March-June 2020
Participatory Art
Collaborative project with Martin O’Neill, Matt Baker and the Stove Network
The Stove, Dumfries and online platforms

Homegrown was an immediate response by the Stove Network to the Coronavirus outbreak and subsequent lockdown as we looked to create immediate opportunities to support our creative community, and provide a platform to share the experiences and voices of our network – both locally, and further afield.

In the final few days before the government enforced the lockdown, we looked for four themes to guide our direction and settled on solidarity, open heartedness, insight and perseverance. The title for the project looked to create a platform to share the creativity grown from homes across the region, and further afield – and to help create a space to allow these creative reflections to flourish.

As the rug was pulled from under our feet, it quickly showed that the rug was all that was holding some of us up; the floor’s foundations were not equally distributed. Of our 600+ members at the Stove, we estimated that as many as half will be self-employed or freelancers, and the COVID-19 shutdown in March saw many people’s incomes wiped out overnight as events and regular contracts were cancelled.

Through a series of micro commissions, creative challenges, conversations and artworks hosted on online platforms, homegrown aimed to share the first responses towards a new folklore for Dumfries.

The homegrown project has now been archived and can be viewed in full here: https://thestove.org/homegrown/