Come and Explore...Welcome to the Blog for The Secret Grove of the Garden Project at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh this summer.
On this site you should find all the information on the project; what it is, what events are going on and when, what sort of characters you might expect to meet here, clues to the secrets that lie within, and how to come and get involved yourself.
Friday 6th to Sunday 29th August (not Mondays)
50 minute performances and workshops running alternately between 10.30am & 5.30pm
- Interactive performances at 10.30am, 12.30pm & 3.30pm
- Interactive performances at 10.30am, 12.30pm & 3.30pm
- Workshops and activity sessions at 11.30am, 2.30pm & 4.30pm (no 4.30 session on 19th-22nd & 25th-28th)
(Break for lunch between 1.30pm & 2.30pm)
Free (Donations welcome)
(Break for lunch between 1.30pm & 2.30pm)
Free (Donations welcome)
The Secret Grove of the Garden is a temporary hidden outdoor learning environment that has sprung up amongst the exotic shrubbery behind the glasshouses by the Fletcher Building in Edinburgh's Botanic Gardens and is inhabiting the two yurts and surrounding space there with a diversity and free interactive and exciting activity sessions. There will be day-time workshops and performances exploring Edinburgh’s local environment through craft, storytelling, music and presentations on the secrets of nature. We are hoping to offer different workshops that engage the participants with new experiences and arouse curiosity and creative response to the local natural environment of Edinburgh. A variety of intriguing and evolving art installations are dotted around throughout, many of which will hopefully develop as the month goes on and people add to them.
Follow this blog for information on all the different workshops and performances that will be on, and also check the programme schedule at www.invisiblestructures.org.
From its inception the Secret Grove of the Garden project has been developed by local people meeting to discuss ideas, visions and thoughts on how they see they perceive and relate to the city, and how we could create an experience here that would be relevant and of interest to the people of Edinburgh.
It is run completely by volunteers without any funding, and is all totally free to come to or to get involved with. Free tickets will be available on the door and from the Fringe box office, with donations very welcome.
With no money, there are still a huge amount of things possible!....All workshop leaders, performers, organisers, everyone involved are doing so voluntarily and sharing skills, experience, tools. For signs, art installations, props etc we reuse materials which would otherwise be thrown away as much as possible and we are lucky to have costumes made from recycled materials lent to us by Waste Innovations in Edinburgh (thank you!). We have a general 'no waste' philosophy attempting to flyer and poster as little as possible (as we know how ridiculous the amount of flyer and poster wastage at the fringe is and do not want to be part of it!). Stamps are being used instead of flyers to stamp fallen leaves, or that odd bit of scrap paper of journal you have with you, art installations are going up in trees around Edinburgh as creative advertising (look out for them around town!), posters are few and far between but placed in, we hope, eye catching places and we hope word of mouth will spread that we are here...
So, please come down to perform, share a skill, try out a workshop, demonstrate your craft, meet with others, discover the wonders of the natural world, learn something new, make some art, tell a story or just hang out.
Finally, if you would like to add an entry on your experience at the Secret Grove, or help in developing the characters, stories and images that will make up the spirit of the place please email them to us and we will include them on this blog.
Whisper the word and do keep coming - it will evolve and change throughout August through the partipants and their responses that bring it alive.
