‘Thrilled’ to host Scottish Diaspora Tapestry show

Scottish Diaspora Tapestry tour director Jennifer Bruce with some of the more than 300...
Scottish Diaspora Tapestry tour director Jennifer Bruce with some of the more than 300 embroidered panels in the touring show, at Toitu Otago Settlers Museum. Photo by Gregor Richardson.
Toitu Otago Settlers Museum is ‘‘thrilled'' to be the only venue in the country displaying the Scottish Diaspora Tapestry.

The international touring show was initially scheduled to open yesterday, but it was brought forward to last Saturday after the show's more than 300 embroidered panels arrived earlier than expected.

Museum visitor experience manager Kirsty Glengarry said staging the exhibition was a coup for the museum, and had come after Dame Elizabeth Hanan alerted the museum to the possibility.

New Zealand is the 24th country to host the show, which runs until April 28, before moving to Canada.

The exhibition presents storytelling with a difference, bringing together Scottish settlement stories from throughout the world in its panels.

Museum curator Sean Brosnahan said the show had toured since 2014 and the panels highlighted wide-ranging Scottish contributions to each country or region, including those of Scots ‘‘as explorers and engineers, musicians and politicians, scientists and educationalists''.

The show's catalogue says the diaspora project was ‘‘a remarkable and heartfelt homage to the determination, courage and achievement of Scottish migrants and their descendants across the centuries''.

Embroiderer and author Rosemary Farmer, a former Invercargill resident who now divides her time between Sydney and Glenorchy, contributed several Dunedin and other southern panels to the show. S

cottish visual artist and tour director Jennifer Bruce will discuss the show at the museum on Sunday at 2pm.

john.gibb@odt.co.nz

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