In 2006 we spent two months on an artists’ residency at Sculpture Space in Utica, New York. The work we made there included a unique handmade wallpaper, which we named Homeland. In making it we combined traditional skills with the latest digital printing technology. The wallpaper features old keys that we collected in Utica, and images of some of the buildings in the town that had a particular resonance for us.

In November 2007 as part of the Survey exhibition we created an installation in the Royal Scottish Academy, which featured the wallpaper. During the course of the exhibition we invited members of the public to respond to the work with suggestions about what we could incorporate into a new wallpaper for Edinburgh.

The resulting work is a wallpaper which features Edinburgh tenement blocks.The walls of an alcove in the Royal Scottish academy have been hung with the new wallpaper, and a selection of the comments offered by the public at the Survey exhibtion are handwritten on the wall opposite. Exhibited alongside are six hallmarked silver latch keys on a velvet cushion. These limited edition keys (2 sets of six) are cast from originals that were used in the past to give access to the main doors of the tenement blocks around the city.

Suggestions from the public for the new wallpaper, written on the gallery wall

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