Beyond The Pale

Beyond the Pale is an exhibition of a mixed media body of work, including photography, artefacts, drawings, printed books and hand-drawn maps. It examines the significance of borderland identity, specifically the Anglo-Scottish border. Arts practice provides a means to challenge existing imagery and ideas of the frontier and statehood, nationalism and identity. The work develops new ways of presenting the border that contest prevailing perceptions of the territory.

Inspired by walking the length of the Anglo-Scottish border as part of an artist’s residency with Visual Arts in Rural Communities (VARC) in 2016, the research took a phenomenological approach. Childerley experienced the border landscape physically and viscerally. The work sits within the area of ‘walking as practice based-research’ and adds to Childerley’s ongoing practice addressing questions of belonging and nationhood. Research methods included making still and moving image work, conducting interviews and facilitating workshops around national and cultural identity, enabling Childerley to make a detailed cartographic representation of the culture, politics, landscape and communities of the Border.

Her research made visible a little-recorded border landscape as a site of political significance at the time of the Scottish independence referendum, Brexit and tightening borders in Europe. The images, a mix of constructed abstraction and documentary style, reflected the stories told by ‘borderers’, part historical record and partly mythic embellishment, and communicated the societal, historical and political understanding of these territories.

The mixed media installation was first shown at the Granary Gallery Berwick upon Tweed (2018-19) and Gracefield Art Centre, Dumfries (2019).