24.09.26
We’re celebrating Dundee Climate Week with the fifth edition of Creative Base! This time, we’re putting the spotlight on those centring sustainability and creative approaches to climate justice across their work – taking in a breadth of practice that ranges from community gardening to recycled materials.
We’ve asked them to share some insights into their work, what it means for them to be doing this in Dundee, and what could be improved to ensure other creative practitioners can engage with sustainable practices and climate action across the city.
In the spirit of collective working and ‘passing the mic’, we’ve also asked them to share other Dundee creatives whose work they admire, are inspired by, or just think you’d like to know about!
Room to Be is a grassroots LGBTQIA+ community group with a focus on nature, gardening, creativity, social connection and strengthening allyship across Dundee. Climate awareness is a fundamental aspect of our community, and we are busy establishing a ‘Queer Climate’ framework where we apply queer theory to our climate action. This looks at nature beyond binaries, queer ecology, joy as resistance, mutual aid and skill shares that improve our resilience. We come together to share food, make art and celebrate the changing seasons. Room to Be is all about community-making. In working collectively and empowering each other, real change happens.
As a city, Dundee has an exciting energy that buzzes with opportunity and potential. Maybe this has something to do with its size, its strong cultural identity, or even its overt struggle with deprivation; perhaps these are the ingredients to create a thriving hub of community action, creativity and radical visionary thinking. There is a diverse LGBTQIA+ community in Dundee, and this region has the highest percentage of trans people relative to its population – yet there is very little in the way of support and designated safer spaces for queer communities. This shows a real need for groups like ours.
Grassroots community-making, like Room to Be, should be seen and valued for the work they are doing; plugging the cracks in our broken infrastructure, providing peer support in lieu of other services and creating opportunities for those who would otherwise struggle to access them. So many of our community activists and leaders are volunteers, working hard to create change because they are passionate, not because they are paid. But this passion comes at a price. Juggling employment and voluntary community action can cause burn-out. How can we better support our community leaders and volunteers so they can sustainably continue their work?
Ravideep Kaur (@ravideepkaur_): is a poet, writer and dreamer with a walking-based practice that centres on disruption, nature, somatics and decolonisation. She is dedicated to leaning into her own ancestral history and wisdom to empower often invisibilised groups. We are looking to partner with Ravideep on strengthening allyship and solidarity in the city and deepening our own work on antiracism.
Lana al Khateeb: is a Palestinian-Scottish sound and visual artist based in Dundee. She collaborated with artist, Manuela del los Rios, and members of Room to Be to create our Listen to the Lavender soundscape exploring queer voices, and the importance of connecting with community and nature. You can find out more about the artists and the project here.
My practice revolves around designing spaces and making spatial objects, ranging from practical products and furniture to more abstract, sculptural pieces. Sustainability sits at the centre of my work, as I believe designers have a responsibility to consider the waste they create through making.
I predominantly work with discarded materials, particularly plastic, exploring its many possibilities, colours and material qualities. I’m interested in the transformation that takes place when something perceived as waste is given a new form, function or identity. Through my work, I want to explore how changing the way we see and interact with discarded materials can open up new possibilities for design.
Dundee is home to me, somewhat by choice and somewhat by coincidence, but I’m here to stay and genuinely love it.
The scale of the city makes it accessible to become part of the local community and creative network, and that community has given me so many opportunities to develop my practice. From studying and making connections, to being commissioned and having my work showcased, Dundee has been an important part of my journey as a creative. Its museums, galleries, art and design school, creative events and status as a UNESCO City of Design make it a great place to work, while its location also allows me to easily travel across Scotland for commissions and other opportunities.
In my own experience, one area that could be better supported is access to larger, specialist workshop spaces. Dundee has a good range of studios for artists and makers working on a smaller scale, but practices such as mine, involving woodworking and larger objects, require more space and specialist equipment. Finding an affordable and suitable workshop can therefore be a challenge. More support for creatives looking to establish or access these kinds of spaces could make a real difference, particularly for practices focused on making, material reuse and sustainable production.
Aymeric Renoud, draff Studio: I admire Aymeric’s craftsmanship, attention to detail and beautiful use of materials. I particularly love his experimentation with creating new materials from waste generated by the brewing and distilling industries.
Lyle McCance, Mill Hill Studio: Lyle is a technician at DJCAD and one of the most skilled makers and problem-solvers I know. I admire his rational and logical approach to making, and his ability to find practical solutions to almost any challenge. Since moving to Dundee six years ago, he is probably the person I have learned the most from. His knowledge and generosity have had a huge influence on the way I work.
I am an artist and game designer with a focus on bringing hand made art into a digital space, and I am a member of Biome Collective. I use materials such as paper, card, clay and fabric in my work, and try to re-use or source second hand wherever possible. I have also been changing my digital tools away from big tech towards open source software, and do not use AI in my work due to its negative environmental impact. I have also run workshops on climate justice within games, and have made games that encourage conversation about the environment.
I find Dundee’s creative community very special in how cross-disciplinary and interwoven it is, and there is always such a strong desire for collaboration. The sense of community here is amazing, and I have been able to get involved with a lot of local groups and organisations. I’ve also been thrilled to be involved in local projects such as Bioregioning Tayside and DDcommons recently, which are both focused on climate justice in Dundee and the surrounding area.
It would be wonderful to see more of a focus on digital sustainability, as this is often overlooked but with the rise in energy usage from technologies and AI, it is vital that people understand the impacts of the digital side of their practice. I would love to see workshops, skill-sharing and learning resources made available, accessible, free, and well-advertised to artists that could help people make informed choices about the digital tools they use.
Donna Holford-Lovell: Donna is a curator and digital artist who has made amazing contributions to Dundee’s creative and climate justice scene, such as NEoN digital arts festival, and more recently projects such as DDcommons, which is creating a locally hosted and managed internet as an alternative to big tech. Her optimistic and proactive approach to digital sustainability has been very inspiring to me!
Mel Kalkan: Mel is a visual artist who works in a variety of physical mediums, and has a real focus on sustainability within the materials she uses, from sourcing them second hand through to re-using in different projects. I’m also just a big fan of how bold and colourful her art is!
City Flowers Garden Studio / City Flowers Garden Festival
As an artist-philosopher, my practice sits in the vital gap between the theory of climate justice and the lived reality of urban planning. For me, climate justice is an urgent bodily truth, rooted in growing up in urban areas and losing my child to an environmental cancer in the place we live.
Through City Flowers, I facilitate creative gardens as vital, inclusive safe havens using horticulture, cooking, and craft. I weave culture – music, spoken word, dance, and storytelling – to foster intergenerational connection. My work bridges creative practitioners, community members, and our companion species, transforming spaces into sites of collective healing, creativity and resistance.
Doing this work in Dundee means navigating a powerful paradox: a city rich in industrial heritage and creative spirit, yet often material-poor. We possess incredible art & craft traditions, but lack readily available, localised stocks of sustainable raw materials like weaving fibres. For me, practicing here means addressing this deprivation directly within our neighbourhoods. It means honouring Dundee’s working-class history while ensuring that environmental sustainability and access to nature is never treated as an exclusionary luxury, but as a practical, deeply rooted resource that belongs entirely to the local communities who live here.
Support can be improved through three structural shifts. First, established links with MSPs so artists can provide contextual safeguarding maps of visited areas, helping MSPs and community members build a clearer picture of strengths and vulnerabilities. Second, we need a dedicated directory of partnerships with the James Hutton Institute, University of Dundee, and independent environmental scientists eager to volunteer time to local communities. Finally, the city needs practical green transport infrastructure – like subsidised bus travel for artists, and all-weather green studio hubs that host creatives from multi-disciplinary backgrounds. This would transform climate-creative work from isolated projects into a connected, resilient public ecosystem.
I want to highlight two exceptional Dundee-based creatives:
Callum Mackie: A skilled sound engineer and musician. I am sharing his work because of his technical expertise and supportive nature. Calum supports many charity gigs by volunteering his time and energy and is always rooting for the underdog in the arts. He is a great advocate for local musicians, creative producers like myself and young people. This is my second year working alongside Calum to support performers at City Flowers annual Garden Festival.
Ed Muirhead (@dundeemusic.uk): An inspiring musician, teacher, and mentor. I am sharing Ed because his dedicated community mentorship empowers local voices, builds musicians confidence and vital, intergenerational musical connections across the city and beyond. Ed’s essential to Dundee’s cultural fabric, fostering deep community cohesion through his many roles across the city, musicians I have chatted to always rate Ed very highly, describing the many good deeds Ed has carried out, including recording albums, mastering, music lessons and recently supporting me by volunteering at our second City Flowers Garden Festival. Ed always approaches things with a sense of calm that I hope to master one day.
I am a multidisciplinary design researcher and jeweller based in Dundee. My work explores the environmental challenges we face today and aims to inspire others to adopt more sustainable practices through tangible objects and design interventions. I draw inspiration from nature, highlighting its intricate and often overlooked systems. My practice merges traditional craft, speculative design, and biodesign, allowing me to experiment across disciplines and materials. Each piece is intended to function as wearable jewellery while also conveying a deeper narrative about climate change and the importance of our connection to local landscapes and their ecologies.
Dundee’s industrial past and emerging creative scene provide a rich context for my work. The city is home to a diverse community of creatives supporting each other. Though often seen as an underdog among Scotland’s cities, Dundee’s creative energy is growing visibly. Being part of this community has been vital for developing and anchoring my design practice locally. There is a noticeable shift toward climate and sustainability-focused initiatives, driven by organisations like Dundee Changemakers Hub among other community groups. This movement excites me, and I am proud to contribute to it.
Working in Dundee connects me not only as a designer and maker but also as an active participant in the city’s ongoing development as a UNESCO City of Design, and in its shift toward sustainable, climate-conscious practices. I am eager to share my ideas, inspire others, and encourage local designers to engage with environmental issues.
Tackling climate and sustainability issues can sometimes feel overwhelming. While many community groups, grants, and collectives exist in the city, there still seems to be a gap for makers focused on sustainability and climate.
Creating a dedicated space, either online or in person, where makers, designers, and creatives can meet, collaborate, and discuss shared challenges could help support and grow this community. This space could offer a shared materials library, training sessions on sustainable practices, networking opportunities, and grants that support a collective of creatives in Dundee focused on these issues, encouraging ongoing growth in this area. As more makers get involved, this initiative could spread, encouraging more accessible and sustainable ways of working that address climate challenges.
Sandra Wilson (@sandrawilson_silver): Sandra Wilson is a jeweller/researcher working at the intersection of traditional craft and science. Using hydrometallurgy to recover metals from e-waste, she transforms electronic waste into precious jewellery. I am sharing her work here because of her links to sustainable practices and ethical making.
Lewis Cavinue: Lewis is a multidisciplinary artist based in Dundee. He uses play in his work to explore everyday behaviors, tasks, and ways of life through interactive pieces and art installations. His socially engaged practice creates a lively and welcoming atmosphere that brings people together. I am sharing his work because of his involvement in community arts, socially engaged projects, and his interdisciplinary approach within the creative sector.
I’m an artist and maker working with textile waste; donated wool, cashmere, and cotton offcuts from local manufacturers and designers. I transform these discarded threads through a self-developed process using plant-based glue, turning them into new materials, bespoke artwork, and functional pieces. My practice is about turning waste into pieces of high value, worth keeping for decades rather than discarding.
Sustainability changes the starting point of my work. I don’t ask, “What material should I buy?” I ask, “What already exists, and how can I give it another life?” My practice is about slowing down, using what is already here, and making waste visible rather than invisible.
I moved to Dundee 12 years ago not knowing the language, without friends, family, or a plan. What I found here wasn’t just a city, it was people who welcomed a stranger and helped her build a life: I learned the language, built a career, made friends, found a future. Dundee became home. Now, through JUNELE, I give back to that same city and its people.
Personally, I have found one of the biggest challenges is visibility. Dundee has many talented sustainable makers, but there isn’t enough support to showcase their work. What could genuinely help is the city using its media reach and networks to create noise around local makers. Actively promoting their work and connecting them with organisations that value sustainability and want to work with creative practitioners.
Donna Wilson: I love how Donna translates happiness, colour and joy into her work. Her knitted creatures have so much character and warmth — they raise a smile.
Jo-AMI: I love how cool and stylish Jo-AMI’s knitwear is.
Hello! I’m an artist and community organiser based in Dundee. I create site-responsive installations and experiences to explore human ecology and facilitate collective action for rewilding the city and reconnecting with our wilder side. In my practice I use a combination of performance, sound art, printmaking, writing, gardening, mapping – often rooted in long-term collaborations with artists and communities, who help me take more caring, fairer and bolder approaches to creative climate projects.
Working outdoors also helps dissolve boundaries between those who wouldn’t normally be together. I’m interested in creating opportunities to build new relationships between people, plants, animals and place so we can reimagine and reclaim our public common spaces.
I’m really interested in understanding and developing the idea of the embedded artist in Dundee. How can we help imagine and shape the future of our lifestyles and neighbourhoods?
I work at the Maxwell Community Garden and have been part of setting up networks like Grow Dundee or the Dundee Changemakers Hub – all these connections give me a strong sense of gratitude for where I am and who I get to work and create with. I feel so lucky to be part of a city that in many ways feels like a village and sharing places with plants and animals that keep me grounded.
Opportunities for creatives and those working towards social and climate justice to spend more time together, share spaces, ideas, build trust and imagine accessible posthuman projects.
We need creative spaces in Dundee to engage with the living world, in the words of Robin Wall Kimmerer: “How are going to fall in love with the world if we don’t pick berries, or flowers”. Community gardens and the new food forests are good starting points. Could we stretch beyond our comfort zone and be critical thinkers in these times of planetary uncertainty? Why are things the way they are? Could we get closer to those who are already suffering the consequences of social and climate injustices?
This is a really tough one so I’m not going to overthink it and go with who is coming to mind…
Haystack Monolith: I love Haystack Monolith’s imagination and playful way of being an artist and performer… If you haven’t heard of “Moss is the Boss” you should really get to one of his gigs. Mark listens to the environment and the people around him while he plays, something quite special! I also love the energy and aesthetics of his collaged posters.
Alison Scott: Another artist and writer who inspires me is Alison Scott, I don’t think she lives in Dundee but she has a strong presence here through Generator Projects, Dundee Feminist Bird Club and probably more that I don’t know about! I’m excited about her new project PAMphlet, a place for creative-critical writing in collaboration with Rosie Roberts.
I love drawing from my imagination, slowly adding to detailed worlds over long periods of time usually through simple black and white linework. I am currently drawing a mural on the wall of the Creative Central space in Dundee Central library. I believe libraries, community gardens and other shared spaces are vital to a sustainable society that nurtures shared resources and creates resilient support networks. My drawings are deeply inspired by these spaces which growing up were a safe haven for me. I seek to capture them thriving in the many layered ways they exist beyond their primary function.
The way that creativity, climate justice and social justice are so intertwined in Dundee’s communities has informed how I approach my own creative practice. Similarly Dundee’s physical environment is so varied and finding rivers, sea, hills, mudflats and forests so tightly knit naturally brings with it lots of different perspectives and experiences. I have also benefitted hugely from open, free invitations to create such as Fun a Day Dundee and the various Zine Jams over the years. By providing dedicated time, materials and support to be creative, they have motivated me to express myself and connect with other people without the pressure of commercial or paid work.
Having physical resources to learn and experience sustainable craft materials and techniques is something I would find very helpful. I could imagine a freely accessible library section dedicated to real examples of local sustainable artwork to support a shift away from disposable and polluting materials that are often more documented and heavily advertised to anyone starting out in a creative practice. This could be a physical expansion of Creative Dundee’s past collaboration with MaticHub on the Indigenous Materials Library.
Mhairi Abbas: Mhairi’s hand dyed woolen knits spring to mind when I think about sustainability in a practical hands on way, making things that are long lasting as well as beautiful.
Hollis Crowe: Hollis’ creative workshops combining natural sciences and craft making are a wonderful way to learn about the ecosystems in the world around us while being creative, I think it is so important to find space to discuss and share our experiences in nature.
I’m a photographic artist exploring process, materials and the natural world through analogue, cameraless and digital photography. My work is inspired by hidden ecosystems – ponds, rockpools, soil organisms and other tiny worlds – and increasingly by listening to them with a hydrophone. I work experimentally, often repurposing discarded materials and objects. Sharing processes is central to my practice; I run workshops with communities, helping people realise their creative potential. An MFA in Art, Science & Visual Thinking at DJCAD helped me find my place at the intersection of art and science. Working collectively with others gives me hope for our natural world.
I love the opportunities Dundee has given me; working with other artists, within arts organisations, the Botanics and with a wide range of communities. I make work and teach in the excellent DCA Print Studio, recently completed an MFA at DJCAD and am part of the Art & Nature Collective. I find Dundee a very welcoming and creative city. People are friendly and open in a beautifully understated way. It’s not so big to overwhelm, but there is so much creativity and climate positive and community focussed work happening it is good to be a small part of that.
A government funded income for artists could bring longer term and therefore more meaningful projects in these areas. It’s great that funding pots are available to us and I have personally benefitted from Dundee Climate Fund (with Art & Nature Collective) and Siobhan and Richard Coward Fund to work with communities in Dundee on interesting projects. But these projects are often short. There could always be more opportunities for young artists and low cost studio space. We are however lucky to have Scrap Antics, Dundee Changemakers Hub and other climate focussed groups and numerous excellent communities groups like MaxWell Centre.
Dana Leslie: Co-founder of the inspiring Original Copy Collective which recently partnered with Jupiter Artland in taking over a unit on Castle Street. They have been championing local artists through exhibitions and events over the past few years and are going from strength to strength. I met Dana when We both did the MFA in Art, Science & Visual Thinking at DJCAD in 2022.
I love her work and she is a vibrant, fiercely intelligent woman. She needs very little sleep when near a deadline.
Jek McAllister: is a Dundee based artist, facilitator, gardener and cook. I have had the pleasure of working with her at Ninewells Community Garden where she is Community Engagement Facilitator. She has a beautifully relaxed demeanour and has an excellent way with people of all ages and abilities.
Jek has run Wooosh Gallery (with Jamie Donald & Finlay Hall) since 2019. She also leads ‘Alternative (art) School‘, a project Forgan Arts Centre delivered in partnership with Madras College to support people aged 13-18 years who feel excluded from mainstream education. And much more.
Huge thanks to everyone for taking the time to share with us! Don’t miss our other Creative Base features, spotlighting more of the talented folks who have made Dundee their creative home.
Discover more from this year’s Dundee Climate Week programme over on the Sustainable Dundee site and get involved with events, workshops, volunteering and more from Mon 28 Oct–Sun 4 Nov.
Meet more of the city’s creative practitioners through our Amps network, shop local with our annual Makers Gift Guides, or browse our blogs for more in depth insights from the city’s creative practitioners.
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