Edinburgh - Scotland

The annual St Andrew’s Day celebrations have been a focus for the group over recent years.

The event has a renewed vigour and a wider range of traditional and contemporary activities for all ages to enjoy. The day includes a varied programme of live musical performance, food and drink with a Scottish flavour, a dramatic Address to the Haggis, tours of the Edinburgh Room in the Council chambers, and Highland Games activities. All this is held in the Octagon under the watchful gaze of Robbie Burns.

Sister Cities NZ awarded the Society best cultural, sport or recreation project for the 2016 St Andrew’s Day event.

A reinvigorated Scotland to Dunedin project (Sister Cities – Tartan Ties) was launched in 2013 with a visit from Scottish musicians Ross Ainslie and Jarlath Henderson to participate in Dunedin’s St Andrew’s Day celebrations. A civic reception was held that evening, with Dunedin’s Mayor Dave Cull and Lord Provost of Edinburgh Donald Wilson exchanging greetings of the day via the University of Otago’s world class fibre-optic facilities.

There have been a number of developments since, including a Mayoral delegation visit from Dunedin as part of the MOMENTUM programme in Edinburgh, performances by young Dunedin musician Jake Cropley, headed by Simon Vare, at Edinburgh’s New Reekie Burns event and Glasgow’s Celtic Connections festival in January 2014, and a mentoring relationship for the successful Dunedin bid to become a UNESCO City of Literature.

Through a related Sister Cities Tartan Ties project initiated locally along with the British Council, two further exchanges of musicians have taken place between our cities. November 2016 to Dunedin and January 2017 to Edinburgh & Celtic Connections Festival, Glasgow. We are hoping to further establish this reciprocal exchange of artists, musicians, food & beverage to promote, demonstrate and celebrate the cross-cultural relations between Dunedin and Edinburgh both here in New Zealand and Scotland.

Dunedin Public Art Gallery Public Programmes Manager Robyn Notman was one of seven New Zealanders who travelled to Scotland as part of the MOMENTUM, Edinburgh Festivals international delegate programme, run by the British Council and Creative New Zealand to send New Zealanders from across the cultural professions and practices to the UK and particularly Scotland to develop opportunities and relationships that lead to reciprocal projects.

Dunedin Public Art Gallery Curator Aaron Kreisler was one of five Commonwealth curators selected to contribute to the major group Edinburgh Art Festival exhibition, “Where do I end and you begin?”. The exhibition ran from 1 August to 19 October 2014 in the City Art Centre in the heart of Edinburgh. Aaron travelled in late July to oversee the installation of the works. The project sprang from a partnership between the Edinburgh Art Festival, the British Council, Creative Scotland and Creative New Zealand and was the first exhibition developed by the Edinburgh Art Festival.

A delegation of Dunedin’s Mayor Dave Cull, Dunedin City Councillor Neville Peat and DCC Community Advisor – Arts Cara Paterson visited during Edinburgh’s festival month.

The Lord Provost of the City of Edinburgh, the Rt. Hon. Donald Wilson, invited the delegation in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the sister city relationship. Mr Cull also received an invitation from MOMENTUM, which arranged much of the delegation’s Edinburgh itinerary, including a series of events and meetings with Edinburgh’s arts community.

The delegation attended a VIP Edinburgh Tattoo function, the Tattoo itself and talked with the City of Edinburgh about future sister city activities, with a focus on stimulating arts links and activity between the two cities.

DCC Community Advisor – Arts Cara Paterson was selected by the British Council and Creative New Zealand to be part of the MOMENTUM international delegate programme.

The programme helps build relationships with cultural organisations and individuals in Edinburgh.

Cara met with many influential members of Edinburgh’s arts community, including the directors of the city’s UNESCO City of Literature Trust, the Scottish Centre for the Book, the International Book Festival and the Scottish Poetry Library. Her visit began relationships that lead on to exchanges of professional and cultural skills between Edinburgh and Dunedin.

In 2006, an official delegation, including Mayor Peter Chin, DCC Chief Executive, Jim Harland, and members of the Dunedin-Edinburgh Sister City Society travelled to Edinburgh to attend the opening weekend of the 2006 Edinburgh Festival.

During the round of official functions and meetings, links were fostered between the two cities. Society representatives included the Chair, Pamela Jemmett, Secretary, Neville Jemmett and committee members, Margaret Campbell and Les Cantwell.

The delegation visited the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop to view the Sylvia Stewart sculpture which was duly gifted to Dunedin. The sculpture, which matches one on the Edinburgh waterfront, arrived in Dunedin in July 2007 and was placed near Forsyth Barr stadium. The stone was subsequently relocated in 2016 to a site close to the Water of Leith in the University of Otago campus.

Since then, the Society has developed further connections between our two cities through an exchange programme, and has encouraged youth involvement, particularly through internet and email exchanges between primary school children.