structure in motion, and can be moulded and shaped into sculptural forms. Cotton, linen, and nylon yarn, and cotton warp create light and shadow, while the nylon weft adds transparency and reflective shine. Interpreting Borland’s design, the weavers unpicked large sections of cotton weft to create the outer shape and internal voids.
The innovative and creative weaving and design methods are a fitting homage to the pioneering women of the Edinburgh Seven, who were met with resistance during their time as students. Most notably, the 1870 Surgeons's Hall riot saw protestors attempt to block the women from sitting an exam; this happened just around the corner from Dovecot Studios, where the honouring tapestry was made. The women's fight to graduate and qualify as doctors was ultimately unsuccessful, as the Court of Session ruled that the women should never have been allowed to matriculate to begin with. The women's efforts attracted support and eventually led to the Medical Act of 1876, which legally permitted women to practice medicine. The University of Edinburgh awarded the seven women posthumous degrees, which were collected by female undergraduates in 2019. Students and staff from the University's Medical School were invited to cut away the warp of the tapestry, symbolising the legacy that the Edinburgh Seven have left in enabling female medics today.
