12/09/2026
PLANETARY GARDEN
Stanley Donwood, he of Radiohead fame, contributed to Nuart with several works that were pasted up around the city of Aberdeen in 2023. Seeing how this particular piece had developed algae on the inked parts, I decided to use the image for the marketing of Nuart Aberdeen in 2026 whose theme was “Poetry is in the Streets”, I thought this signified and dignified the concept perfectly. In some ways, it was the negation of street art, that it wasn’t art that people needed exposing to, but an expanded way of seeing, of looking, of reflecting on our environments. There’s more poetry in the grate at the end of a drainpipe than much of what we call public art ;street art and muralism included. I’ve always been inspired and in a state of wonder when seeing nature reclaiming space, weaving its way through burned out cars on the common, forcing its way through the roof of an abandoned building, a crack in the pavement, a little light, a lot of blossom. I’ve spent the last 4 months doing nothing much more than gardening, digging rocks, amending soil, navigating Latin, visiting local nurseries and finally planting. A painting you can walk through, a song even, a note here, a chord there, a crescendo of alstroemeria, a symphony of Lavander. I doubt I’ll see the world the same again. “Putamus nos hortum nurture, re vera autem nos nutrition”, or “that which we nurture, nurtures us”. I was pondering all of his when I recalled the stanley donwood work and it struck me that there may be something here, that Nuart isn’t a hardy perennial, more a tender annual whose seed requires a period of cold stratification to break the post festival dormancy. Feeling more gardener than curator these days, but I feel something growing. Jamie Reid had the right idea, something I look forward to exploring more as we move into Winter. Let’s see what springs up next year in Aberdeen.
Nuart Aberdeen
