The Never-Ending Gansey spools from a long line of Shetlandic textile tradition. Emerging from a mill of young Shetland minds, here, yarn is re-spun in an image of diverse contemporary life across the Isles. A spectrum of colourways and looping forms tell of maintained connections to landscape whilst revealing new ties beyond the shoreline.

The result of layer upon layer of reinterpretation by knitters and young people, the artwork began in February 2020 through a series of workshops across five Shetland schools led by Civic Soup. Just as needles and yarn are used to interpret a knitting pattern, pencils and stencils of geometric shapes were the tools used by participants to interpret the Fair Isle pattern of a ‘never-ending jumper’. The language of these shapes later formed the basis of individual motifs that spoke of hobbies, games, landmarks, friendships, pets and more. Just as colour is intrinsic to the reading of Fair Isle knitwear, here too individually mixed colours were used to denote themes and links devised by young people through illustrated storytelling.

Jamiesons Mill in Sandness, where production processes have remained largely unchanged for over a century, further inspired in its endlessly spun lines of fast-moving wool collecting around successive tiers of cones. These colourful threads now weave across the vantage point of Hillhead; tracing reinterpreted motifs and recalling the production, knitting and wearing of wool yarn across the Isles.

The culture of Makkin has evolved significantly over time, at once representing consummate craftswomanship, gendered oppression, work for idle hands, an 'intergenerational gift' and a commodity. The Never-Ending Gansey draws upon this heritage to knit together stories and relationships of place and home, as told by the next generation of Shetlanders.