Announced by former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in March 2021 as Scotland’s Covid Community Memorial Project (renamed Remembering Together by the project team at greenspace scotland), Remembering Together started in July 2021 and since then has delivered 32 unique co-created projects across every local authority are in Scotland. The project has involved over 150 artists, over 80 delivery partners (including, Councils, Culture and Leisure Trusts, TSIs, higher education institutions, arts organisations and community led organisations) and numerous community members and stakeholders, offering an opportunity for communities to engage in collective acts of remembrance and reflection on the Covid pandemic. We had music, events, publications, benches, sculptures, and everything in between, from a Borders Tartan to Highland Bells Remembering Together has encompassed the diverse communities across Scotland and the range of experiences they had of the pandemic.

Remembering Together has been above all a process of bringing people together and offering the chance to reconnect and share in a process of reflection and understanding.

As the projects come to an end we can see what these conversations and sustained efforts by the artists, partners, and communities over the last three years have inspired and created. There is no right or wrong way to remember the pandemic. But it is important that we do. The memorials which have been built, performed, planted, written, sung, and crafted are as varied as the experiences of the communities who imagined them. 

The process of co-creation with people and communities across Scotland, and the things we have learned along the way, are as important as the final memorials. Ensuring a legacy for the project and the work that has gone into it.

On the 6^th September the Remembering Together team hosted a reception at the University of Stirling to mark the end of the 3-year national co-creation project. The event offered a chance for artists and partners from across Scotland to come together to reflect on and acknowledge the work, challenges, and achievements of the last 3 years.

The event also marked the launch of an exhibition of work created by artists and communities across Scotland during the course of the project. The material was co-curated with the University’s Art Collection team, Sarah Bromage and Emma McCombie, and will be on display until August 2025 as part of the wider ‘Year of Human Experience’ exhibition on campus. The gallery, located in the Pathfoot Building, includes objects, films, images, and music, and represents each of the 32 local areas involved in Remembering Together.

The evening included personal reflections from the Remembering Together team, as well as music and performances from some of the projects. Artists Angela Watt and John King shared moving and uplifting poetry, stories and music from the Clackmannanshire project and musicians Duncan Chisholm and Michael Biggins performed The Beauty of Moray, a piece of traditional Scottish music composed for the Remembering Together project in Moray. We were also honoured to be joined by Maree Todd MSP, who spoke about the impact of the project in our communities, and the importance of arts and culture as a means to connect and heal.

You can find out more up to date information about the projects on our Instagram or on the In Your Area page on the Remembering Together website. 

A Remembering together Archive will be held at the University of Stirling Archive & Special Collections.