Creative Earth Eco Fest 2026

Creative Earth Eco Fest at Cliffe Castle, Keighley

This little free festival sounded worth a visit and I had a very enjoyable time. 

Set in the grounds of Cliffe Castle, Keighley, Eco Fest was produced by Impressions Gallery and Photo Hub North CIC. It hoped 'to help people respond to the current environmental emergency in positive and creative ways', using plant-based art and photography activities, artist-led workshops, a sustainable fashion show (which I sadly didn't see, as it was later in the day), pop-up photo gallery, outdoor play, photo trail, wellbeing taster sessions, talks, music, dancing, food and more. 

I particularly enjoyed the photographic work on display. There were some lovely portraits, by Louis Little, of people involved in the regenerative farming movement, with little labels telling you who they were and what they did. Most encouraging reading! 

Another display was of anthotypes, created by pupils at Beechcliffe school, a local specialist school for students with complex needs. Anthotypes are eco-friendly, camera-less photographic prints created using light-sensitive plant pigments (beetroot on the left, turmeric and spinach on the right) exposed to sunlight. They are a bit like cyanotypes but not involving chemicals. 

There was a display of beautiful Ukrainian embroidery by Olha Zhydetska:

You could learn T'ai Chi or Nordic Walking, have a forest bathing experience, sketch with charcoal, explore wet felting, try out a darkroom using plant-based developers or investigate a small caravan that was a camera obscura. I'd not booked on any of the workshops so I just wandered around but it was all really friendly and uplifting - a very good day out. 

Riverside plants

High summer means lots of plants are flowering along the riverside walk, many of them statuesque and sculptural. We've met Himalayan balsam already and, despite it being a huge problem plant, I still enjoyed this little trio of flowers I spotted (above).

I've no idea what the seed-head below is. I'm old enough to refer to it as a 'sputnik', after the spiky satellite first launched by Russia in the 1950s! Google Lens suggests it is some kind of angelica. Nice, anyway. 

I can never identify the various umbellifers you see either. There are too many similar ones. I like their sculptural forms. 

I do know this one (below): meadowsweet, with its fragrant, feathery, creamy-white flowers. Apparently parts of it are edible, used to flavour desserts and jams. It contains salicylic acid, related to the active ingredient in aspirin. It was traditionally used as a strewing herb to scent rooms. 

Parched

My two favourite trees again... It's interesting to keep documenting the differences. After the very dry summer, the grass around them is parched a dusty yellow. The cows were taking shelter in the shade under the tree in the top field. The trees themselves look healthy for now but the drought must be stressing them, I think.  And I now have to stand on tiptoe to see over the recently planted hedge at the field boundary. I'm all for mixed hedges so it's good that it's been planted but I'm a bit sad that the view I've enjoyed for years is gradually disappearing! 

Discovery

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I didn't know that, in a dry dock right next to Dundee's V&A, sits one of the great historic ships, RSS Discovery. She was built in Dundee and launched in 1901, the first ship designed specifically for Antarctic scientific research. Built with heavily reinforced wooden hulls to withstand pack ice, she was one of the last three-masted wooden ships to be built in this country, though she also has a steam engine. She carried Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their groundbreaking 1901-1904 Discovery Expedition, where she spent two years trapped in ice before she was freed. In 1925 she was designated a Royal Research Ship and returned to Antarctica to conduct extensive oceanographic studies to conserve whale populations. She has quite a history beyond that, which you can read about HERE.

Alongside the ship, there is a large and very interesting museum to explore, which I found much more fascinating than I expected to. It details not only Discovery's history but also various other Antarctic explorations and the ships involved, with lots of details, photographs, videos and artefacts. Many of these are well-documented and the stories of the men involved and the hardships endured are legendary. 

Once you've explored the museum you're free to board the ship and marvel at the strength of its construction - layer upon layer of massive oak planks and other woods, carefully designed to withstand the harsh conditions. You can tour the crew's quarters - the huge table in the officers' mess:

Captain Scott's cabin:

A bunk room for the sailors:

I was intrigued by the ingenuity of the design. 'Salt boxes' opened into the space between the inner and outer hulls. These were literally filled with rock salt, to soak up any moisture and preserve the timber. 

It asked you to consider things like what provisions they took with them, and how the holds were packed with supplies so that the ship was balanced and stable. 

I couldn't help but marvel at the resilience of the men - sailors and scientists - on the expeditions. They didn't have our advanced technology so, even in things like the clothes they wore, they had to be resourceful and ingenious to deal with the harsh conditions. They were geologists, naturalists,  oceanographers and photographers and the research they did was foundational to our understanding of the mysterious Antarctic region.  

 

Catwalk

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I'm not, and have never been, a particularly fashion-conscious person, apart from a brief and glorious exploration of midi-dresses and thigh-high white PVC boots in a heady period for fashion in my early 20s. Nevertheless, I thought it silly not to enjoy the current major exhibition in Dundee's V&A: 'Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show'. It 'charts the dramatic evolution of the catwalk, from the private salons of the late 19th century to today’s immersive, live-streamed runway experiences'.

Actually I found the early history to be the most interesting part. Originally, clothing was made bespoke for individuals by dressmakers. In the late 1860s, it was an Englishman in Paris, Charles Frederick Worth, who first introduced the concept of pre-designed collections and employed house models to show his designs to clients. 

The idea of the mannequin was born and shows started to be choreographed to present each new season's collections. 

High-end clothing was 'couture' and bespoke right up to the 1950s/60s, when many young fashion designers started to offer luxury 'ready-to-wear' for a progressive clientele, using modern synthetic materials and unconventional presentations - in cafés, on the streets, in boutiques and on TV. 

Designs like Paco Rabanne's 'Mirror Dress' (above), Mary Quant's use of PVC and Vivienne Westwood's avant-garde cuts and styling (below) were accompanied by high-energy shows, with models dancing, running and jumping - all projecting the youthful vibe of the 'swinging' London scene.  

The 1980s and 90s saw the rise of the 'supermodel' - stars with presence and glamour like Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and others. But high fashion, the 'looks' and beauty ideals associated with it started to become almost unachievable for the average woman. 

Catwalk shows became full productions, with hair stylists like Sam McKnight using their skills to create image-defining art forms, part of the aesthetic identity of the major fashion houses. Fashion shows had evolved into elaborately staged, provocative, theatrical spectacles with outfits far removed from the normal clothing we wear every day. 

The Covid pandemic in the early 2020s disrupted fashion as well as everything else. The Dior Collection for Autumn/Winter 2020/21 was presented as a film, with a suitcase filled with miniature clothes embarking on a fantasy adventure. 

Those designs do, at least, look wearable, unlike the dramatic blue dress below, whose voluminous skirt certainly wouldn't fit through your average doorway! 

In addition to this major exhibition, the V&A Dundee also had an exploration of design and disability, and holds a rather wonderful permanent collection celebrating Scottish design, with the fully restored 'Oak Room', designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for a Glasgow tearoom, that has been stored in pieces after being salvaged in 1971. 

V&A, Dundee - interior

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Inside the V&A is as complex as the outside, with intersecting planes, odd angles and a mountainous staircase clinging to the side - as though it were indeed a Scottish cliff! (There is a lift for those who need it.) The bottom of the first pyramid is one large foyer space, holding the reception desk, a shop and a small display area. I assume the bottom of the second pyramid is offices and storage space.  

The two pyramids join to become one huge space upstairs, divided into exhibition galleries, with a café and meeting spaces. The wooden cladding is designed, I suppose, to echo the concrete vanes on the building's exterior. 

On the upper floor there are two small external balcony areas too, giving views up and downstream to the Tay bridges. It's all quite interesting, even if it's somehow not a very 'comfortable' building. 

The V&A, Dundee

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My main motivation for a stopover in Dundee was to visit the V&A design museum, opened in 2018. With links to the V&A in London, it was a bold vision to revitalise Dundee's waterfront and draw visitors to the city, which it appears to have successfully achieved. The building itself was designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, who is said to have been inspired by the eastern cliff edges of Scotland (though it looks to me more like a ship, with a prow jutting out over the Firth of Tay).  

It is basically two inverted pyramids, separate on the ground floor and twisting to meet on the top floor. This results in a tunnel between the two structures, creating a frame and a route through which the city and river are connected. It's a bold building, quite a statement. I suspect people either like it or hate it - and it was an enjoyable challenge to photograph. 

The Tay Bridge

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I didn't come straight home after the Fife walking holiday, instead choosing to travel a little further north to Dundee, across the Firth of Tay. 

The first ever bridge across the Tay, replacing a train ferry service, was a single track rail bridge that opened in 1878. In 1879, disaster struck when it suddenly collapsed in high winds while a train was crossing, killing all 75 people aboard. The incident remains one of the worst bridge-related engineering disasters in history, an event that shook the Victorian engineering community. Eventually another rail bridge was built, much stronger and sturdier, that opened in 1887 and is still used to day. You can see it in the distance in the photo below. 

Road traffic continued to use ferries until the Tay Road Bridge was constructed, opening in 1966. It has a dual carriageway and a pedestrian/cycle route down the middle. It's quite a walk! At 1.4 miles, the bridge is one of the longest road bridges in the UK. Until 2008 it was a toll bridge, but fees to cross it are no longer required.

My last photo shows the road bridge from the riverside in Dundee.  Those scaffold type towers behind it are not part of the bridge, and may be something to do with offshore energy installations.  

There is some humour attached to these bridges. In 2002, a local radio competition to find a slogan for the bridge was abandoned after the slogan with the most votes – 'It's all downhill to Dundee' – (reflecting the bridge's downward angle) was deemed unsuitable.

With regard to the Tay rail bridge disaster, it led to the writing of possibly one of the worst poems in history, by William McGonagall. It's so bad it's almost comical. (Read it HERE) It ends: 

'For the stronger we our houses do build,

The less chance we have of being killed.'

A lonely cloud

Clouds have been something of a rarity over recent weeks. This one, though present, was certainly 'wandering lonely', though I thought it made a nice composition. I'm very much getting to the point where I want to see actual rainclouds - and it's not often you feel like that in this country! 

Leeds canal walk

It was a pleasant walk in the sunshine back to Leeds rail station, along the towpath of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. There are numerous bridges and it's all quite green and leafy, with waterlilies on the surface. 

A section sandwiched between the canal and river has been made into an urban park, quite untamed and full of wildflowers and butterflies. 

Graffiti 'artists'/hooligans (depending on your viewpoint!) have run amok. One wonders how they have managed to access some of the more out of the way stretches, like the wall below tightly sandwiched between the canal and rail lines.  And still more high-rise blocks are under construction. 

Here and there, reminders of the industrial past of this area have been retained. The Italianate tower (below), built in 1866 and modelled on the Torre dei Lamberti in Verona, was a dust extractor for the Tower Works, operational from 1864 until 1981, which made steel pins for carding and combing in the textile industry. 

Eventually the canal arrives at its Leeds endpoint, Granary Wharf (the name being no doubt a bit of a giveaway as to what used to be situated here). In the distance in my photo below you can see the lock that releases it into the River Aire, which becomes navigable from here through the centre of the city to the Leeds Dock marina and then into the Aire and Calder Navigation.