Hinterlands
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All images by Murray Orr
My work considers fabric as architectural form, creating spaces and textures with cloth that can be worn on the body, or can dress the home. Light and layering play integral roles to both, harnessing fabric’s compelling contradictions as a provider of structure and delicacy, of weight and softness.
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Hinterlands tells two concurrent stories of provenance: a life lived behind behind the coastline of North Edinburgh, and a journey of materials. Taking a tactile line for a wander, fabrics are softly transformed from one state to another, creating textile works gently suspended in space.
Of Place
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Agnes (Nessie) McKay Smith was my grandmother. Born in West Cromwell Street, Leith, she died only 6km away, at Lauriston Farm Road. A coil-winder’s daughter, Nessie left behind a westwards-weaving, coastal trail of addresses: a christening on Constitution St, teenage years by the Water of Leith, a wedding in Pilton, a daughter in Wester Drylaw and a final footprint in Silverknowes.
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Retracing Nessie’s steps took me to places ossified in history, and to those utterly transformed since she knew them. Through a series of photographs, traced into abstracted drawings, I have layered her history with my present, creating soft monuments to our ever-changing urban fabric.
Of Process
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The space at Mote is intentionally blurred with that of my studio—the work, and the process sketches and swatches that inform it, are all in full view. I was keen to expose the often unseen, outer edges of the design journey as much as exhibit its final destination.
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I travelled to various Scottish mills to source remnant material from their production processes and combined them with fabric remnants from my own past projects, often created years apart. In mingled compositions of aerial views and building elevations, they are stitched in dialogue together to create interior fabric facades.
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Mote102, was founded by Alice Bain in 2019 as a space to host work by artists, makers and gardeners, is a space which has sought to preserve its history as a community resource in Leith.
![]()
All images by Murray Orr
My work considers fabric as architectural form, creating spaces and textures with cloth that can be worn on the body, or can dress the home. Light and layering play integral roles to both, harnessing fabric’s compelling contradictions as a provider of structure and delicacy, of weight and softness.
Hinterlands tells two concurrent stories of provenance: a life lived behind behind the coastline of North Edinburgh, and a journey of materials. Taking a tactile line for a wander, fabrics are softly transformed from one state to another, creating textile works gently suspended in space.
Of Place
Agnes (Nessie) McKay Smith was my grandmother. Born in West Cromwell Street, Leith, she died only 6km away, at Lauriston Farm Road. A coil-winder’s daughter, Nessie left behind a westwards-weaving, coastal trail of addresses: a christening on Constitution St, teenage years by the Water of Leith, a wedding in Pilton, a daughter in Wester Drylaw and a final footprint in Silverknowes.
Retracing Nessie’s steps took me to places ossified in history, and to those utterly transformed since she knew them. Through a series of photographs, traced into abstracted drawings, I have layered her history with my present, creating soft monuments to our ever-changing urban fabric.
Of Process
The space at Mote is intentionally blurred with that of my studio—the work, and the process sketches and swatches that inform it, are all in full view. I was keen to expose the often unseen, outer edges of the design journey as much as exhibit its final destination.
I travelled to various Scottish mills to source remnant material from their production processes and combined them with fabric remnants from my own past projects, often created years apart. In mingled compositions of aerial views and building elevations, they are stitched in dialogue together to create interior fabric facades.
Mote102, was founded by Alice Bain in 2019 as a space to host work by artists, makers and gardeners, is a space which has sought to preserve its history as a community resource in Leith.
