Subscribe to our monthly News Mail Out for more events, features, opportunities and exciting content from Dundee!
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
We’re excited to be back on the Fabric journey – an informal peer-learning programme designed to share, reflect and imagine how collective action can shape a better tomorrow. Bringing together young people, creative practitioners, and youth and health workers, Fabric: Creating Care will explore how creativity, care and systems that currently support young people can be stronger, better shaped and more hopeful in Dundee.
In this blog, Sara Oussaiden takes us through the second session, ‘Care in Our Communities’, and reflects on her experience of a busy day filled with big questions, informative discussions, and collective care.
Our connecting thread for the second session of Fabric: Creating Care was ‘Care in our Communities’. This week we felt the passion and support that emanates from every corner of Dundee whilst also beginning to tackle big questions about what care looks like, who should be providing it, and who gets to access it.
We began our morning with a sun-dappled walk across town, leading us to coffee, catch ups and, after a brief introduction from Claire, a tour of our first destination for the day, Art Angel – a cornerstone of the arts and mental health recovery in Dundee. Here we heard from Guen Rota, Art Angel’s manager, whose love for the space was palpable as she shared some of the projects Art Angel had been working on.
Art Angel is a not-for-profit arts space for people aged 16+ facing mental health challenges. The space itself, alongside the variety of work on display, is a clear testament to Art Angel’s dedication to helping individuals find their voice during difficult times. It was fascinating for me to hear Guen’s story, starting out at Art Angel as a freelancer, and how her journey mirrors the path many of us have followed within the Fabric cohort, and the third sector more broadly, having either received support first-hand or having developed a genuine passion for helping others.
Next we got to hear from other organisations in the area who each demonstrate a different avenue of care within Dundee. Steph and Shoko shared their roles at The Corner, a drop-in health and social wellbeing space for young people aged 11-19. A service that exemplifies the potential for tailored and person-centred care when national health services, local councils and third sector groups come together.
Laura Cooney (a member of the Fabric cohort this year) shared her experience of working as a mental health education officer for CAMHS. She chatted through the complexities of her rewarding role within a service that has developed a negative stigma over the years. Laura also shared the value she finds beyond CAMHS through her work with Alternatives Dundee, a charity that provides support for pregnancy, parenting and child loss. Finally, Iona McCann from Tayside Healthcare Arts Trust shared insight into the organisation’s creative engagement and therapy programmes that often run in tandem with NHS treatment and how these programmes help patients rebuild confidence, discover new means of expression and regain their sense of identity.
Listening to these conversations around care, recovery and creative practice, I found myself reflecting on my own relationship to CAMHS and holistic support. As an artist rooted in participatory practice, I’ve been volunteering at Dudhope’s Young Person’s Inpatient Unit for the past four years, running weekly art groups for ages 12-18 alongside the CAMHS team based there. With this perspective, and as a former CAMHS patient myself, I relate to Laura’s reflections on working with the service.
I’m grateful for the insight my experiences have given me into the hard work the service puts in, while also being aware of what inpatient care alone can realistically achieve. Within the reality of short admissions, limited resources and increasing pressure on services, the unit understands what it can provide and tries to equip young people beyond their admission. Recovery inevitably takes place at home and in the community, led by the agency of the young people themselves. The art group is one way the unit expands forms of care beyond medical treatment, and I’ve had the honour of seeing the increased confidence and resilience that can grow when young people are given the space to engage creatively. It’s a form of support that can stay with them long after leaving the unit, just as it has with me.
Moving between these different perspectives on care, it became difficult not to think about what was still missing and what future support for young people in Dundee could look like. To stretch our legs and consolidate our thoughts, we were asked to respond to different prompts on the future of youth mental health care in Dundee. Together we brainstormed topics of justice, accessibility, youth advocacy, prevention, education and joined-up care. The result was a collage of possibilities that we will be returning to and developing over the coming months.
While the session generated a hopeful range of ideas, it also highlighted the fragility of the systems currently in place. What became increasingly evident to me throughout these conversations was the need for a diverse ecosystem of individual-centred care from charities and organisations working alongside the NHS. This would create opportunities for more adaptable and community-based support than a single service could ever provide alone. Dundee is clearly doing something right, but with national health services overwhelmed and underfunded and – as Iona put it – the third sector itself at crisis point, it remains difficult to see where the necessary resources will come from or how long things can continue as they are.
After a morning spent grappling with these questions, the change of pace that the afternoon offered felt welcome. With heads full and stomachs empty, we ruminated our way up Stobswell to Boomerang Community Centre to begin our afternoon, kick-started with a home-cooked soup and sandwich provided by their volunteer-led Lunch Club.
The Boomerang Community Centre is a symbol for active and responsive care within the city. Since being founded by Neil Ellis almost 30 years ago, Boomerang has taken on many forms and, as demonstrated during our tour from Alison Carr and Kaitlyn Stott, the centre, its facilities and services are as pivotal to the area as ever. From their affordable Food Larder, to their wide range of youth, wellbeing and support groups, Boomerang’s work touches almost every corner of local life.
Deciding to take advantage of the glorious sunshine, we took some time in one of Boomerang’s greenspaces to hear from local organisations, How it Felt, RSPB Dundee and Room to Be, about their local work with the centre and the approaches to mental health support that prioritise stronger relationships to the outdoors.
Deborah Chapman (Debs) is an inspiring individual who practices holistic care through art, theatre and puppetry. With her social enterprise, How It Felt, Debs uses puppets to create films and experiences that encapsulate neurodivergence and mental ill health. With Boomerang she’s working on a project called How We Grow, which builds on this approach and introduces play and self-expression in nature.
RSPB programme coordinator, Hope Busak, outlined the variety of outreach programmes the charity supports around Dundee. With their project, ‘Wild Dundee’, the team hopes to strengthen the relationship between the city’s residents and nature through partnerships across already established groups such as public gardens, Abertay University and the developing Eden Project to name just a few.
If there was one quote that encapsulated the afternoon it would be one shared by Debs from Jana Stanfield: “I cannot do all the good that the world needs. But the world needs all the good that I can do.” – So just do it!
That ethos of collective responsibility and personal action carried through into our final discussion of the afternoon with Emile, who alongside Mel (another member of the Fabric cohort) founded Room to Be, a grassroots LGBTQIA+ group connected through nature and art.
With Emile, the focus of our discussion centred on the role privilege plays in our lives and the power dynamics we experience. Using the ‘Wheel of Power and Privilege’, a tool used to loosely map different aspects of identity against societal power structures, Emile was very open and vulnerable in demonstrating how the tool works by sharing his experiences and where he placed himself on the wheel at different stages of his life. Taking the activity a step further, we paired up and began sharing our own placements across the wheel whilst the other would practice silent listening before sharing their own experience.
After a long day of discussing the work of different groups and exploring the ideals of a functioning society, we took part in a grounding activity before finishing for the day to bring it back to where we are now – a community with an identity, values, networks, hopes and ideals, but facing the reality and concerns around safety and wellbeing. In putting language to the principles that connect our community, we created lists we plan to revisit in a future session with fresh perspectives and clearer minds.
As the day began to wind down, Claire and Debs introduced our final activity for the day: collaborating on miniature gardens as a way of imagining how systems and practices of care might be nurtured within Dundee. Working in groups, we were each given a small tray to build our gardens in, using the process and materials provided to think through the relationships, structures, and forms of support that hold communities together.
At the end of the session, we gathered to share our work. Some gardens reflected idealised systems of care – neat, organised, and meticulously maintained – while others embraced a more realistic view of how networks of organisations often exist in practice: messy, overlapping and constantly in motion. Despite their differences, each garden suggested that these systems are ultimately held together by the communities that rely on and sustain them.
And that was a wrap on Day 2 of Fabric: Creating Care. As beer gardens and sunny strolls home beckoned, we were left to reflect on the conversations from the day, which felt less like conclusions and more like invitations to continue thinking collectively about what care can look like in Dundee.
That spirit will be carried forward into discussions around Healing Arts Scotland’s week of events exploring the role art has in healthcare and recovery which will be taking place around the country in June later this year. Healing Arts Scotland’s Dundee Day has been organised by THAT, Art Angel and the University of Dundee with support from Jameel Arts Lab and will take place on Tue 16 June at the V&A Dundee. The speakers, including myself, come from a range of backgrounds and will come together to share the importance art plays in care and recovery. Tickets and further information can be found here.
Sara Oussaiden is an artist, researcher and community practitioner based between Dundee and the Isle of Skye. Awarded the NHS Tayside Star Award in 2025 for volunteering as an art tutor in Dudhope’s Young People’s Psychiatric Unit, she works across community and learning contexts, using creative practice to support confidence and connection in youth communities.
Fabric is led by Creative Dundee, and delivered in partnership with healthcare, community and creative organisations, with support from the Participation and Communities Team at The Scottish Parliament, as part of Creative Minds – a creative youth mental health project designed by Creative Dundee with project funding from NHS Tayside Charitable Foundation.
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
Spanning the 1940s to present day, V&A Dundee’s new free exhibition Design and Disability will feature around 170 objects across three themes within design, art, architecture, fashion and photography. It will show how Disabled people have designed for every aspect of life through their own experience and expertise, tracing the political and social history of design and disability.
Through examples of disability-first practices showcasing the work of Disabled people and collaborators, Design and Disability is both a celebration of Disabled-led design and a call for action – affirming the importance of embedding the experiences and expertise of Disabled, Deaf, and neurodivergent people in design processes.
When
Opening Fri 5 June,
10am-5pm daily
Where
Gallery Two,
V&A Dundee,
1 Riverside Esplanade,
Dundee, DD1 4EZ
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
Launched in the early 2000s, They Had Four Years exists as an opportunity for Generator Projects to support and nurture recently-graduated artists. One year on from their Degree Shows, a selection of handpicked graduates from art schools across Scotland get the opportunity to exhibit newly commissioned work in the Generator Projects galleries.
This year’s edition features the work of five artists: Anna Tewungwa (Glasgow School of Art), Jock Thomson (Glasgow School of Art), Nina Price (DJCAD), Sam Black (Edinburgh College of Art) and Thea Moston (Edinburgh College of Art).
Opening Night
Sat 30 May, 6pm–9pm
When
Sun 31 May – Sun 12 July
Thu–Sun, 12pm–5pm
Where
Generator Projects,
25/26 Mid Wynd Industrial Estate,
Dundee,
DD1 4JG
Generator Projects is a Dundee based artist run initiative founded in 1996 by Paul Liam Harrison, Andy Kennedy and Caroline McIntee. As a volunteer organisation, they facilitate a varied cultural programme of exhibitions and events. They are committed to highlighting the importance of grass roots activity and its integral role in developing the careers of emerging artists.
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
Dundee Book Festival returns with its second iteration from Fri 19–Sun 21 June, featuring a packed programme of emerging and established voices from across literature, politics and science.
With 25 events across the three days, this year’s programme spans children’s events, new fiction and non fiction, spoken word and live discussion, bringing together national names and Dundee voices. A new partnership with the Southbank Centre will also bring A Poet in Every Port to Dundee, with the Mobile National Poetry Library offering a weekend of free activity, readings and workshops for audiences of all ages.
To keep the festival accessible and open to all, the majority of Dundee Book Festival events will be priced at £5 per ticket.
The festival programme includes:
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
Young people interested in a career in cinema, arts and culture, or fascinated by film and the behind the scenes workings of film festivals, are invited to apply to DCA’s Discovery Young Programmers 2026!
This two-week summer programme, offers film-fans aged 15–19 the opportunity to learn about film programming, with the chance to talk to visiting guest experts, watch films and choose their favourite as a group to present on the big screen at a special event during Discovery Film Festival 2026 (Sat 31 Oct–Sun 1 Nov and Sat 7–Sun 8 Nov).
Participants will learn the ins and outs of running a film festival, including how different departments work together to bring events to audiences, and how to think about audiences, objectives and risks when planning an event. There are five places available to join this year’s programme and there is no cost for participants to apply or take part.
How to apply:
Applications close: midday, Fri 19 June 2026
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
We say it often, but Creative Dundee wouldn’t exist without the community that surrounds us. As a network organisation, these connections form the heart of all that we do: setting the stage for collaborations and partnerships; bringing us together to map and action our collective ambitions; and driving us to learn from one another and do better, for our place and for each other.
The inherent value of creative networks is layered and boundless, but all too often underestimated. Despite the benefits well known to those who make and partake in them, their worth isn’t as neatly evidenced or understood as more visible, resourced creative infrastructure is. It takes lots of care, energy and time to create connective spaces that are inclusive, equitable, responsive and sustainable. Beyond the hidden labour of those who steward them, support for networks – to lay foundations for the future, build momentum, and ensure they can serve their community – is hard to come by and in demand when available.
Create:Networks was one such opportunity, and we were delighted to be invited by Creative Scotland to lead on developing a proposal with Scotland’s Creative Networks to deliver the fund for 2024/25. Supported by The National Lottery through Creative Scotland and delivered by Creative Dundee, Create:Networks offered funding and a programme of support to nine place-based creative networks in Scotland. This work brought local creative networks together to learn and share, to develop their own network longevity, and to create a 12-month programme of activity that would help creative practitioners and businesses to grow and become more sustainable – with the ripple effects of this fund strengthening not just the networks themselves but their places and the wider creative ecosystem, too.
We were grateful to then receive further support to gather experiences of the fund through a reflective evaluation process, carefully and skilfully developed by freelance practitioner Kathryn Welch. This resulting report seeks to understand the impact, challenges and learning associated with the 2024/25 round of the Create:Networks fund – not only capturing key learning but further sharing it with others who are enabling, doing and have the ambition of doing this work.
Each of the nine networks funded by Create:Networks 2025/25 – Angus Creatives, Biome Collective, CaraVAN (Circus Artspace), Creative Futures (Narture CIC), Forth Valley Creative Network (Creative Stirling), Network Q (Pluto Q), Neuk Edinburgh (Neuk Collective / Door in the Wall Arts CIC), Shetland Textiles Network and Universal Recognition Movement, Alba Hub – has generously contributed their experiences to this process. We’re grateful to all of them, and look forward to exploring how we collectively continue to grow this body of knowledge to support future provision for building sustainable, inclusive and connected creative networks in Scotland.
Accompanying the report are two summary papers that capture key learning points: an Executive Summary, tailored to network investors and enablers (through funding, advocacy, strategy interventions and policy development); and ‘This is not an Executive Summary’, containing reflections and learning for those building and caring for creative networks.
Presented across five themes, the review captures experiences of the application process before in-depth consideration of the lifecycle of a network, leadership, connecting networks and sustainability in practice. Five ‘impact snapshots’ share further insights – outlining key impacts through compact case studies.
Throughout the delivery of Create:Networks 2024/25, recurring topics and challenges included:
Accompanying these emerging themes and topics are a number of thoughts ‘for consideration’, which are intended to inform the development of future activity to support creative networks.
We believe that this learning can support creative networks with the knowledge to confidently build in response to their community, inform network-enablers on where to focus support, and bridge to next steps for collectively shaping what comes next for provision of support for creative networks in Scotland.
“For Community Wealth Building to be fully realised in Scotland, creative networks must be recognised and resourced as long-term civic infrastructure that grow local capabilities, anchor wealth, and support sustainable inclusive economies.”
Building on the delivery of the fund and evaluation process, Creative Dundee is developing this learning into an event centred on – and leading to next steps for – continued knowledge exchange and practical support provision for sustaining creative networks in Scotland. Tending To/gether is a one-day participatory forum, gathering creative network builders and those interested in collective ways of working to spotlight impact, exchange knowledge and platform the critical role that creative networks play in our cultural ecology and beyond.
This project has been a chance for inward reflection, too. Having grown our own Amps network since 2016, it has been an expansive process to apply this learning to supporting others in doing this work. We look forward to marking a decade of Amps at the end of this year.
Great thanks goes to each of the networks who contributed their time, knowledge and learnings to this report and project, including the nine funded projects: Angus Creatives, Biome Collective, CaraVAN (Circus Artspace), Creative Futures (Narture CIC), Forth Valley Creative Network (Creative Stirling), Network Q (Pluto Q), Neuk Edinburgh (Neuk Collective / Door in the Wall Arts CIC), Shetland Textiles Network and Universal Recognition Movement – Alba Hub.
We’re also incredibly grateful to Kathryn Welch, who designed and delivered the evaluation and report. Her passion for and deep care in bringing people together shines through in all that she does, placing community at the heart of how we collectively shape what comes next.
Create:Networks was managed and delivered by Scotland’s Creative Networks, led by Creative Dundee, with support from The National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
Illustrations by Kate Scarlet Harvey
Enquiries about Create:Networks can be directed to Jen Collins, Creative Producer: jen@creativedundee.com.
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
With over 180 boundary-pushing projects on display, the Abertay Digital Graduate Show is celebrating 20 years of innovation and the creativity of final year students from Abertay University’s Faculty of Design, Informatics and Business.
Covering everything from concept art and character design to cutting-edge tech like virtual/augmented reality and 3D modelling, the show offers a plethora of opportunities to play and explore.
Whether you’re into technology and digital design, interested in getting into games, or just keen to find out more about Abertay’s wide range of degrees, you’ll have the chance to play games, view graduates’ work, chat to exhibitors and connect with people in the local digital and creative industries.
When
Thu 14–Sat 16 May, 12–4pm
Evening Reception: Fri 15 May, 6–9pm
Where
Level 1 and Level 2
Kydd Building, Abertay University
Bell Street
Dundee, DD1 1HG
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
At the end of May, DJCAD’s much-loved graduate showcase will welcome everyone back into the university studio and exhibition spaces! The Art & Design Undergraduate Degree Show celebrates the achievements of nearly 400 graduating students from University of Dundee’s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, showcasing an astonishing range of work across textiles, sculpture, design, illustration, jewellery, architecture and so much more.
The show will be open to the public from Sat 23–Sun 31 May, with a ticketed preview for graduating students’ friends and family on Fri 22 May, alongside several late openings and events.
When
Sat 23–Sun 31 May, 10am–4pm
Late openings on Thu 28 and Sat 30 May, 10am–8pm
Where
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design
13 Perth Road
Dundee
DD1 4HT
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
Subscribe to our monthly News Mail Out for more events, features, opportunities and exciting content from Dundee!
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
To mark Dundee Month of Design, our fourth edition of Creative Base is putting the spotlight on just a few of the city’s many designers – highlighting the incredible variety and breadth of work that has helped earn Dundee’s UNESCO City of Design designation!
We’ve asked them to share some insights into their work, what it means for them to be designers in Dundee, and what could be improved to ensure a better and brighter future for other designers and creative practitioners in 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!
I’m the founder of GADGIE, a fashion and creative practice rooted in Scottish working-class identity. My work sits across fashion, textiles, and visual storytelling. I’m interested in how everyday culture, subcultures, and upbringing shape style and identity. Alongside garments, I’m also developing publications and projects that document and celebrate the communities I come from, using design as a way to represent and empower them.
Working in Dundee keeps my practice grounded. It’s where I grew up, and most of my work comes directly from the people, places, and culture around me. There’s a strong sense of community here, especially within smaller creative circles. At the same time, being based here can feel slightly outside the main industry hubs, which makes it more important to create your own opportunities and spaces. That independence has really shaped how I approach my work.
More accessible, long-term support would make a big difference – especially for emerging and working-class creatives. There are opportunities, but they can feel short-term or difficult to sustain. More affordable studio spaces with long-term security, consistent funding, and clearer pathways into creative industries would help people stay and grow their practice in Dundee. It’s also important to recognise and support grassroots projects, as they’re often where the most authentic and community-driven work is happening.
High Anxiety – A photojournalist with a strong identity rooted in raw, real experiences. His work balances darker themes with moments of unexpected beauty and resilience, making it both honest and impactful.
Tayside Region – A visual artist whose work blends humour with everyday lived experiences – especially if you’ve grown up in a ‘working-class Scotland’. It’s relatable, observational, and the kind of work that people connect with instantly – something you’d want in your space because it feels familiar and real.
Website / Linkedin / Instagram
For me, design is about learning, communication, sensemaking and empathy. I’m a design educator mostly, so my jam is supporting others to design and develop their own skills. I co-direct Service Design Academy where we help people think about how their services work (or could work) so that they solve problems for people, can be accessed by everybody that needs to use them, and aren’t frustrating or difficult to use. As a freelancer at V&A Dundee, I help folks of all ages to connect with and get inspired by design and creativity. In my own work I create and share stories, information, and stuff I think is cool.
Growing up I was quiet in public and full of questions and curiosity at home. I went through school without a frame of reference for my queer identity and managing life with autism nobody (including myself) knew was there. I learned about making stuff, being critical, observing, taking photos, coding, and always learning from mistakes, but art and design felt like something for someone else. When I left school I (eventually) found DJCAD, Creative Dundee (and the Amps Network), DCA, designers, artists, freelancers, festivals, exhibitions, and… myself. Dundee’s my home, the soil from which I can grow. I wouldn’t be a designer – or even me – without it!
Funding and high-quality public spaces! The financial means and safe and accessible places to create, to be, to explore, to try things, to make, to sell, to share, to love, and to experience things that aren’t so easy to do at home or by yourself. There’s a whole host of cool people and places out there in Dundee – there’s a reason we’re a UNESCO City of Design – but so many of them involve knowing they’re there, finding people to go with, being able to afford access, and feeling comfortable and safe around new people and uncertainty. I’d love to see culture and community in Dundee visible, safe, secure, funded, inclusive, and thriving.
Jamie Stein – Jamie is an exceptionally talented graphic designer, educator, storyteller, and typography specialist. Jamie’s practice isn’t just about gorgeous typography and colours, he depicts a feeling, a story, a personality, or an identity through type, layout, pattern, and carefully crafted language. I’m collaborating with Jamie for an exhibition running throughout Dundee Month of Design at Volk Gallery. He’s also working on a beautiful rebrand of Service Design Academy that I just can’t wait to share!
Kim Anderson – Kim is a Service Design Network Accredited Master, published author, and all-round good human. She is an oracle of design, empathy, and accessibility wisdom. If the undercover crime fighting duo Buck and Wanda from Bones had a design education counterpart, it’d be Kim and Connor. Design is a tricky activity to do alone, but with Kim by your side, you’re unstoppable! We’re so lucky to have her as Director of Curriculum, Accreditation, and Partnerships at SDA.
I trained as a printed textile designer and my work is centred around pattern, using a wide range of materials such as vitreous enamel, paper and brass. My practice uses ornamentation to interrogate British and South Asian textile design histories.
Dundee is a supportive place for creatives. The DCA print studio is a great resource, with a community of printers and incredibly knowledgeable staff. Recently I spent a month in Whanganui making connections with the design community, as part of The UNESCO City of Design Textile Legacies residency exchange between Dundee and Whanganui.
Cheaper studio space.
Aymeric Renoud – use of waste material from the whisky distilling and a very talented maker.
Halley Stevensons – a long history of creating waxed cotton and weatherproofed fabrics, started in 1864.
Very Evil Demons is a worker co-operative game development studio here in Dundee. We like making strange and quirky videogames, and helping other teams of creative people realise their visions!
Dundee is the birthplace and beating heart of the Scottish games industry, as well as a creative hotspot. There are so many wonderful people here for us to work with in so many different creative fields, and it inspires us every day. We’re also members of Biome Collective, alongside lots of other local artists and designers. There, we all get a lot of value out of sharing our work and motivating each other!
It can often be difficult for creatives to explore ideas to the fullest with everyday financial pressures or with a lack of tools, work-space, and ways to show their work to the public. Increased funding and support for local creative spaces would be a great way to allow more creatives to get together and create interesting new works to share with the city of Dundee!
We’d like to highlight two other designers from Dundee; Niall Moody and Claire Morwood.
Niall Moody’s newsletter, here and then gone, is a constant inspiration to us. In each monthly issue, Niall creates a new tiny experimental and ephemeral artwork, and pairs it with a lovely list of recommended readings. It always gets us excited and motivated to explore new things. The artworks are only available for a short time each, and their temporary nature makes them that much more compelling.
Claire Morwood creates fascinating digital-physical mixed media hybrid art. Her recent long-term project Asterism is a combination of a music album and video game; each track of the album is presented as a playable music video, each with its own style and selection of graphics produced from real-world materials like clay, fabric, torn paper, and even geological sediment patterns. Her work reminds us that digital and physical art are not in opposition to each other, and are in fact very powerful complementary practices – and that it can be so much fun to explore each and every different artistic medium.
I am a freelance graphic designer. More specifically, I’m a brand-focused graphic designer. Most of my work involves either building visual identities or developing projects that need a clear, consistent visual communication. I often work on content development/restructuring as well as the visual design work.
I have a background in illustration, so I love using bespoke illustrations as a way of adding more personality or a human touch to projects. I’m particularly interested in creating visual identities with custom ownable assets, rather than generic visuals.
There’s a corporate side to the work I do, so I wouldn’t say I feel very involved with the creative scene in Dundee. But I do get a strong impression that the creatives in Dundee really care about the city. Because Dundee is a small city, it’s a lot easier for people to make an impact. I love living and working in Dundee. I’m not from Dundee, but I moved here on purpose. Things feel a bit more grounded here, it’s easier to keep a good work/life balance without getting caught up in the grind of a big city. There’s a lot of green space, and the 12-hour workday is not the norm.
I’d like to see more consideration given to local creatives when tenders are issued within the city. There’s a lot of talent here from people who have been part of Dundee’s transformation and understand both the local market and how the city is shaping its identity. At the moment, projects are often awarded to studios based elsewhere (such as Brighton or Suffolk or even overseas), which means a lot of local insight and capability goes underused. Maybe there could be some scoring towards locality, or at least a requirement to demonstrate an understanding of the local area.
I collaborate a lot with Cat Loots. She’s a great illustrator, but also a very skilled brand designer. We’ve been working together for years, our portfolios are very much intertwined. She’s a multi-disciplinary designer, probably better known for running woodworking company No Comply.
Jamie at Stein Design has a really positive influence on the local design scene. He clearly cares about what he does, and that comes through in the work. He also seems genuinely interested in supporting other creatives in Dundee, I find a lot of value in collaborating with people who care about the city.
We are architects who design buildings which are a joy to live, play, learn and work within – one client described this as ‘dream-catching’ which sums it up beautifully.
Eco design is at the centre of all our projects, including dramatically reducing energy and carbon use during construction and building life, careful specification of new and salvaged materials, lifecycle analysis and local sources of materials and labour. We work on projects across Scotland and as far away as sub-Antarctica. This includes homes, schools, offices, exhibition and arts buildings, and more.
It’s a very collaborative process, rooting our work in applied research and practical innovation, exploring ideas on a project by project basis with each client and learning from one another. Since we set up in practice 15 years ago, the landscape of eco construction has changed a lot and we have worked hard to be part of changing that. We are really passionate about how we as designers can evolve to create in a way that continuously improves the end result for clients, and reduces the environmental impact.
Dundee is a wonderful place to work as there is a really strong design community woven into the DNA of the city, with a whole range of people doing exciting work in different design capacities. We also have a fantastic view of the Tay estuary from our offices, and the changing light throughout the day makes everything feel special. Combined with online working, we can run a global practice from a beautiful spot.
Creative Dundee has always done a really good job of linking up the micro design practices in and around the city. Maintaining a hub and focus for this is really important. Back in the day when we first set up the practice in 2011, we worked from ‘Fleet Collective’. This was a co-working space for creatives and the community was wonderful. I still think back to sharing lunch around a big table, learning about all the different ways people create, making friendships and professional connections that still endure, 15 years later.
It’s really hard to pick out only two people from the myriad out there!
We are working with Aymeric Renoud of Draff. He designs and makes beautiful furniture. We have some of his work in our office, and he is working for one of our clients just now. It is great to be able to hand over a sketch concept to him, collaborate and know that he will bring that ‘something extra’ so it will be beautifully designed, detailed and built.
And someone else who is rooted in the design and art community of Dundee, whose work is really blossoming over the last few years is Anton Beaver. He is a maker and artist. His work is abstract, influenced by the coastal light and changing atmospheric conditions and created with a plasterer’s trowel. He is also a great person to have a chat to about creative ideas, looking at things from different perspectives and teasing out ideas.
I’m a product designer who has explored the world of materials through my varied projects. My portfolio is a bit of a whirlwind, ranging from ceramic candlestands and solid wood furniture to locomotive dashboards using FRP (Fibre Reinforced Polymer) and sheet metal and even blown-glass chandeliers!
Since moving to Dundee, I’ve pivoted into Service Design and Design Research, but at my core, I’m all about people. I truly believe every great solution starts with a solid conversation. For me, design is about empathy and collaboration; it’s the incredible creative community here that keeps my practice grounded.
My journey began in India and eventually led me to the City of Design for my Master’s at DJCAD. After practising here for over a year, I’ve realised that Dundee’s magic lies in its community. It’s a place where I can bring my unique perspective while collaborating with talent from across the globe. Grounding my work here in Dundee means more than just finding opportunities; it’s about paving the way for more Indian creatives to be recognised and celebrated in Scotland’s vibrant scene. It’s about making connections that genuinely matter.
Although Dundee has flourished in the world of design over the last few years, I believe there’s room to lean even further into its global potential. We have incredible local talent, but the city would truly benefit from amplifying more diverse, international voices. For international graduates, feeling “seen” in an increasingly competitive market is vital. By fostering better representation and creating stronger pipelines for international talent to stay and grow here, we can turn Dundee into a truly global design hub where every creative practitioner feels they have the support to make their mark.
First, I must give a special shout-out to Connor Finlayson, a brilliant service designer and fellow Amps member. They focus on social change and accessibility, solving complex problems with a deeply human mindset. Connor actually introduced me to this community!
Then there’s Lee Johnstone, a Design Researcher at the V&A Dundee. Her journey was a huge inspiration when I first arrived. Her journey as a designer inspired me during my introduction to the city and all it has to offer: the university, the design community and the dream of working at the V&A Dundee. Her journey reassured me of my decision to study and practice design in Dundee.
I am a costume designer working in film and TV. I am based between Dundee and London but Dundee is where I store and maintain my kit and my extensive collection of period clothing. When friends in the Scottish costume community heard I had moved my stock to Dundee, they began visiting and renting items from me for films shooting in Scotland, consequently my personal costume collection has gradually become a boutique rental house for small productions and principal characters.
I’m originally from Dundee, so setting up back here has been a pleasure because I’m no longer a visitor in my own home town. I have purpose and I’ve reconnected with the creative community, both here and in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Since setting up, I’ve found people here who work in the film industry – unheard of when I moved to London in the 1980’s – this supports my hope that housing my costume collection in Dundee can help spread the word to young people, perhaps like I was, who don’t even know such jobs exist, so they might not have to move to London to discover it.
I can’t really comment properly on what would improve things here because I don’t live in Dundee all year round but I have been told many times that Dundee lacks creative spaces for artists to show their work, with that in mind I have kept one beautiful floor of our old mill building empty for private showcases and short creative projects whilst we work on plans to create a gallery which, all going well, will be able to open to the public and can be rented by artists and curators for projects of their choosing.
I’m an interior and environmental designer and artist based in Dundee, working through DD Editions and DIX Design. I reimagine existing spaces and build inspiring interiors around carefully sourced furniture, art, objects, and materials that bring depth and character. My projects span residential and commercial work, often involving spaces with quirks, history, and complexity. I collaborate with local makers and fabricators, and my practice sits somewhere between design, making, and collecting. I create environments that feel lived-in, expressive, and rooted in a strong sense of place.
Since graduating from DJCAD in 1998, I’ve seen Dundee shift and grow into a truly creative city. The DCA, the waterfront development, and the V&A were all turning points – the kind of changes that made it feel exciting to stay and build something here. Choosing Dundee over larger Scottish cities felt natural; it’s more affordable, better connected than people expect, and gives
you the freedom to work across the UK while still being part of a close, generous creative community.
As someone running a business in Dundee, it can feel like opportunities are lost through a lack of exposure or championing of what we already have. Much of my work happens outside the area, yet there is huge development potential within the city. Dundee has two challenges that could support each other: empty or under-used areas that risk becoming derelict, and a creative community full of energy. Creating hubs or designated zones where designers and makers can work, collaborate, and be visible would revitalise these spaces while showcasing the talent that already exists here.
Ieva Jankovska – A contemporary jewellery designer and maker based at Double Door Studios. I love her innovative use of materials, sculptural forms, and the way she brings computer-aided design into her process. Her work feels architectural, experimental, and beautifully refined.
Luis Alcada – A comedian, poet, promoter and – according to Instagram – occasional underwear model! I met Luis at a Creative Dundee Amps event and he was naturally funny. I like that comedy culture is gaining momentum in Dundee, and Luis is central to that growth through his work and promotion.
Website / Instagram / Facebook / TikTok
I’m a jeweller/goldsmith based in Dundee. I create bespoke jewellery on a commission basis, working closely with clients to design meaningful, one-of-a-kind pieces, alongside producing collections that I sell through stockists. Alongside my making practice, I teach both group and one-to-one classes. These range from supporting jewellers who want to refine or expand their skills, to people who are completely new to jewellery making and looking to begin or develop their creative journey.
I specialise in jewellery that carries meaning. My work goes beyond aesthetics — it’s about sentiment, story, and craftsmanship coming together. I’m particularly interested in creating pieces that mark moments, relationships, and personal narratives, and that are made to last for generations.
Dundee has an incredibly vibrant and supportive creative community. There is so much talent here, and it genuinely feels like a city that champions creativity. Although I originally come from just outside Glasgow, I’ve never experienced the same sense of creative community that I have in Dundee. It feels collaborative, encouraging, and inspiring, and that makes a huge difference to my practice.
Greater promotion and visibility of creative work would make a real difference, and not all of the same artists on rotation. There are so many talented creatives in Dundee, and more could be done to champion their work and make people aware of what’s being made here.
It would also be great to see more affordable creative spaces. Many people begin a creative career with real potential but are forced to step away due to a lack of financial support or access to suitable spaces. It’s difficult to see talent being lost when the issue isn’t ability, but resources.
Yolla Studio – Run by Lily, who is an absolute powerhouse of energy. She handmakes fun, bold bags in a wide range of shapes and sizes. I own several myself — they’re incredibly versatile and full of personality. She’s also a studio neighbour, so I get to see her products evolving all the time. Lily is genuinely one of the hardest working creatives I know.
Lydia Smith – I love Lydia’s work — her photographs are beautifully atmospheric and feel deeply narrative. Each image tells a story and has a real emotional depth. I admire her eye and would love to collaborate with her one day, particularly for a photoshoot of my own work.
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.
Find out more about Dundee’s creative scene in our Collectives in the City series exploring the city’s grassroots creative projects and organisations, shop local with our Makers Gift Guides, or browse our blogs for more in depth insights from the city’s creative practitioners.
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
Each year our Amps network comes together for our Forum, where we also host our annual Community Ideas Fund. Designed to enable an exciting collaboration between supporters of our network, Amps are encouraged to collaborate on and pitch a new idea that will result in a positive social impact in Dundee. The award exists thanks to our growing community; not only do the network vote at the Forum on which project receives the fund, but the award itself is funded by Amps subscriptions. It’s amazing to see this support stretch beyond our network through each project’s wider impact in the city.
This year, the network awarded the fund to a project that seeks to bring the city together to reimagine Dundee through a clay-fest of collaborative world-building. In this blog, Ele and Claire share more about what they hope to achieve.
We believe it is vital to our collective well-being to create accessible playful spaces in our city, providing opportunities for people to connect, create, and have fun – so we’re inviting everyone to take part in a free weekend of collectively creating a shared clay world!
Let’s Clay Together! is an interactive sculptural installation where Dundee folk can drop-in and discover a landscape of clay and organic materials, which they are invited to shape, add to or take away from as the communally shaped scene evolves over the weekend. With participants offered a ball of clay and creative prompt, they’ll be encouraged to interact with Let’s Clay Together! in a variety of ways, from sculpting new additions for the scene, doodling drawings into a clay topography, or telling stories about the things they find there to add to a visitor’s board for others to see.
Ahead of the event, we will invite the Amps community on a short series of nature walks to collect natural materials such as twigs, leaves, shells and pebbles that will be used alongside clay in the public installation. Working with materials found across Dundee helps embed the project in the city and its landscape.
After the event, the collaborative clay landscape will be scanned with photogrammetry (a way of creating a 3D model that can be explored digitally) so that it can be shared online, to see how the installation evolved over the weekend. We’ll also distribute the reclaimed clay to community projects, sharing our resources from this project further across Dundee.
We love providing spaces for diverse cohorts of people to play and connect together! Our project is driven by play, collaboration, accessibility and sustainability, creating an opportunity designed with both the Amps community and the wider public of Dundee in mind. Clay is a very intuitive material to use, with no experience required in order to begin creating. We’ll be looking to use an accessible and free-to-enter space, such as a library, that is visited by people from a variety of backgrounds in Dundee.
We hope that the impact of this activity will be to create a free, playful event that helps to connect people to each other and to the city by taking part in a place-based collaborative artwork. Let’s Clay Together!
We’ll share ways to get involved with Let’s Clay Together! over the coming months!
Ele Roscoe (they/them) is a maker and community artist, creating playful ceramic sculpture and jewellery, as well as illustrated self-published zines. As a community artist, they devise & host workshops supporting Dundee folks’ wellbeing & mental health through exploring individual expression in creative, playful ways. Ele is Tutor & Senior Technician at Dundee Ceramics Workshop, and supports creative projects at Dundee International Women’s Centre. Check their creative diary on Instagram.
Claire Morwood (she/her) is a self-taught game designer, programmer, artist and musician. She is also a member of Biome Collective in Dundee. In 2025 she released Asterism, an interactive music album video game set in space, which was developed with funding from Creative Scotland. She also worked on BAFTA-nominated Before I Forget with her company 3-Fold Games, a narrative exploration about a woman living with early-onset dementia. Claire is interested in games as a medium for creative personal expression, as well as accessible ways to play and design games. She has run many workshops and events around game-making and play, and creating experiences that encourage participation and collaboration.
This new collaboration was made possible through our Amps network’s Community Ideas Fund. Everyone in the network can choose which project they’d like to award the fund to at our annual Amps Forum – find out about the other amazing projects that pitched this year. This cash award is funded by Amps subscriptions each year – join Amps and help us make the fund bigger and better!
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
Join UNESCO City of Design Dundee and book out your calendar with a fantastic array of events for Dundee Month of Design.
With all the design activity across May collected into one handy spot, the Dundee Month of Design programme showcases the many brilliant people who make design in Dundee special – from independent makers and studios, to the city’s museums and galleries.
Browse the programme online, add your own design events to the line-up, and get out and about to enjoy what the city has to offer!
The month includes:
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
We’re so excited to return to Fabric – an informal peer-learning journey to share, reflect and imagine how collective action can shape a better tomorrow. Bringing together young people, creative practitioners, and youth and health workers, Fabric: Creating Care will explore how creativity, care and systems that currently support young people can be stronger, better shaped and more hopeful in Dundee.
In this blog, Anna Rooney takes us through the first session, ‘Safety and Belonging’, and reflects on her experience of a day filled with inspiring spaces, playful activities, and creative reflection.
The first day of Fabric encapsulated its theme of ‘Safety and Belonging’ as we were warmly received by organisations and practitioners who are fostering community and support in Dundee. I met the cohort at Feeling Strong, Dundee’s charity for youth mental health support and felt right at home in their Art Room.
Claire began the day with an outline of Creative Dundee’s previous projects linked to creativity and mental health and established a framework to keep group discussions safe and confidential when sharing personal stories and experiences. Feeling Strong’s Recovery and Support Coordinator Emma guided us through the organisation’s different meeting rooms and private spaces, showcasing how young people are supported socially and emotionally through their events and groups like the drop-in cafe, Art Nights, and Stitch ‘n’ B*tch.
It was inspiring to hear about how the organisation is both run by young people and designed for young people, and how it provides access to support for their mental health outside of clinical settings. With projects like the Mental Health Manifesto, young people are encouraged to lead on decision-making and have been documenting their poor experience with treatment for mental illness in Dundee. In the past I have also felt frustrated and let down by the services that are supposed to provide the support for mental health recovery, and I relate to the young people who described a lack of concern given to those who are struggling but still performing well academically. The Manifesto has allowed young people to share their perspectives directly with the Scottish Government through this campaign and in discussions with Joe Fitzpatrick, MSP for Dundee West during their trip to Scottish Parliament last June.
Excerpt from Feeling Strong’s Mental Health Manifesto
Our morning at Feeling Strong continued with hearing from Rebecca Horner and Calum Rennie from Comics Youth SCIO, a charity supporting young people’s confidence and creativity through comic-making. First we doodled self-portraits, listing three words to describe ourselves – I wrote ‘crafty, reflective and effervescent’ – and a question we were bringing forward to the Fabric journey. My question was centred around reflecting on how art and creativity can help to support us during difficult times, and through the next exercise with Rebecca and Calum, we explored how to visually express emotions with coloured marker pens and a pack of ‘Feelings Flash Cards.’ I depicted the feeling of hope, and together we shared reflections of our personal relationships to other emotions like fear, empathy, the blues and even the feeling of getting the giggles.
The session continued by expanding our drawings into one-page comics where we illustrated a time where creativity helped us to navigate an emotion. While we drew there was a mix of discussion about the challenge of expressing yourself through the medium of comics but also about how enjoyable it is to sit and colour with marker pens.
Lunchtime gave us the opportunity to connect with each other, with Claire encouraging conversation around spoon theory – a concept that describes how we manage energy levels. Spoon theory was established as a way for people with chronic illness, pain or disability to describe how they manage their energy resources, and over delicious food we spoke broadly about what drains us, what replenishes us and also what we can do to support each other.
We were then welcomed by Andy Robertson to Hot Chocolate Trust – a youth work organisation that provides a community and space to the young people in Dundee’s city centre. We gained an understanding of the importance of the space through a fantastic short video where young people described Hot Chocolate in their own words, where descriptors such as ‘inclusive,’ ‘cozy,’ ‘family,’ and ‘bodacious’ were the highlights.
Following on from witnessing the support for young people, clinical psychologist (and fellow Fabric cohort member) Lucy Paterson introduced us to her work in Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT) and Internal Family Systems (IFS), and how she is supporting the staff at Hot Chocolate Trust. We explored the use of models in CAT and IFS, looking at the rules and boundaries present within wider systems and dynamics in place via a dance floor metaphor. Lucy suggested that by looking deeper at or disrupting behaviours or rules – like changing the music or using different dance moves – we can create a ripple effect of wider change across a large scale.
The next exercise involved mapping out on paper how we view ourselves and our internal worlds as the floors of a house. With each room or level we explored different parts of the self, representing your interpersonal or public-facing identity as the living room and your intrapersonal world as the more intimate upstairs space. The attic was used to explore the self you are aspiring towards and was contrasted with the parts of ourselves we dislike and would rather keep hidden in the basement. Lucy encouraged us to approach this self-reflection with the IFS idea of ‘No Bad Parts’ and invite each element around the kitchen table, embracing each room of your house as a part of who you are.
I later reflected on the experience with a couple of other Fabric participants, sharing how we each view ourselves and how it differs to how we see each other. I think the approach of ‘No Bad Parts’ really helps us to be kind and considerate. If we choose to accept the parts of ourselves we view as undesirable or unhealthy with curiosity and compassion, we can be more empathetic and understanding towards others. Lucy’s ideas not only resonated with me personally but also when considering my role as a creative practitioner. When working with varied groups and individuals, the only way to make people feel safe is to accept them as they are, and remember that we all have our own living rooms, upstairs, attics and basements within.
We finished the day with a playful introduction to drama therapy from Amanda Lowson, a Creative Practitioner at Dundee Rep. Amanda explained how her different roles at Dundee Rep have changed in her over thirty-year career and how the drama therapy service is helping others to support their mental health and wellbeing through drama and movement.
The activities varied from a lively game similar to musical chairs to a charades-esque exercise where we worked in small groups to mime different ideas. I enjoyed how Amanda kept the session light-hearted and fun but also encouraged us to open up in a way that felt natural and share ideas about what makes us feel like we belong. As someone who is more reserved, I initially felt nervous to participate in a drama activity, but through Amanda’s inclusive approach I felt like I got to know the Fabric group better and see firsthand how drama therapy can help myself and others with confidence and self-expression.
The first day of Fabric has been a really valuable experience where I’ve learned a lot about different approaches we can take towards mental health for ourselves and others. It’s been great to see the role creativity can play in enhancing wellbeing and the ways in which organisations and practitioners are building systems and services that support young people in Dundee. I am excited to take each perspective and foster collaboration and connection within the Fabric cohort in future sessions and in my own projects beyond!
Anna Rooney is a visual artist working primarily in textiles, drawing and painting. After graduating with a degree in Textile Design in 2024 from DJCAD, her practice has formed to reflect a search for connection, solace and belonging within the natural world as she captures its cycles of growth and decay. Alongside her studio practice, she delivers art and nature based workshops around Dundee with a particular focus on wellbeing and mental health.
Lucy Paterson is a clinical psychologist in Dundee, with a particular interest in patterns, relationships and how people are connected to and supported by the systems around them. She’s excited to step into a space where we can think together — creatively and collaboratively — about what care for young people in Dundee could be.
Sara Oussaiden is an artist, researcher and community practitioner based between Dundee and the Isle of Skye. Awarded the NHS Tayside Star Award in 2025 for volunteering as an art tutor in Dudhope’s Young People’s Psychiatric Unit, she works across community and learning contexts, using creative practice to support confidence and connection in youth communities.
Michael Richardson is a Mental Health Engagement Worker at Dundee Volunteer & Voluntary Action. He aims to amplify lived experience voices across Dundee and work to ensure they are heard at a strategic level. Outside of work, he is very involved in the local running community, and is often found visiting local cinemas.
Caitlin Gibson is a Literature and Film Studies graduate who is interested in using storytelling mediums to explore identity, and as a tool for the expression of complex emotions, not only for the creators, but for the consumers through analysis and discussion. She wants people to feel empowered to challenge social expectations of themselves and not get trapped by the traditional ‘markers of age’. She’d love to incorporate these ideas into community based action.
Mel Kalkan is a visual artist interested in exploring playful approaches to practice self-expression, connection, wellbeing, and care — particularly in a community context. She’s so looking forward to joining the Fabric cohort to learn more about the amazing things happening in our city and beyond.
Kara Ramsay is passionate about creative approaches to care, communication and community. She’s really looking forward to connecting with others, learning from different perspectives, and exploring how creativity can shape safer, more supportive spaces for young people.
Laura Moorhouse is a disabled arts worker. Her practice explores rest, care, and creative/complicated accessibility. As an emerging artist, she’s learning to prioritise flexible, comfortable ways of making.
Eilidh Macleod is an advocate for people and creativity, working across the city as both a youth worker and a designer at V&A Dundee. Her practice brings together design thinking and human-centered approaches to better understand and respond to complex, interconnected challenges. She’s particularly passionate about empowering young people through craft and supporting the development of thriving, resilient communities.
Lauren is a community artist, designer, storyteller and project coordinator with 20+ years experience in creative education, youth work and both narrative and documentary filmmaking. Let’s make something amazing happen!
Ben Douglas is a Creative & Digital youth worker at YOUth Space Fife, with a background in documentary, street and event photography. He believes that nosiness is a skill and his practice is built on the ethos of the participant leading from the front. Everyone is creative and should be able to express themselves. I see it as my job to make sure young people know this and are given the best environment to explore that creativity.
Caishnah Nevans is a visual artist inspired by music and works around the ways in which creativity and music can impact mental health. Having explored these in her own projects with mental health charities in Glasgow she is looking forward to exploring them further in Dundee.
Erin McGrath makes comics as a way to reflect on and tell personal stories. Her practice is informed by her experience as a psychotherapeutic counsellor and she’s interested in developing a collective voice within my work.
Esther Farrell supports young people with their mental health and other complex needs, helping them build relationships and confidence in their lives and abilities in her role as Senior Youth Worker (Complex Needs) at Hot Chocolate Trust. She is passionate about amplifying young people’s voices and using creativity as a tool to connect and empower young people in our community.
Quintana Beattie is an aspiring designer who likes helping and supporting others. I enjoy working with textures and mixed media for an interesting and unique approach.
Paige Wood is an artist originally from Glasgow who has lived in Dundee for around six years. After graduating from DJCAD, she developed a strong passion for supporting young people in Dundee, helping them grow and feel supported in whatever way works best for them. She is excited to take part in Fabric, further develop her knowledge, and share her experiences with others.
Kirstie Small is a Textile artist inspired by learning practical skills and developing personal creativity and learning through Art and Design. She has explored subjects such as multicultural Scotland, Garden futures through creation of textiles and has been looking into Art and Design teaching and prioritising craft and Art in schools with my contextual studies.
Sofía Calmeiro-Arguello is a 2nd year art & philosophy student organiser at DJCAD and young person of colour from Dundee, seeking to develop their understanding of how art can effectively sustain us and benefit our communities – a practice they’re learning from working-class, QTBIPOC writers, organisers and world-makers. They believe when we have been dehumanised, creating a space that allows us to humanise each other is incredibly powerful. It is a power that can sustain the building of a liberated world and healthy planet, which is so important for our wellbeing and future. They’re excited to meet and learn from people who are finding ways to make that difference in Dundee.
Laura Cooney’s work focuses on improving young people’s wellbeing and helping make mental health support meaningful and accessible. She enjoys using creativity to communicate ideas, connect with young people, and support them to thrive.
Kate Smith works in the Participation and Communities Team at the Scottish Parliament, helping ensure diverse voices and lived experience inform decision-making. Originally trained in visual art, she later worked in volunteering, employability, and community development. Kate is passionate about democratic rights, equality, and inclusion.
Caroline Kingston has a third-sector background and just joined the Scottish Parliament’s Participation and Communities Team. She has extensive experience in advocacy, supporting individuals detained under the Mental Health Act and helping people with learning disabilities engage in law and policy development to realise their human rights.
Freya Barcroft is part of the Creative Dundee team, leading their digital work and spotlighting the creativity that shapes Dundee. With a background in literature and children’s publishing, she is particularly passionate about young people’s access to art and creative spaces, and is a firm believer in the life-changing power of storytelling.
Fabric is led by Creative Dundee, and delivered in partnership with healthcare, community and creative organisations, with support from the Participation and Communities Team at The Scottish Parliament, as part of Creative Minds – a creative youth mental health project designed by Creative Dundee with project funding from NHS Tayside Charitable Foundation.
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
Biome Collective and Arcadia are hosting Big Telly Jam on Wed 6 May – a one-day collaborative workshop designed for artists, game designers and creative technologists to explore creative technology, digital art and immersive experiences.
Big Telly Jam invites participants to dive into creative technology and playful media, with opportunities to learn more about virtual production in an open and supportive environment. Whether you have an idea you want to test or are simply curious about what can emerge from creative collaboration, this is a great opportunity to explore, experiment and connect.
No prior experience in virtual production, immersive media or games is required. The event is open to emergent artists, game designers and creative technologists from across Scotland who are interested in sharing ideas and exploring new possibilities within the CoSTAR Realtime Lab facilities.
When: Wed 6 May 2026, 9:30am –5:00pm
Where: Big Real, Water’s Edge, Dundee DD1 3HY
Tickets: £10
A limited number of paid participation places and funding to cover access costs are available for those who require financial support to attend.
The Big Telly Jam has been produced by Biome & pals: Malath Abbas, Susie Buchan, Laura McSorley, Darshana Jayemanne, Tom deMajo, Claire Morwood, Ewan Fisher & Emily Koonce. Partners include Biome Collective, CoSTAR: Realtime Lab, Abertay University, Creative Scotland, Immersive Arts UK and UNESCO City of Design Dundee
Big Telly Jam is supported from the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
Generator Projects are currently seeking new members for their Operational Committee to help lead the day-to-day running of the exhibition space and events and exhibition programming.
The committee is non-hierarchical with a 2-year tenure for all members to help ensure a fresh and dynamic approach for the artist run initiative. A commitment of around 8-16 hours of work per week is expected and, as a lot of on-site working is required, applicants must be based in Dundee or the surrounding area.
Committee roles are fluid and changeable across the tenure and, at this time, Generator have not designed specific roles for new applicants to fill. They especially welcome applicants from a variety of life stages and professional experience, and while recent graduates are welcome to apply, they will be prioritising applications outwith this cohort.
Email mail@generatorprojects.co.uk with your CV and an expression of interest of no more than 200 words. Any questions about the opportunity, can also be sent to this address prior to application.
Application deadline: 23:59, Mon 27 April 2026
Generator Projects is a Dundee based artist-run initiative founded in 1996 by Paul Liam Harrison, Andy Kennedy and Caroline McIntee. As a volunteer organisation, they facilitate a varied cultural programme of exhibitions and events. They are committed to highlighting the importance of grass roots activity and its integral role in developing the careers of emerging artists.
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
Creative networks give form to what happens when we connect: building relationships, knowledge sharing, mutual support and strengthening the collective. Acting as vital catalysts for collaboration, collected agency and future making, they reinforce not only their direct communities but our places, creative ecosystems, economy and society.
Beyond rippling benefits for people and place, creative networks can challenge the existing systems that limit and separate us – rebuilding them through alternative influence, visibility, equitable practice and infrastructures of care.
Tending To/gether is a one-day participatory forum, gathering creative network builders and those interested in collective ways of working to spotlight impact, exchange knowledge and platform the critical role that creative networks play in our cultural ecology and beyond.
Tending To/gether: creative network building in Scotland
Date and time: Wed 3 June 2026, 10:30am–5:15pm
(doors open at 10:30am for tea/coffee, event begins at 11:00am)
Venue: Apex City Quay Hotel, 1 W Victoria Dock Road, Dundee DD1 3JP
Tickets are free and a vegetarian/vegan lunch is included.
Tickets are limited – please be sure to book to attend.
Through short talks, resources, conversation and exchange, Tending To/gether will spotlight and champion the intrinsic value of creative networks. We’ll be exploring impacts, knowledge exchange, advocacy and avenues for support alongside the opportunity to connect with peers and encounter new perspectives around creative network building.
You’re welcome to join us from 10:30am, with time to grab a hot drink and settle into the space ahead of being seated for a welcome at 11:00am, followed by hearing from guest speakers and an introduction to Community Wealth Building for creative networks. We will pause for lunch for an hour at approximately 12:45pm before an afternoon of activity that include peer-exchange, ecosystem mapping and a 15-minute break at 3:30pm. The event will end at 5:15pm.
If you arrive before 10:30am, the hotel’s reception area has comfortable seating and is located next to the event space.
A full agenda, with timings and speakers, will be shared with attendees in May.
We’ll hear insights from four people working across Scotland in network building, sharing experience and impacts of the work they do.
Ica Headlam is the founder and director of We Are Here Scotland, a non-profit organisation that aims to amplify the voices of Black and Global Majority artists and creatives across Scotland through advocacy, mentoring, professional development, events, and collaborative projects. Until 2023 he worked as a qualified children and family’s social worker, with 11 years of experience supporting vulnerable young adults, and families across Aberdeen. In 2017 he started to independently produce and host the fortnightly Creative Me podcast, exploring creativity, art, and culture in the North East of Scotland. Ica is a strong advocate for representation across the arts and values the importance of open and honest dialogue.
Rebecca Lee is founder of Universal Recognition CIC, a disabled-led movement platforming the positive impact of accessibility in placemaking and public services. Rebecca was Accessibility Lead with DEAL (Doughnut Economics Action Lab). She brings accessible co-design into cultural and community initiatives. She is invisibly disabled and a former young carer. Rebecca knows the importance of collective-imagination and lived-expertise in nurturing futures fit for us all.
Hayley Jane Dawson is a Glaswegian artist and writer whose practice centralises the lives, archives, and histories of working class people in Scotland. Dawson’s practice spans critical writing, publishing, and visual art. In 2024 they founded the Scottish Working Class Network, a platform dedicated to supporting and amplifying working class voices in the arts, as well as fostering community and solidarity within the sector.
Kirsten Body works in visual arts and has held production roles within contemporary galleries, public art agencies, local authorities and learning for the Scottish Artists Union. With a strong interest in self-organising practices; Kirsten is a founding member of Circus Artspace – an artist-run organisation based in Inverness built on collaboration, conversation and supporting emergent practice.
We’ll also be joined by Susie Buchan, who will host an Unconference to encourage peer-sharing and exchange. Susie is a freelance creative producer, curator and performance artist working at the intersection of videogames and arts. She’s currently producing an unannounced game with Milktooth, a new indie games studio. She is a Director of Dundee-based creative studio and community Biome Collective and Producer of Arcadia Festival. Past work includes Player/Performer at V&A Late, Now Play This, Pause Play at A Maze 2024 and Downpour. She’s passionate about cross-disciplinary collaborations, fostering supportive communities and exploring creativity in unique and thought-provoking ways.
Our event will take place in Apex City Quay Hotel‘s main event space – this is located on the ground floor with step-free access into the venue. The room is a large open space – half of which will be set-up theatre style for listening to speakers, and the other half with smaller tables for lunch and group discussions. We will have space for up to 80 attendees.
Alongside breaks, there will be built in transitions throughout our schedule. Attendees are welcome to move in and out of the space as they please, and space on an upper floor can be made accessible for those seeking a quiet room. People are welcome to sit anywhere within the event space they feel most comfortable, even if it is not where people are being guided to sit.
An access box with items that people are welcome to use while they are at the event (including things like stim toys, communication badges and ear defenders) will be available, with thanks to Neuk Collective.
Gendered toilets are located at the entrance to the event space – there is an accessible toilet within each of these spaces.
More information about access at Apex City Quay Hotel is available via Euan’s Guide and AccessAble.
If you have any access or dietary requirements you would like us to know about ahead of the event, there will be an opportunity to share this with us when booking your ticket, or you can email jen@creativedundee.com.
Our venue is located centrally in Dundee, close to the waterfront – approximately a 10-minute walk from Dundee Railway Station, six-minute walk from Dundee Bus Station and five-minute walk from Dundee’s Ember Bus stop (at average walking pace).
For those travelling by car, there is free parking for attendees during the hours of the event, but this is on a first come, first served basis. For those travelling by bike, there is a bike rack by reception that is available on a first come, first served basis.
We have a limited number of travel bursaries for up to £50 per person available, to support people who may otherwise be unable to attend the event. These bursaries aim to support freelance practitioners and/or those who lead/facilitate creative networks on a voluntary basis, and can be used to contribute to or cover your travel for the event within Scotland.
Bursaries will be allocated on a first come, first served basis until funds run out, so we encourage you to submit a request for a bursary as early as you are able to. This page will be updated when all funds have been allocated.
Please note that bursary recipients will be reimbursed after the event, in exchange for valid receipts for travel expenses.
To submit a request: please email jen@creativedundee.com with the subject line ‘Tending To/gether travel bursary’ in the subject line. We’d be grateful if you could share a breakdown of anticipated expenses, and clarify whether you are a freelance practitioner and/or you lead/facilitate a creative network on a voluntary basis.
If this bursary would support you in attending this event, then please do feel welcome to get in touch – we want your voice in the room and these funds are available to enable folks to take part in this event.
We will be taking photos during the event. If you would like to opt out of featuring in photos or ensure your image is not publicly shared, please speak to a member of the Creative Dundee team on arrival.
This event has been informed by the learnings of Create:Networks 2024/25– a fund developed in 2019 by Creative Scotland, with 2024/25’s iteration designed and delivered by Creative Dundee, supported by Scotland’s Creative Networks.
The fund resourced both new and established local creative networks in Scotland to explore ways to build, grow and sustain themselves. Nine recipients were funded to create a 12-month programme of activity for their community, designed to enable creative practitioners and businesses to develop sustainable practices, and to explore their own structures of sustainability.
We’re excited to share a new report, collecting the funding reflections, learning and impact of Create:Networks 2024/25. This evaluation process, delivered by freelance practitioner Kathryn Welch, will directly inform Tending To/gether, with more exploring and advocacy to come beyond this. Also available to read are two summary papers – one tailored to network investors and enablers, and another for those building and caring for creative networks.
The Create:Networks 2024/25 fund and evaluation, and this event, are supported by The National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
Subscribe to our monthly News Mail Out for more events, features, opportunities and exciting content from Dundee!
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
We’re thrilled to say the 99 Things to See and Do guide to Dundee will be back for 2026! As ever the free guide is created by crowd-sourcing ideas from people who live here, know the area and love it and we’d love your thoughts on what to include.
This year we’d like to hear about what’s new to you! We’ll still make sure to include the big Dundee landmarks and perennial spots, but we’d love to know about the spaces, places, events, community groups, workshops (and more!) that you’ve discovered or reconnected with since 2023, when our last guide was published.
Your recommendations could include your new favourite places to: take kids; experience culture, live music, community and sports; learn new skills; take photos; gather with friends; enjoy the great outdoors or take in the sights.
To help share more of the Dundee love in 2026, we’re also asking for your stories of a place or experience from the last few years that has helped you connect to the city – shining a spotlight on what makes Dundee special.
Share your views and stories before Thu 30 April!
Thank you!
The 99 Things guide is a free guide distributed by partners across the city, and will be available early June 2026. If you are in a position to support the production of more copies, we’d love to hear from you – please contact us to discuss.
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
Spring brings a chance for our Amps network to get together at a fun, friendly evening of connecting and community at our annual Forum.
This social evening is a highlight of our Amps calendar, with opportunities to catch up with old friends and meet new supporters of the network. With our usual relaxed and welcoming vibe, we’ll host space to chat, connect, and hear from all of the projects pitching for this year’s Community Ideas Fund.
Each team of Amps will share their collaborative idea, then everyone can choose which project should be awarded the fund of £2,500 to enable it to come to life – and the fund exists thanks to the subscription fees of our Amps community!
Want to join the Forum from the comfort of home? We’ll be streaming the pitching portion of the event on Zoom in order to include Amps who want to vote but are unable to attend in person. Please book a ticket and we’ll provide a link just before the event.
Wed 22 April 2026, 7:00–9:00pm
Centre for Entrepreneurship, University of Dundee, Unit A, 75 Old Hawkhill, Dundee DD1 5EN
We will be able to welcome you into the space from 6:45pm
Please note: our event officially ends at 9:00pm, but you’re welcome to join us in continuing the conversation at a nearby establishment. :-)
Tickets are free and booking is essential.
This event is for Amps only – become an Amp and come along!
Event hashtag: #AmpsDundee
An accessible, interactive sculptural installation inviting the public to play and collaborate to create a shared clay world, by collaborators Ele Roscoe and Claire Morwood.
Exploring edge lands and urban environments from creative and marginal(ised) perspectives, through peer-led learning events and a community-led publication. A fledgling collaboration between Aileen Angsutorn Lees of Decolonising The Outdoors and Alison Scott and Cat MacLeod of Feminist Bird Club Dundee.
A brand new cabaret and theatre show by local actor/writer/musicians Jade Anderson and Taylor Dyson with Calum Kelly, exploring class disparity in the arts.
Inviting local participants to collectively create a devised theatre piece exploring climate and social justice issues, building to a public performance and sharing work via a Climate Café. A collaboration by Aylish Kelly, Zoe Sievwright and Sandy Campbell.
Amps is a community of people who make and cultivate creativity in Dundee, working together to collectively build on the future of the city. We connect through events and projects designed to help establish links, showcase work and develop collaborations. New supporters are always welcome – join Amps and help make Dundee even better!
The Community Ideas Fund is an annual cash award that enables a creative and experimental Amps collaboration to benefit Dundee. The more Amps there are, the bigger the fund is – it’s made up of your Amps subscription fee.
Help us grow the fund and make Amps more accessible by supporting a Pay It Forward subscription! Your contribution will help someone experiencing cost as a barrier to getting involved.
2025’s fund was awarded to Islay Spalding and Katie New for their project, Dundee Open Studios: the Jewellery Edition. Read their guest blog to find out about their experience.
If you would like to support us in creating even better content, please consider joining or supporting our Amps Community.
