Two artists and a Glasgow weaving company have joined forces to create a special tartan for a new production by the National Theatre of Scotland which will tour the Highland Games circuit this summer – a tartan telling “a visual story of discordant unity” and of “belonging in tension”, according to one of its creators.
Thrown, a new play by Nat McCleary, explores the world of Scottish Backhold Wrestling from the point of view of five female competitors and features a bright tartan in blue, gold, red, black and orange. Called Homegrown, it will be used as part of the costume design for the production.
The tartan is the work of costume designer Sabrina Henry, a curator at Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Art, and Glasgow weavers Vevar Studios who have worked in collaboration with Ms McCleary.
The tartan’s design is intended to reflect the themes of Thrown, which asks questions about identity and belonging, and challenge contemporary ideas of what it means to be Scottish.
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“It had always been my intention to create a tartan as a legacy of the play,” Ms McCleary explained. “My family name comes from an Irish slave trader, and I didn’t want to adopt a tartan that I didn’t feel connected to. I knew I wouldn’t be the only person who, for many reasons, may feel that tartan was off-limits or couldn’t be authentically engaged with.”
She added: “Tartan doesn’t have to be significant to everyone, but for those to whom it is, this tartan is a visual story of discordant unity, of belonging in tension – the mess of the past inescapably woven into the mess of the present … This is a tartan for all of us home-grown, without long ties to the land and her traditions who yet are tied, rooted in our Scottishness.”
Based in Glasgow’s East End, Vevar Studios was founded in 2020 by Glasgow School of Art textiles graduates Christopher McEvoy and Chantal Allen, whose previous jobs have included working with Turner Prize-nominated artists and fashion houses such as Alexander McQueen.
Thrown will be performed in Dunblane, Dunoon, Helensburgh and Tobermory among other venues, in collaboration the Bridge of Allan Games, the Cowal Gathering, the Helensburgh and Lomond Games and Mull Highland Games. It will then be performed as part of the Edinburgh International Festival in August.
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