Sustainable Designs for Living and Learning
Creative Glasgow is seeking three artists for a pioneering durational project exploring multilingualism, permaculture, and learning for sustainability within Scottish Primary Schools. We’re delighted to be partnering with University of Glasgow to support the artist selection and dissemination of project learning and outcomes.
About the Project
‘Sustainable Designs for Living and Learning’ is a pioneer project that aims to support the development of new integrated approaches to learning for sustainability through languages and arts. The project starts from a critical observation: in our multilingual world, we struggle to bring together worldviews, connect language resources and develop reparative solutions to human-environment systems.
The project, launched in May 2025, will focus on the role of multilingualism and principles of permaculture in shaping and supporting human-non-human ecologies. The project team will collaborate with a wide range of participants and co-researchers (including children, artists, teachers, researchers, and educators) to develop new creative learning approaches, resources, and professional development opportunities for teachers. The project aims to ensure that young learners can fully contribute to sustainability within their communities.
This project builds on previous collaborations and pilot initiatives (e.g.: Multilingualism through Art). These initiatives have laid the foundations of a series of innovative arts-based activities in language learning which continue to support teachers across Scotland to meet the language needs of all multilingual learners. ‘Sustainable Designs for Living and Learning’ (SDLL) will draw on this expertise and it will transform relationships between languages, the arts, and the environment by exploring in depth the potential for transforming schools through permaculture designs.
The Project Team
SDLL is a 3-year collaboration between University of Glasgow, University of Strathclyde, and SCILT (Scotland’s National Centre for Languages). The core team of researchers will work closely with three schools in Year 1-3 and will bring on board ten further schools starting within Year 2. The team will include three artists selected for this project. The selected artists will develop their professional profile and work collaboratively with the project team, teachers, young learners, and their parents.
As part of the interdisciplinary team, other key collaborators include Bilingualism Matters and ScotDec.
Creative Glasgow’s Role
Creative Glasgow is partnering with University of Glasgow to support the recruitment of artists and dissemination of the project learning and outcomes.
Artist Call Out
- Timescales: Durational project August 2025 – May 2028
- Artist Fees: £6,500 bursary per artist, plus Introduction to Permaculture training programme, and joint £10,000 exhibition production budget.
- Deadline: Apply by Sunday 29th June, 5pm