In the summer of 2020, At Birkhill House asked residents of the Scottish Borders to use a small square of canvas to depict what gave them strength during the first lockdown. The brief was simple: use any medium, trying to include a line horizontally across the middle of the canvas, as a nod to both flattening the curve and acknowledging our collective ups and downs.

The Lauderdale Rotary Club funded the canvas, originally intended to be used for a 24-hour paint-a-thon for the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival (SMHAF). Instead the canvases were cut up and sent out across the Borders, with 79 of the 84 returning to be used in the final installation. The final pieces are on display at the Borders General Hospital, but you can also view the canvasses, and the information boards that accompany them, below.