Earlier this year, Cove Park and ACT (Argyll & the Isles Coast & Countryside Trust) were named as one of the seven Climate Beacons that are taking shape across Scotland in the run-up to and beyond the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow this November.

We are pleased to share further details of the Argyll Beacon Programme, a series of free public events, workshops, and commissions that will begin in September this year and continue until the Spring of 2022. This programme has been devised collaboratively with ACT, making full use of both the resources and expertise of both organisations, and will bring together artists and cultural practitioners with environmentalists and climate change activists.

The focus of the Argyll Beacon’s programme is Scotland’s rainforest, as most of this unique temperate habitat sits within our region. More information is available via ACT’s website and from the Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforest.

Our progamme will include:

Creative Workshops for children, young people and their families/carers at Cove Park – within our new Outdoor Classroom – and as part of ACT’s regular programme Maki Pups, in mid-Argyll’s first Outdoor Nursery.

Climate Cafés, regular events, at Cove Park, at ACT locations and via Zoom, bringing together those in our local community interested in the climate crisis, with artists and specialists concerned with environmental issues.

Artists in Schools, a programme of workshops led by artists and environmentalists, in school and at rainforest locations, for secondary school students in Argyll

Moving Image/Film Commission, a new work connected to Scotland’s rainforest by a visual artist/filmmaker based in Scotland

A Micro-Rainforest for Cove Park, to be planted with our local community in the Spring of 2022.

We currently have a Call for Artists to participate in both our Saturday Studios/Argyll Beacon Workshops and the Artists in Schools programme. Please click on both programme titles to see the Brief for Artists and details of how to apply.

Dates for all the various Argyll Beacon projects will be confirmed in the coming weeks, so please visit these pages again, join our mailing list and follow us on either twitter, facebook or instagram for more!

Image; Workshops at Cove Park, summer 2021 (photography, Caitlin Hegney)