What if...? /Scotland: How will we live together?
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Today marks the official launch of What If…? /Scotland at V&A Dundee, where people from across Scotland will showcase their hopes, dreams and ideas for their local areas in a post-pandemic world at Scotland’s design museum.


Commissioned by the Scotland + Venice partnership, What if…?/ Scotland has been designed and curated by 7N Architects in partnership with Architecture & Design Scotland.

At the start of 2020 and prior to the first nationwide lockdown, 7N paired people from Wester Hailes in Edinburgh, Paisley in Renfrewshire, Annan in Dumfries and Galloway, Elgin in Morayshire, and Lerwick in Shetland – with designers, architects, and artists – to share their hopes, dreams or wishes for the future of the place where they live. In 2021, a group in Whitfield, Dundee, also met and will continue to gather during the exhibition run to further consider what home means to them, in Dundee.

Together, they have looked at what the civic role of design and architecture means today and added their hopes, dreams and wishes for their own home towns, villages and cities, as well as considering the importance of place and its meaning to the people of Scotland today.

The collaborative workshops have been captured in a series of short films forming the narrative focus of the exhibition, made by filmmaker Basharat Khan of Bash Art Creative. The stories of each place, as told by its citizens and set within the rich and varied landscapes of rural and urban Scotland, are presented in an immersive environment designed for reflection and inspiration. These will be available online for international audiences to engage with as well as on show at V&A Dundee.

Visitors to the exhibition at V&A Dundee are also invited to add their own wish for the place they call home to a growing ‘Cloud of Dreams’ and be part of a major public art work at the centre of the exhibition.

V&A Dundee Website

Scotland + Venice

Image credits: Alan Richardson

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