About the Exhibition

Document Scotland was formed in 2012 by four Scots-born and internationally acclaimed photographers: Colin McPherson, Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, Sophie Gerrard and Stephen McLaren. In the last few years Scotland has witnessed an intense period of self-examination that has brought about questions of personal and national identity. Collectively and individually, the four photographers explore particular strands of Scottish culture and heritage.

For The Ties That Bind, they have created four groups of work that consider:

• Legacy — Scotland’s role in the slave trade and sugar plantations of Jamaica in the 18th century;
• Tradition — the centuries-old celebration of Border towns in the Common Ridings festivals;
• Engagement — the devotion and commitment from football supporters in small towns and communities across the country; and
• The Land — focusing on contemporary farming through the experiences of six women.

Together these images create a compelling dialogue about Scotland, its people, diversity and culture, revealing the subtle nuances that shape a nation’s identity.

About the Artists

Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert

For 'Unsullied and Untarnished', Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert focused on the Scottish Borders area and its traditional summer festivals, known as the Common Ridings. During the Common Ridings, riders chosen as champions for their communities go out to the boundaries of the town to check the fortifications are in order. Participating in the yearly ritual is considered as an honour for the local youths; the Common Ridings are an opportunity for them to demonstrate their sense of allegiance to their town by carrying its standard around the common land, before bringing it back “unsullied and untarnished”. During the festivals, “exiles” return home to partake in events and greetings are often sent by those unable to make the journey, while bonds are re-established with neighbouring towns. Intrigued by the history of the festivals Sutton-Hibbert visited various sites, including Hawick, Selkirk and Jedburgh among others and made portraits of the riders and other attendees in traditional outfits. By looking at how the history and sense of community is kept alive, Sutton-Hibbert explores traditions and their legacy in modern society.

Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert grew up in Scotland, where on his 13th birthday he received the gift of a camera. A few years later he subsequently became a UK based freelance photographer for editorial, corporate and NGO clients. His work has appeared in magazines such as Time, National Geographic, Italian Geo, Le Figaro, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, and many others. For the past decade Jeremy has been one of the principal photographers for Greenpeace International. In recent years Jeremy was based in Japan, but missing the Scottish light and weather he has now relocated back to his home country of Scotland. His work has taken him to over 80 countries, as far flung as Antarctica and Outer Mongolia and his personal and commissioned work, for which he has been the recipient of photojournalism awards, has been widely published and exhibited in Europe, Asia and USA.

Stephen McLaren

'A Sweet Forgetting', Stephen McLaren’s project, revolves around the involvement of Scots in the sugar economy of Jamaica in the 18th and 19th centuries, which was built on the back of slave labour from Africa. McLaren spent a month in Jamaica looking for the sites of plantations owned by seven Scotsmen of that era, before coming back to Scotland to trace how these men spent their wealth, and what is left of this legacy today. McLaren’s photographs largely concentrate on the mansions and estates purchased with funds from the slave trade. One of the plantation owners McLaren studied was the politician and poet Robert Cunninghame Graham (1735-1797), who owned several estates in Scotland as well as a Jamaican plantation at Roaring River and made his fortune from slave plantations.  

'A Sweet Forgetting' suggests that Scotland has perhaps largely forgotten how much of its economy was dependent on slave labour in Jamaica. McLaren’s subtle, but provocative work considers Scotland’s past and how it shapes the present, as well as how we choose to remember the past.

Stephen has been a freelance photographer, writer, and curator since 2005. Before then he was a television producer and director working on documentaries for several UK channels. He is Scottish but now lives in San Francisco.

He work published in several newspapers and magazines including The Guardian, New York Times, San Francisco Magazine, London Evening Standard, New Statesman, New Yorker, Der Spiegel and Internazionale. He has also taught photography for The Guardian newspaper and other photography institutions and written about photography for several publications including the British Journal of Photography, BBC, and IMA Japan.

With Sophie Howarth, Stephen is the co-author of the best-selling photography title: Street Photography Now: Thames and Hudson, 2010. His new photography title, Photographers Sketchbooks, for Thames and Hudson with co-writer, Bryan Formhals, was published in September 2014. He has a new book about contemporary family photography coming out with Thames and Hudson in Spring 2016.