Flax Futures Dunbar
John Muir Birth Place Museum
Opening Saturday 5 July 2023 10am to 5pm
Where does flax and linen meet local resilience and climate change?
Join us to co-design an exhibition and events series across East Lothian.
Opening Saturday 5 August, curator John Ennis will offer an introduction to the programme at 11.30am and 2.30pm. The exhibition and events series runs for six weeks, Monday to Friday 10am – 5pm, Sundays 1 – 5pm.
Our Exhibition and Events focus on future heritage, community resilience, soil health, sustainable textile production and material innovation. We explore the exceptional potential of Flax, Scotland’s ancient fibre crop, with new and engaging designs and initiatives on show, from Scotland and beyond.
Our Walks, Talks, and Demos run throughout the programme, evolving with your help and the support of guests from across East Lothian. Click ‘follow’ at Journeys in Design on Eventbrite for dates and check out our social media @journeysindesign
#flaxScotland
The flax plant, traditionally processed into linen, has been grown for generations in Scotland. Today, flax plays a part in contemporary moves to support local resilience and tackle climate change.
With our hashtag storyboard #flaxScotland, we continue with your help to highlight the varied developments underway to grow flax in Scotland, including backyard plots, community gardens, and agricultural test fields.
Are you growing flax in Scotland this year too?
If feasible, please do post on Insta with #flaxScotland to share your story.
John Muir and his Ways in East Lothian
The John Muir Birthplace Museum is Flax Futures HQ for six weeks and also offers a wonderful insight into the life and work of Scotland’s preeminent, pioneering conservationist. Link to more here.
Any visit to East Lothian is a treat thanks to friendly locals, top notch eateries, a beguiling shoreline and exceptional surrounding countryside.
Y/Our Linen Stories
Flax Futures emerges from 3 years of participatory research across Scotland, engaging local communities in Fife, The Borders, The Firth of Forth, and The Highlands. Link to more of Our Linen Stories programme here.
Fascinating flax and linen heritage defines so much of Scotland’s geopolitics and East Lothian lays claim to some of its own, including important bleaching fields, a sometimes forgotten part of processing linen into finished product.
New Creative Commissions have been an annual part of our Journeys in Design since 2018. This year we’re calling on artists and designers to draw on the heritage of East Lothian. Our Linen Stories Commissions from 2019, 2020 an 2021 will be on show in Dunbar.
Linen Routes in Dunbar, East Lothian
Sunday Strolls to co-design new Walks by Design
Help us co-design this latest of our Linen Routes through Scottish townlands, part of our Walks by Design series, linking heritage with contemporary design in urban landscapes.
If you’re a keen local historian, part of a local walking group or have an interest in urban planning, please come along when dates for our two Sunday Strolls are organised.
Up next…
For early notice of all our events,
follow Journeys in Design on Eventbrite
and check out our socials @journeysindesign