Creating to Celebrate: The Edinburgh Seven Tapestry

*Please note this event will be held at the Edinburgh Futures Institute.*

Join us to celebrate The Edinburgh Seven Tapestry and its installation in 2024 at its new home: the Edinburgh Futures Institute. This event will feature Artist Christine Borland and Dovecot Master Weaver Naomi Robertson in conversation with Professor Andrew Patrizio, and will be introduced by Celia Joicey, Director of Dovecot Studios. As one of the first of several events exploring the tapestry, they will discuss creativity, collaboration and what it means to make a piece of artwork that honours the achievements of important, and potentially overlooked, women in history.

Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh is the UK’s oldest tapestry studio, which has enjoyed global acclaim for artworks created in collaboration with artists from David Hockney and Chris Ofili to Helen Frankenthaler and Alberta Whittle.

Their latest commission, a triptych designed by Christine Borland and woven by Dovecot using traditional techniques and innovative materials, celebrates the Edinburgh Seven, the first women to matriculate at any UK university. These women began studying at the University of Edinburgh in 1869 and were not allowed to graduate or qualify as doctors. A campaign followed in which the demands of women for university education was supported by many, including Charles Darwin. Finally, the campaign resulted in the UK Medical Act 1876, which allowed that women could be licensed to practice medicine.

The Edinburgh Seven Tapestry is the first major artwork to be installed in Edinburgh Futures Institute. It is an extraordinary tribute to pioneering students who showed resilience and determination when their path to education was blocked. They overcame these challenges in different ways – with some continuing their studies in other countries and others becoming valued supporters of women’s education and medical practice.   

Commissioned by Dovecot Studios, with funding from Sir Ewan and Lady Brown.

Additional Information

• Entry will be via the Edinburgh Futures Institute south entrance on Porters Walk (opposite Tribe Yoga).
• This event will be photographed/recorded, and may be used for future marketing, promotional or archive purposes. If you would prefer not to be photographed/recorded, please let us know at the event.

Speaker Biographies

Christine Borland

Christine Borland is an artist based in Argyll, Scotland, known for her pioneering critical, cross-disciplinary collaborations that explore the relationships between human and non-human ecologies. Christine is a Professor at Northumbria University she co-lead the research group, 'The Cultural Negotiation of Science. In 2016 she was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (DLitt) from the University of Glasgow and became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) in 2020. Her works have been shown in numerous international exhibitions, including The Turner Prize and the Venice Biennale, and are permanently sited in public spaces and collections world-wide.

Naomi Robertson

Naomi Robertson is a Master Weaver and Head of the Tapestry Studio at Dovecot Studios. After graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 1990 with a BA(Hons) in Tapestry, Naomi joined Dovecot Studios as a Weaver and was appointed Studio Manager in 2013. Naomi has worked on some of the studio's highest-profile design and weaving commissioned projects. These have included the R. B. Kitaj tapestry in the British Library, the Butterfly tapestry created in collaboration with Alison Watt for the Theatre Royal, and ‘Entanglement is More Than Blood’ with Alberta Whittle for the 59th Venice Biennale.

Celia Joicey

Celia Joicey joined Dovecot as Director in September 2017. She is a graduate of Cambridge University and the Royal College of Art. Prior to her appointment as Director of Dovecot Studios, she was Head of the Fashion and Textile Museum, and before that, Head of Publications at the National Portrait Gallery in London and Editor of the RSA Journal and Head of Publications at the Royal Society of Arts.

Chair: Andrew Patrizio

Professor Andrew Patrizio holds the Chair of Scottish Visual Culture at the University of Edinburgh. He teaches and writes on Scottish post-1945 art and on ecological artists, themes and methods, culminating in his book The Ecological Eye: Assembling an ecocritical art history (Manchester University Press, 2019) and the forthcoming Methods for Ecocritical Art History (co-edited with Dr Olga Smith, Manchester University Press, 2026). Much of his work is interdisciplinary, from Anatomy Acts (2006, winner of the Medical Book of the Year from the Royal Society of Medicine) to Ilana Halperin. STEINE (Berlin, 2012). Prior to his academic career, he had full-time curatorial posts at the Hayward Gallery, London and Glasgow Museums. He is a Trustee of Little Sparta (Ian Hamilton Finlay’s garden), on the Academic Committee of Edinburgh University Press and a founding member of the European Forum for Advanced Practices. He first worked with Christine Borland in 1990 (Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum) and has written many times on her work (most recently ‘Desiccation, Suspension, Extraction: The Inhuman Art of Christine Borland’, in Post-Specimen. Encounters between Art, Science and Curating, Ed Juler and Alistair Robinson (eds.) Intellect Books, 2020) and commissioned new work from her for the above mentioned Anatomy Acts and Art Unlimited: Multiples of the 1960s and 1990s from the Arts Council Collection (Hayward Touring, 1994-5).

Marion Thain

Marion Thain began her career as a Junior Research Fellow at Cambridge University and worked in English departments at Russell Group universities before moving to New York University as a professor of Arts and Literature (in English and the school of the interdisciplinary global liberal arts) and Director of Digital Humanities. She returned to the UK in 2018 to take up the role of Professor of Culture and Technology and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at King’s College London. While at King’s she founded and led the Digital Futures Institute, which grew out of her Centre for Attention Studies. Marion is interested particularly in the relationship between culture and technology (considering ‘technology’ in the broadest sense), and in formations of disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. Further details can be found here.