Greener Kirkcaldy mural – a story of community ownership

In Autumn 2020, as part of our Urban Journeys project with Community Land Scotland and The Stove Network, we commissioned two local artists – Hazel Terry and Catherine Lindow to work with our community to create a mural for our Welcome Area.

Finished in April 2021, the mural celebrates the community ownership of our building and tells the story of Greener Kirkcaldy and how our community has led our work over the last 10 years.

We purchased our community building with funding from the Scottish Land Fund in 2017 and refurbished it with the help of a grant from the Big Lottery Fund’s Community Assets programme. We opened the building, which houses our new Lang Spoon Community Kitchens, as well as our office and an events space, to the public in April 2019.

“We had always thought of community land ownership as something that happened in other places, the islands or highland estates. When one of our volunteer board members first suggested that WE could buy land it felt radical, daunting and exciting. That was in 2013…we took ownership of our town centre property in February 2017. It has been a rollercoaster ride of learning, partnership development and the gradual realisation that we could actually do this.”   

Suzy, Greener Kirkcaldy Chief Executive

To create the mural, Hazel and Catherine interviewed our staff, volunteers, members, partners, participants and our wider community to find out how they have been involved in, impacted by, and contributed to our work over the last 10 years. The mural tells your stories – and what Greener Kirkcaldy means to you. Read more about the ‘making of the mural‘ in our blog.

You can see the mural by visiting our building at 8 East Fergus Place, Kirkcaldy. Hazel and Catherine have also produced a digital version of the mural on Genially. We’d like to say a huge thank you to Hazel and Catherine for creating such an amazing piece of work and to Community Land Scotland and The Stove Network for giving us this opportunity and supporting us to make it happen.

Community Land Scotland is the representative body for Scotland’s community landowners. Their vision is for the community ownership of land and buildings to be a significant driver of sustainable development across the whole of Scotland – rural and urban. They work to: be a collective voice for community owners; encourage more community ownership of land and buildings; facilitate mutual support and knowledge exchange between community landowners; and to collaborate with other organisations to ensure community landowners get the support they need.

Through the Urban Journeys in Community Landownership project, Community Land Scotland wanted to dig down into the individual stories of ownership of the participating urban landowners for themselves and also for their communities and for others who are curious to learn more about the impact community ownership can have for our local places. They felt artists were best placed to lead on this process of reflection and community engagement. As a kind of ‘outsider voice’ they were able to bring a different lens to this. The arts also played an important role in communicating the emerging messages. Community Land Scotland worked closely with the Stove Network on designing and managing the Urban Journeys commissions.