Invitation to tender: visual arts commission for Story Book Dumfries

25 June 2021
A row of vintage books on a bookshelf in one of Wigtown's second hand bookshops. Most are green and white, a range of penguin and pelican paperbacks.

Story Book Dumfries is an exciting new initiative that aims to establish Dumfries as Scotland’s home of children’s stories – a destination for families and a national cultural resource.

Our long-term mission is to bring tangible cultural, social and economic benefits to Dumfries through engagement with children’s literature and the status accorded to the town as the home of Scotland’s National Centre for Children’s Literature and Storytelling at Moat Brae House.

We would like to commission an artist, or group of artists, to create a town-centre work of art that gives visual expression to Dumfries as a centre for children’s literature. This will provide the visual place-making for Story Book Dumfries, with site-specific illustration that will lead people from Dumfries Station (subject to permissions) through the town. 

The key elements we're looking for are that the installations should be:

  • Visually impactful
  • Children and family friendly
  • Literary in nature
  • Weather resistant if outside
  • Durable but non-permanent
  • Appropriate to the local context and the region’s literary assets, the most notable of which include Robert Burns and JM Barrie’s Peter Pan
  • Delivered in consultation with the local community and relevant stakeholders

Download full information on the tender here.

Story Book Dumfries will be coordinated by Wigtown Festival Company, in partnership with Moat Brae and other associate partners, as part of Spot-lit, a multinational literary tourism project funded by the EU’s Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme. The launch of the initiative will coincide with Scotland’s Year of Stories 2022.

New deadline: 23 August 2021 at 23:55.

Please contact Isla Rosser-Owen, Cultural Producer at Wigtown Festival Company, if you have any questions: [email protected].