Dandelion spreads across Scotland!

Dandelion announces summer events as part of it’s free progranme across Scotland

‘Anything Grows’ as Dandelion spreads across Scotland – from islands to villages and cities, people are being encouraged to ‘Sow, Grow and Share’  

·         More details of Dandelion programme revealed as activity gets underway

·         Miniature vertical farms called ‘Cubes of Perpetual Light’ become music installations carrying 12 specially commissioned works by 15 Scottish & international artists including Craig Armstrong, Arooj Aftab & Maeve Gilchrist, and Jason Singh

·         The music cube installations are set to tour to locations across Scotland, including the V&A Dundee, Edinburgh Book Festival, the Kelburn Garden Party & Inverness Botanic Gardens

·         Cubes will also tour to other locations around Scotland on specially adapted bikes, taking Dandelion’s cubes into the heart of communities across the country

·         ‘Free for All’ events encouraging everyone to ‘Sow, Grow and Share’ will see 75,000 free vegetable plugs given away to members of the public

·         A short film marks the beginning of Dandelion and follows the story of musician and crofter Pàdruig Morrison to the island of Heisgeir, considering sustainable growing into the future

Dandelion gets underway today [28 April 2022], a major creative programme demonstrating the power of collective action through an ambitious ‘grow your own’ initiative that aims to reach hundreds of thousands of people throughout Scotland and further afield.

Following the arc of the growing season, from now until September 2022, Dandelion brings together science, technology, art and music to inspire people to ‘Sow, Grow and Share’ – not just food, but music, ideas and knowledge. Commissioned by EventScotland and funded by the Scottish Government, Dandelion is Scotland’s contribution to UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK.  

Dandelion aims to make growing your own food as easy and accessible as possible to people of all ages and from all backgrounds, with events and activities taking place all over Scotland in an entirely free programme, from the remotest islands to the centres of cities.

In addition to Dandelion’s previously announced Unexpected Gardens – specially-created edible gardens in 13 locations from North Uist, to Leven and Stranraer – and two three-day Dandelion Festivals in Glasgow and Inverness, more details about the programme of events are revealed today.

The programme culminates in September with a cultural reimagining of Harvest for the 21st century, featuring hundreds of celebrations across Scotland. 

To mark the start of its programme, with planting and growing getting underway at Unexpected Gardens across the country, Dandelion has released a specially commissioned short film, telling the family story of one of its founding members and reimagining future ways of growing across Scotland.

75 years ago, the grandparents of crofter and musician Pàdruig Morrison established an experiment in off-grid rural living​ on Heisgeir in the Outer Hebrides, growing their own food and living sustainably off the land.

The short film charts Pàdruig’s return to the island in 2022 as Dandelion explores high-tech growing in specially created grow cubes alongside traditional growing methods, which will see the cubes travel to different communities all over the country.

The film also features a new score specially composed by Pàdruig for Dandelion.

Cubes of Perpetual Light – where technological innovation meets art 

At the centre of Dandelion is a meeting of art and science through the creation of hundreds of unique miniature vertical farms, called the ‘Cubes of Perpetual Light’.

The 1m x 1m cubes are designed to foster accelerated growing and have been developed to grow hundreds of seedlings under LED light, combining design craft, traditional horticultural expertise and technological innovation, manufactured by Liberty Produce. 

The Cubes will travel the length of Scotland, demonstrating accelerated growing in unexpected places. From schools to market squares, to Unexpected Gardens – they will bring the inspiration to ‘Sow, Grow and Share’ to the community, inspiring conversations about how we can grow food sustainably now and in the future.  

As well as growing thousands of plants, specially designed ‘show cubes’ will come together to create striking musical installations featuring programmable light and quadraphonic sound. Each cube will integrate with multiple speaker systems, showcasing specially commissioned music from a collection of Scottish and international artists.

The music has been created for this particular environment around themes of sustainability, to encourage listeners to think more deeply about how, where and why plants grow.

Commissions include new music from artists including Craig Armstrong, Ravi Bandhu, Arooj Aftab & Maeve Gilchrist, Jason Singh, Claire M. Singer, Manu Delago, Auntie Flo, Amiina & Kathleen MacInnes, Pàdruig Morrison, Trio de Kali, Maya Youssef and Fergus McCreadie. 

Each new music piece is commissioned by Dandelion with additional support for international work from British Council Scotland.

These ‘show cubes’ will come together to create special installations hosted by venues and festivals throughout Scotland, including V&A Dundee, Edinburgh International Book Festival, Kelburn Garden Party and Inverness Botanic Gardens.

In another tour, four musical growing cubes carried on four cargo bikes will also travel around Scotland in August, with a preview at Falkirk’s Kelpies on May 14 as part of the Falkirk Science Festival.

Visiting locations from Glasgow to Edinburgh, Greenock, Hawick, Forres, Stranraer, Inverness, Wick, the bikes will introduce audiences to accelerated growing and bring the Dandelion programme to town centres, school playgrounds and green spaces cross the country.

Each site will be visited by the bikes for one day, with a two-day tour being staged at Inverness and Wick.  

Music Director for Dandelion, Donald Shaw said: “Just as plants can grow from tiny seeds, great music can grow from small ideas that we nourish till they bloom into full art forms. 

“The cubes can demonstrate accelerated growing in a wide range of settings, both the expected and unexpected. Placed in a particular environment they create a micro-world within a world, allowing musicians and listeners to imagine a sonic landscape that surrounds us, providing a space for contemplation and for us to imagine a future where we sow, grow and share differently.”

Inspiring the nation to Sow, Grow and Share 

Dandelion is also giving away hundreds of thousands of plant plugs at Free for All events in towns and cities across Scotland, inspiring people all over the country to ‘Sow, Grow and Share’.

Members of the public are invited to pick up their plants and can also enjoy a performance of harvest songs from across the world by a five metre ‘Flower Singer’ accompanied by other performers representing sun, wind and water. A team of growing specialists from Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) will be distributing the plants and are on hand to give advice and tips to those new to growing. 

Kicking off on May 28 in Greenock, Free for All events will be delivered in communities for people who are new to growing.

The Free for Alls will visit Govan, Stranraer, Dundee, Leven, Falkirk, Edinburgh, Hawick and Argyll and Bute throughout May, June and July, encouraging everyone to get growing across the summer months. 

In addition, the Dandelion Festival in Glasgow will host a Free for All on Sunday June 19. Taking place over three days, from Friday June 17, the first Dandelion Festival will take root at the heart of Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Park, with the second festival taking place in Inverness at the Northern Meeting Park, from Friday September 2 until Sunday September 4.

Across the weekend, the venues will be transformed with live music, interactive walkabout theatre, science and creative activities for all the family as part of a unique festival that dares to reimagine our relationship with food and the planet.

At both festivals, a spectacular Pavilion installation will form a ‘living’ stage-set, made from’ 60 Cubes of Perpetual Light’ brought together.

Artists including Rura, This is the Kit, Admiral Fallow, Newton Faulkner, Hen Hoose, Niteworks, Darlingside and Les Amazones d’Afrique are among the line-up for the free event Glasgow in June, with Inverness line-up due to be announced in June.   

Running alongside the public programme, Dandelion engages the next generation of growers, with over 89,000 children and young people taking part in the Dandelion Schools Growing Initiative, which also started today.

The schools programme sees over 100 specially adapted grow cubes distributed to secondary schools, working in partnership with feeder primary schools, with 464 schools taking part across the country.

Pupils will become citizen scientists in the largest community-led growing experiment ever undertaken in Scotland, comparing future farming techniques with traditional growing, later sharing the food they have produced, alongside art, live music, and stories, at hundreds of playground Harvest events.

The Schools Growing Initiative is delivered in partnership with Keep Scotland Beautiful, a charity providing education initiatives for young people and educators which focus on environmental issues. 

All Dandelion events are free to attend and non-ticketed. For full details of all events and activities including the Unexpected Gardens and Dandelion Festivals, visit dandelion.scot.  

Culture Minister Neil Gray said: “The principles at the heart of the Dandelion projects and celebrations – of sharing ideas, knowledge and bringing together expertise for the common good – are more important than ever.

“The Dandelion events will seek to show the power of collective action, and its themes align with many of the ambitions of the Scottish Government.

“I would encourage everyone to check out the programme for activity near them, from enjoying one of the Unexpected Gardens, attending a festival, or having the chance to grow some of the hundreds of thousands of seeds and plant plugs being distributed at Free for All events in towns and cities across Scotland.”

Dandelion Futures Director, Fiona Dalgetty said: “Dandelion provides an extraordinary opportunity for people of all ages to come together to grow food and to celebrate all the ways in which our food is also connected to culture, music and song.

“The schools programme places the arts alongside science, technology, engineering, and maths to create an exciting cross-curricular STEAM project for pupils, teachers and the wider community to enjoy.”

Paul Bush OBE, Visit Scotland Director of Events said: “Dandelion is an incredibly diverse and exciting addition to Scotland’s events landscape this summer, fusing ideas and imagination from right across the creative spectrum.

“It’s wonderful to see artists, scientists, and technologists coming together to create a unique events programme that will inspire audiences and visitors right across Scotland to think positively about how we can all play our part in shaping a sustainable future.” 

Martin Green, Chief Creative Officer for UNBOXED, said: “Dandelion is a brilliant coming together of artists, designers, technologists and scientists to make something special and important about what we eat, how it grows and what we can do ourselves, wherever we live.

“Through the cubes, the music and the opportunities to participate, Dandelion is sowing the seeds for all of us to think about and put into action how we create a sustainable future. I can’t wait to experience Dandelion alongside four other brilliant UNBOXED projects taking place in Scotland this year.’