Installation · RSA John Gillies Award 2024
Save Me!
Fifty metres of muslin. Two and a half thousand endangered languages, every name hand-printed.
The names beside you are real, from the UNESCO at-risk register. Half of the world's 7,000 languages may fall silent this century.
- Manx, vulnerable
- Votic, critically endangered
- Scottish Gaelic, vulnerable
- N|uu, severely endangered
- Cornish, vulnerable
- Chulym, critically endangered
- Ainu, vulnerable
- Ingrian, severely endangered
- Yurok, definitely endangered
- Orok, critically endangered
- Haida, vulnerable
- Veps, severely endangered
- Breton, vulnerable
- Tofa, critically endangered
- Osage, severely endangered
- Ket, severely endangered
- Rapa Nui, definitely endangered
- Ulch, critically endangered
- Livonian, critically endangered
- Michif, definitely endangered
- Ume Sámi, critically endangered
- Hawaiian, vulnerable
- Itelmen, critically endangered
- Yuchi, severely endangered
7,000
languages spoken in the world today
2,500
of them printed on the scroll — all at risk
Scottish Gaelic alone has more than a hundred words for hill and mountain, and seventy-three for waves.
The work
A sculptural drawing in muslin
Tension and gravity transform the two-dimensional text into a three-dimensional sculpture. The distorted waves in the fabric emulate the rhythm of human communication and the hill forms of the landscape.
Each of the 2,500 names was set in type and heat-pressed onto the sheer fabric by hand, over hundreds of hours. The scroll is accompanied by A' Chànain, a soundscape in Scottish Gaelic.
First shown at the Edinburgh College of Art Graduate Show, then as the feature installation at the RSA New Contemporaries 2024, where it received the John Gillies Award. The scroll travels: in each new place, the printed register and soundscape change to reflect the local language crisis.
When a language dies, we lose the associated cultures, ideas, stories and songs — what makes societies unique.
Tracey Exton
Installation views
Where the scroll has been
-
Jun 2023
ECA Graduate Show
Edinburgh College of Art — first showing; reviewed in The Scotsman.
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Mar 2024
RSA New Contemporaries
Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh — feature installation; John Gillies Award.
-
Sep 2025
The Barony
East Kilbride — register and soundscape adapted for the venue.
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Next
Bring the scroll to your venue
The work adapts to each place's languages. Enquiries from galleries, festivals and schools welcome.
Enquire about exhibiting →