Drive to boost Scotland's image overseas

Culture Minister Fiona Hyslop used the setting of the refurbished Stirling Castle yesterday to launch a campaign to promote Scotland's "modern, contemporary presence" overseas, from hard-hitting theatre to laser scanning technology.

Ms Hyslop was promoted to cabinet rank after the election as Secretary for Culture and External Affairs, with a focus on projecting's Scotland's image overseas in the run-up to an independence referendum. She unveiled the royal apartments of King James V at the castle yesterday, refitted at a cost of 12 million, including new reproductions of the famous Stirling heads.

Ms Hyslop said that 16th century Scotland, under its own king, was a country that was "very creative, had good craftsmanship but also an international outlook" with connections across Europe.

She pointed to the tapestry-makers who replicated the 16th century tapestries in the castle who were hired by Tracey Emin as well as Scottish Ten, a project to create detailed three-dimensional laser-scanned digital images of Scottish heritage sites, who had now been enlisted to map sites in the United States and India.

"I wouldn't underplay our built and natural heritage, our beautiful hills and landscapes and our castles, but what we have been known as in the past is a creative nation with global reach," she said.