I thought I knew who Flora MacDonald was. Then, in 2019 I was commissioned to create an installation about her at Perth Museum and Art Gallery and during research for that project, I realised how much more there was to her life than the handful of days she spent with Bonnie Prince Charlie.

While many myths were created around her, both during her life and afterwards, reading between the lines of the more reliably researched biographies it became clear that Flora was something of an Everywoman. She was not a heroine in the way her contemporary ‘Colonel’ Anne MacKintosh was, but Flora was valiant in her perseverance. Filling in the gaps left by the facts of her life, it seems clear she wanted her family to be safe and she needed to stick up for herself more. These might not be traditionally heroic wants and needs but I believe they make her highly relatable for most modern women. I was struck by how much her problems resonate within the contemporary sphere: ‘prodigiously augmented’ rents, reluctant migration and ordinary people trying to survive war.

Flora gave accounts to biographers (such as Samuel Johnson) during her lifetime but her words were inevitably filtered through the sensitivities of the men who published them. I was interested in how she might tell her own story to her daughter with the wisdom of sixty-eight years of experience.

As Flora’s first language would have been Gàidhlig (although the persecution of the language was well underway by the time she met the Prince) it was important to acknowledge the influence Gàidhlig culture would have had on Flora’s life. Though I grew up in the Highlands, I’m not a Gaelic speaker but I had the privilege of working with several native Gaels and Gàidhlig speakers whose generous advice shaped the integration of Gàidhlig into this work. Music and song being so fundamental to the culture meant this was

the most obvious place the language could be honoured. Proverbs, passed down through generations, often mother to daughter, was another.

A phrase that came up early in development was “Sin mar a chuala mis’ e”, (that is how I heard [it]) traditionally used to round off the endings of stories. Like those before me who have extrapolated from or embellished upon her biography, this show, Flora, is how I heard it when I listened to the woman behind the portrait.