28 February 2012

Cultural organisations across Tayside and Fife are combining to ‘Ignite 2012’ with a 10-day festival in May.

Building on the success of last year’s `Ignite Your Weekend’ programme - which attracted over 15,000 people to events in Dundee - this year’s programme is growing to involve more groups across a wider area and over a longer period.

The `Ignite’ idea stems from the Dundee.com campaign of the same name and arose as a result of the desire for cultural organisations large and small to work together to raise the profile of the region and increase visitor numbers to the benefit of all.

This year’s events, taking place from May 17th to 27th, will include:

Degree Show 2012 at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & DesignCreative Dundee’s Pecha Kucha Volume 3Museum of the University of St Andrews Murder Mystery NightV&A at Dundee’s Ignite lecture - Design Uncovered: Adventures in Architecture

Events have been organised by an array of institutions, from universities and major arts establishments to small collectives and cover a wide range of arts and culture from theatre to contemporary art, museums to dance.

“The forthcoming arrival of V&A at Dundee has shone a spotlight on cultural activity in and around Dundee and Ignite is a great way of celebrating and highlighting the region’s thriving creative sector,” said Philip Long, Director of V&A at Dundee.

“There is a genuine culture of collaboration and support across the cultural sector here, and V&A at Dundee is proud to be a part of this. Through Ignite we hope to put the area well and truly on the cultural map, helping to transform outdated perceptions and show the region for the cultural hotbed that it has become.

“This year’s festival is just a snapshot of the kind of activity that Ignites the city and wider region on a regular basis and we hope that it will encourage new visitors to the city as well as providing a great programme for local audiences to enjoy.”

A full programme of events will be published over the next month, with news and additions highlighted on the dedicated website, Facebook and Twitter.

www.ignitedundee.co.uk
www.facebook.com/IgniteDundee
http://twitter.com/ #IgniteDundee

Ignite 2012 is a partner event of Visit Scotland’s `Year of Creative Scotland’ programme.

The Year of Creative Scotland 2012 is a chance to spotlight, celebrate and promote Scotland’s cultural and creative strengths on a world stage. Starting on January 1, the year-long programme of activity and promotion takes place across the country, designed to position Scotland as one of the world’s most creative nations to audiences at home and across the world. The Year of Creative Scotland will promote Scotland as a dynamic, contemporary nation with a world class cultural offer and will encourage the cultural and tourism sectors to work in closer partnership to enhance cultural tourism in Scotland. The year is a partnership between the Scottish Government, Creative Scotland, VisitScotland, EventScotland and VOCAL.