Durness Games: ‘Letters to the Earth’
Our team from the ‘Letters to the Earth’ stand at Durness Games in July.
At the end of July, Nadine, our Development Officer for Arts, Heritage & Culture, coordinated a collaborative stand between the Highlands & Islands Climate Hub, North West 2045 Regional Land Use Partnership, and the North West Highlands Geopark at the Durness Gathering. We came together around the theme of Letters to the Earth, building on the recent exhibition in Rogart by Lairg and District Learning Centre, supported by the Hub.
We created an earthy, communal space where we invited visitors (young and old) to share reflections around what they would say to our planet, and what our futures might look like, on paper handmade from waste cardboard for the event. The musings were both diverse and touching, and at times, understandably fearful, speaking of the liminal, the discomfort of the unknown. Participants were all ages, some were local to the area, others were visitors.
We ran a handmade paper making workshop alongside this, showing people how to make paper from waste cardboard. We also had examples of natural crafts - from seaweed shapes to seed husks and pressed petals- for visitors to use to make their own creations. These were really popular and a welcome alternative to glitter and other micro plastics found in conventional craft sets. We had large drums and a xylophone at the front of the tent for visitors to try out and experiment with, the musicians were on hand to help and host sessions throughout the day, making for a great upbeat atmosphere and feeling of togetherness.
Engaging wee ones in creative activities to think about the planet and its future.
These events are as much about the planning and co-creating in the lead up, as the actual on the day activities. They facilitate collaboration and provide a collective project to share ideas, values, and priorities. They help to serve as an anchor for conversations with people from across our communities, and become a gathering point for enabling connections to happen between groups that might not otherwise occur - all in a warm and inviting and informal setting. This has been particularly beneficial in the linking and embedding of our collaborative work across our groups. Also, engaging children and young people in thinking about the planet is of course really important to informing how we are shaping the future of our areas.
Being given the chance to see responses from and have conversations with visitors, is really valuable in terms of finding commonality and sharing perspectives within the space, and beyond. Our conversations around the Durness Games have been rich and diverse, centring not only on issues around a changing climate, but also our relationship to the planet and each other, how we look after each of these going forward.