Art-lovers have a chance to explore two unique Scottish artlands and a fantastic gallery, on a day-trip organised as part of Edinburgh Arts Festival.
Crawick Multiverse, Little Sparta and Merz Gallery have joined forces to offer a truly unforgettable day out in August.
The tour leaves from Edinburgh and journeys to the Pentland Hills to Little Sparta – Ian Hamilton Finlay’s greatest work of art.
This celebrated garden, featuring some 270 of his artworks, fuses poetic and sculptural elements with the natural landscape. The garden is itself a major artwork, encompassing within it both horticultural elements and individual works in materials including stone, wood and metal.
The tour then moves on to Dumfries & Galloway with a stop at A’ the Airts in Sanquhar for lunch before stopping in at MERZ Gallery to see its latest exhibition.
The Cosmic Collisions exhibition is a true meeting-place of world-renowned creators and thinkers, showcasing new work by Charles Jencks alongside cosmologists Carlos Frenk and Noam Libeskind, and architect Daniel Libeskind.
The third and final stop provides a chance to explore the Crawick Multiverse, a cosmic artland created by Charles Jencks which takes inspiration from space, astronomy and cosmology.
The vast 55-acre artland was created on the site of a former open cast coal mine which has been transformed and restored, and now features an array of landforms that represent everything from galaxies and comets to gravity and black holes.
The day trip takes place on Sunday, August 13, from 9.30am-6pm – the bus will depart from Summerhall, 1 Summerhall Square, Edinburgh. Tickets are priced £45 per person which includes admission to all locations. A soup and sandwich lunch can be pre-booked for £6.50 or attendees are welcome to bring a packed lunch. Pre-booking is essential.
Tickets can be purchased at www.ticketsource.co.uk/crawickmultiverse or via Midsteeple Box Office in Dumfries in person or by calling 01387 253383. They are also on sale at Crawick Multiverse (cash or cheque only). The excursion involves walking over rough terrain so attendees are advised to dress for hill-walking with sturdy shoes recommended.
Anyone with questions regarding the event should email Alice Stilgoe – astilgoe@crawickmultiverse.co.uk
The artland day trip has been organised as part of Edinburgh Art Festival, the UK’s largest annual festival of visual art, which runs until August 27. It brings together leading galleries, museums and artist run-spaces alongside new public art commissions by established an emerging artists. Find out more at https://edinburghartfestival.com/about/the-festival.
