AN artwork inspired by a poet who began work in the Dundee mills when she was just 12 years old is to be used as part of a campaign for art to be at the heart of Scottish Government policy.
MSPs will be presented with the specially commissioned print tomorrow in a bid to persuade them to make the arts a priority in decision making.
The work by artist Ruth Ewan is part of the Art in Action campaign run by Scottish Contemporary Art Network (Scan), the member-led body for contemporary visual art in Scotland.
The presentation follows First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s involvement in the campaign when she visited contemporary art space Studio Pavilion in Glasgow earlier this month. Her visit topped off a summer of activity with MSPs from every party meeting artists and art organisations across Scotland.
Ewan, an Aberdeen-born and Glasgow-based artist who exhibits worldwide, created the prints with the expertise of Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) Print Studio, one of Scotland’s leading artistic production facilities.
They show the words of Mary Brooksbank, the only woman to be quoted on the Scottish Parliament’s Canongate Wall.
Ewan said she was an important figure in her work.
“As a creative and outspoken activist she was imprisoned on multiple occasions for speaking out for what she believed in,” she said.
“The verse from her poem ‘Labor Omnia Vincit’ seemed to connect well to the Art in Action campaign – to value cultural workers, to stop and consider what creative people contribute to our lives and our society and also to think about our cultural potential. Although Mary is a voice from the past she was really interested in shaping the future and her voice seems as relevant today as it ever has.”
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Born in an Aberdeen slum in 1897, Brooksbank moved to Dundee as a child and was working in a mill by the time she was 12.
A socialist, she was an active trade unionist and founded the Working Women Guild to fight for better health and social services. But to many she was most familiar as a poet, musician and the writer of songs about life in the mills – singing for money in the streets when times were hard.
The Jute Mill Song was her best-known work and is quoted on the Canongate Wall.
Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Central and Fife, is hosting the Art in Action reception tomorrow and visited Scan member and artist Lada Wilson at the 201 Telephone Box Gallery in Strathkinness over the summer.
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She said: “I hope that through the Art in Action campaign, the role of art and artists in communities can be better understood so we can work to ensure better recognition of its value in decision-making at all levels.”
MSPs will be asked to display the prints on their Holyrood or constituency office walls.
Scan director, Clare Harris, said she was “thrilled” to be presenting it to MSPs.
“Ruth has exhibited all over the world, with much of her art focusing on social movements and collective action – the message of the print perfectly sums up our aim to place art at the heart of decision-making,” she said.
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