Beyond Borders Scotland and Edinburgh Printmakers present an exhibition at Traquair, 26 July to 5 October

A Thousand Words Paint a Picture

A ground-breaking new artwork inviting Scots to dig into their past, and discuss and discover their own identity, will be exhibited at Traquair House this year from 26 July to 5 October. ‘The Debatable Land’ by South African painter-poet Peter Sacks takes the form of a 7ft high, 12ft wide triptych, which Sacks describes as “monumental yet intimate”, and will be on show in the early eighteenth century pavilions at Traquair House.

The work is commissioned by Mark Muller Stuart, director of Beyond Borders Scotland, an organisation dedicated to facilitating international cultural dialogue. In association with Traquair House, the Edinburgh Printmakers will be presenting the exhibition as part of a two-year project supported by Creative Scotland. The commission follows Peter Sacks’ extraordinary appearance at the Beyond Borders International Festival at Traquair last year, where he mesmerised audiences with his lyrical grasp of Border Ballads and talk on his search for his own Scottish identity.

“This whole project started at Traquair and Beyond Borders,” said Sacks.  “I was astonished how this place drew people from way beyond Scotland to contemplate what cultures had in common, what conflicts occurred between them, and what kinds of understandings could be forged. It was in that gathering and moment that ‘The Debatable Land’ was conceived.”

Mark Muller Stuart, also the curator of the project described the work as: “a stunning piece of artwork for a nation facing its biggest decision in three hundred years. Peter invites the viewer to literally ‘excavate’ history and be touched by humans across time. And he does so from the oldest inhabited house in Scotland just as the people of Scotland begin the quest of determining their own future identity. There could not be a more timely summer exhibition to visit.”

Standing from afar, the triptych appears to be an abstract expressionist painting. But stand a little closer and Sacks’ impasto resolves into a remarkable historical, archaeological and topographical map of Scotland, cross cut by contours of text, textiles and physical artifacts from the Scottish Borders and Traquair House itself. As the viewer unearths Sacks’ substrates, classic icons of Scottish culture appear and infuse into each other to reveal the sediments of Scotland’s identity and historical relationship with England. Lines of Border ballads, translated Gaelic poetry, the Declaration of Arbroath and the Acts of Union, Bannockurn battleplans and clan crests – manually typed, burnt, buried and implanted on embroidery and ancient fabrics – jostle together and merge to create different narratives of union and fragmentation.

Edinburgh Printmakers’ Artistic Programme Director, Sarah Manning Shaw, added: “This stunning new artwork unites heritage, history, politics and contemporary art and examines Scottish national identity and the history of the Union on the eve of the upcoming Referendum on Scottish Independence. This exhibition aims to increase accessibility to contemporary art in the Scottish Borders and its environs, and show how it can be current, relevant, engaging and have cross-generational for a broad range of visitors to Traquair House.”

Pictured: Peter Sacks with the work in progress.