TEN COMMISSIONS ANNOUNCED AS PART OF UNBOXED, A CELEBRATION OF CREATIVITY TAKING PLACE ACROSS THE UK IN 2022
- UK-wide programme of live events and digital, online and broadcast experiences
- Creative collaborations across science, technology, engineering, arts and maths
- Wide-reaching learning and audience participation programmes
Announced today,UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK is a celebration of creativity taking place across the UK in 2022, designed to reach millions and bring people together. It features free large-scale events, installations and globally accessible digital experiences in the UK’s most ambitious showcase of creative collaboration.
Produced by some of the brightest minds in science, technology, engineering, arts and maths, UNBOXEDfeatures ten major multi-site and digital creative projects that share new ideas and possibilities for the future. Events and activities take place from 1 March to 2 October 2022 – from the Outer Hebrides to Dover and from Omagh to Swansea, and across traditional and online media.
UNBOXED: Creativity in the UKisfunded and supported by the four governments of the UK and is commissioned and delivered in partnership with Belfast City Council, Creative Wales and EventScotland.
- The programme begins in Paisley in March with audiences in towns and cities across the UK immersed in 13.8 billion years of history, from the Big Bang to the present day, using innovative projection mapping technology combined with poetry, music and science (About Us).
- A Scotland-wide project featuring Unexpected Gardens, vertical farms, free music events and plant giveaways reimagines the annual harvest festival for the 21st century, from Caithness to Dumfries (Dandelion).
- Audiences in the UK’s four capital cities are immersed in sound and light in an artwork experienced with closed eyes that explores the limitless potential of the human mind (Dreamachine).
- Communities from across Wales, creatives and a Hollywood production studio are working together to shape and share a story set 30 years in the future across TV drama, digital platforms and live events in three Welsh locations (GALWAD: A story from ourfuture).
- 20,000 people are being invited to create vast outdoor artworks by lighting up some of the UK’s outstanding landscapes, using new technology to create compelling online experiences (GreenSpace Dark Skies).
- A scale version of our solar system, staged across 10km sculptural trails in Northern Ireland and Cambridge, invites us to consider our relationships with each other from the perspective of our place in space (Our Place in Space).
- A monumental forest garden of living plants and architectural trees is springing up in the city of Birmingham in celebration of the global origins of the UK’s plants and population (PoliNations).
- A decommissioned North Sea offshore platform is being transformed into an immersive public art installation and celebration of British weather in the coastal town of Weston-super-Mare, suggesting new possibilities for retired structures (SEE MONSTER).
- Augmented reality, new developments in 3D internet technology and young creatives are shaping one of the most ambitious living history and archive projects ever undertaken (StoryTrails).
- A festival of nightlife and countercultures inspired by and created in collaboration with the Moon is travelling in convoy around England with a mission to imagine multiple better futures for, and with, young people (Tour de Moon).
Central to UNBOXED are extensive learning and public participation opportunities, reaching hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren, young people and communities. These opportunities include invitations to take part, shape and deliver UNBOXED through school poetry and coding competitions, community workshops, citizen science projects and new employment and skills development opportunities for diverse young creatives and freelancers. There are also partnerships with the BBC, the British Council and the RSA (the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) that will further global conversations about the role of creativity and innovation in society.
Martin Green CBE, Chief Creative Officer, UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK, said: “Hundreds of creatives from across science, technology, engineering, arts and maths are creating extraordinary once-in-a-lifetime events and online experiences for millions in the UK’s biggest and most ambitious public creative programme to date. UNBOXED represents an unprecedented, timely opportunity for people to come together across the UK and beyond, taking part in awe-inspiring projects that speak to who we are while exploring the ideas that will define our futures.”
Dame Vikki Heywood DBE, Chair of Board, UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK, said: “As society adapts to the ever-evolving digital revolution and we see our innate creativity play an increasingly important role in all our futures, UNBOXED explores the power of collaboration to generate new possibilities for the way we live, work and play. The programme will support economic recovery in the UK by reanimating towns and cities and expanding our connectivity through new online communities. As the programme unfolds, it will both entertain us and inspire us to imagine what the future might hold by combining the creative powers of science, technology, engineering, arts and maths.”
UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK
1 March to 2 October 2022
unboxed2022.uk