UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK is a celebration of creativity taking place across the UK in 2022. It features free, large-scale events, installations, and globally accessible digital experiences in the UK’s most ambitious showcase of creative collaboration.
Produced by some of the brightest minds in science, technology, engineering, arts and maths, UNBOXED features ten major, multi-site and digital creative projects that share new ideas and possibilities for the future. Events and activities will take place from 1 March to 2 October 2022, with six of the creative projects presenting work across Scotland, from the Borders to the Outer Hebrides.
UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK is funded and supported by the four governments of the UK and is commissioned and delivered in partnership with Belfast City Council, Creative Wales and EventScotland.
To read more about UNBOXED visit www.unboxed2022.uk.
UNBOXED in Scotland
The six projects taking place in Scotland offer an exciting and unique opportunity for audiences, participants, communities and visitors to experience ground-breaking creative programmes designed to question, provoke, delight and intrigue, while showcasing the incredible creative talents of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Maths) practitioners across Scotland and the UK.
EventScotland is the strategic delivery body for Scotland and is responsible for directly commissioning and managing Scotland’s contribution to the programme – Dandelion – in addition to supporting the other five projects visiting Scotland.
Dandelion is an innovative new initiative inviting people all over the country to get growing, sharing and celebrating food, music, and ideas, in and with their communities. It will demonstrate the power of collective action in a Scotland-wide ‘grow your own’ initiative. Rooted in Scotland, with an international outlook and sustainability at its heart, the Dandelion programme follows the arc of the growing season, from April to September 2022, and will culminate in hundreds of Harvest gatherings across Scotland – reimagining the cultural celebration of harvest for the 21st century, led by the next generations of producers, musicians and growers.
To read more about Dandelion visit www.dandelion.scot.
Beyond Dandelion, Scotland will also host five other projects presented as part of UNBOXED. These are: About Us (Paisley); StoryTrails (Dundee and Dumfries); Dreamachine (Edinburgh); Green Space, Dark Skies (across National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, including Scotland); and PoliNations (Edinburgh).
UNBOXED projects
About Us opened the UNBOXED programme from 1 to 6 March, with audiences in Paisley immersed in over 13 billion years of history from the Big Bang to the present day using innovative projection mapping technology combined with poetry and music.
Visit the About Us website for more information on the project.
Augmented reality, new developments in 3D internet technology and young creatives shape one of the most ambitious living history and archive projects ever undertaken in StoryTrails, coming to Dundee and Dumfries this summer.
Visit the StoryTrails website for more information on the project.
In Dreamachine, audiences in the UK’s four capital cities are immersed in sound and light in an artwork experienced with closed eyes that explores the limitless potential of the human mind, visiting Edinburgh in August as part of the International Festival programme in partnership with Edinburgh Science.
Visit the Dreamachine website for more information on the project.
20,000 people are being invited to create vast outdoor artworks lighting up some of the UK’s outstanding landscapes using new technology to create compelling online experiences as part of Green Space Dark Skies. Sites in Scotland include the Cairngorms National Park, amongst others yet to be announced, with activity presented from August.
Visit the Green Space Dark Skies website for more information on the project.
Central to UNBOXED are extensive learning and public participation opportunities reaching hundreds of thousands of school children, young people and communities throughout 2022. These include invitations to take part, shape and deliver UNBOXED through school poetry and coding competitions, community workshops, citizen science projects and new employment and skills development opportunities for diverse young creatives and freelancers. There are also partnerships with the BBC, British Council and the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) that will further global conversations about the role of creativity and innovation in society.
In September and October 2020, an open call was sent out in Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales inviting scientists, technologists, engineers, artists, and mathematicians to form Creative Teams and apply to take part in a funded R&D programme to develop project ideas for the Festival. The R&D took place from November 2020 to January 2021. There were two spaces available on the R&D programme for Scottish teams to take part; and one of those two teams would be commissioned for the Festival at the end of the R&D. Fourteen Scottish teams – comprising of 122 organisations and individuals - applied to take part. The selection of the two Scottish teams to go forward to the R&D programme, and the final team to be commissioned for the Festival, was made by EventScotland with support from a panel of Scottish industry experts following a rigorous assessment process.