https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/5001
Colombian Hind.
Colombian Hind is a scene that takes place in an allotment, urban areas that are destined for agricultural and gardening activities in Edinburgh city. Likewise, these are spaces where community is built, a meeting place and for social recreation, small areas of countryside within the city. Territories in which coexist different vegetal species. Those who sow them and promote their growth usually have the knowledge about the ideal coexistence between these different species, contributing with mutual benefits (mutualism), neither of the species eliminates the other, the coexistence of the different with the benefits that come along with this new “contract”.
Gregorio is a Colombian gardener who had his professional training in the Botanic Garden of Edinburgh. He emigrated to this city attracted by the study program offered by this institution in the city. Like the plants in the allotment that coexist welcoming mutual benefits, we as a society welcome the benefits of having a diverse community constructed also by “foreign” individuals.
In this scene, I also intended to make an allusion and tribute to a Scottish 18th-century painting from Sir James Guthrie, “ A Hind’s Daughter” (1883). In this classic scene in which we see a little girl recollecting cabbage, “a staple diet of Scottish hinds and their families” in the 19th century.
The little girl´s image and body merges and mix with the immediate territory, becoming part of it, of what is grown and consumed. The scene is now repeated in the 21st century, but this time with an immigrant, a Colombian that merges with its environment in which there are no longer only cabbages, but a whole variety of vegetables and plants.
Edinburgh Fabrics
Edinburgh Fabrics is an iconic textile shop where one can find a wide variety of textiles, from tropical patterns made in China to Harris`s Tweeds and Tartans made by traditional craft communities in Scotland.
The Tartan is made up of a wide variety of interwoven fibres, lines and colours, patterns that represent traditional Scottish Clans, for example; McDuff, McKenzie among many others. These patterns have been modified over time and like all cultures, they are dynamic, responding to a fashion moment in history. This becomes evident in the addition of a new colour or line to the pattern. Conversely, some colours and lines may be subtracted or modified.
Thus each tartan reflects a clan`s spirit, history and mood in this interwoven that is changing over time, like the clans themselves. The textiles and their industry are also a reflection of an era, of a cultural mind state.
They show us a historical outline given by the material from which they are made of, whether it has changed over time or not, its colours and patterns. Through these elements, the textile reflects a cultural exchange and dynamism, a history embedded in it, culture or its enrichment through an exchange.
Edinburgh Fabrics is owned by families and “clans” of immigrants from former British colonies: Kenyans, Pakistanis and now their children, who were born in Scotland and cooperate in the family textile business. Thus, the one who is usually there is Qasim, a Scotsman, who in his patterns and ethnic interweaving tells of cultural history in itself, comes from other clans and reconfigures the patterns of what is expected of a Scotsman.
The Montgomery Feliciano
The Montgomery is a Fish & Chips located in Montgomery Street, Edinburgh.
An area of the city where a large part of the Italian immigrant community settled in past times and where there are still businesses that allude to the Italian roots of their owners, in addition to offering Italian food and products.
It is common for “Fish & Chips” to be served or owned by an Italian immigrant, who, joining the society he arrives to, offers one of the flagship dishes of British cuisine.
This is the case of The Montgomery, hosted by Feliciano, an immigrant coming from Salerno-Italia. Currently, his children and grandchildren are born in Edinburgh, they speak this other language that is loaned to him and became the mother tongue for his descendants who do not speak his, Italian.