Samhain 2026

Sat 31 October, 3-7pm

Samhain is a liminal time of year. As the season changes and light becomes dark, the boundaries between worlds begin to fray.

This year at Forgan Arts Centre, we explore the significance of hedges, edges and borders – in our garden, our community and our minds.

Delve into the biodiversity of edges, the care needed to keep a hedge from becoming a forest, the border-crossing figures of Celtic mythology, and the migration stories of our more-than-human kin.

Join us to:

• Imagine otherworldly creatures in a family-friendly workshop led by artist Aniara Omann
• Join a lantern procession created by our Alternative (Art) School students with designer Gretchen Maynard-Hahn
• Explore liminal ecologies in the edges of our garden with ecologist Keith Skene
• Look beyond the hedge, and hear about seasonal land work and the migrants who do the work, with artist José García Oliva
• Try locally-foraged hedgerow jams and cordials with folk historian Willow Mullins
• Learn how to create, maintain and care for your local hedges with Gosia Stanton
• Share a feast of flavours from the Greek Taverna, made with local produce by Marwick’s Vegan Kitchen

Our event is a nod to the ancient festival of Samhain, one of four festivals we host annually to create connections to the cycles of nature and to celebrate the turning of the Celtic wheel. Samhain marks the Celtic New Year, the end of summer, and time of preparation for the winter months.

About the contributors

Aniara Omann is an artist based in Glasgow, who works across sculpture, text, sound and performance. Her work explores themes of bio degradability, futurism and employs the aesthetics of science fiction to reflect on current societal conditions, imagined futures and alternative realities.

Gosia Stanton is Community Development Officer at Fife Climate Hub and a former environmental researcher with an interest in biodiversity and rewilding. She has developed hedgerow training within FCCAN and supports community groups wishing to undertake hedgerow surveys in their communities.

Gretchen Maynard-Hahn is a designer specialising in puppetry, object performance, and material-led work for theatre and film. She is interested in projects that blur boundaries between performer and object, craft and technology, the poetic and the practical, with sustainability embedded in the process.

Keith Skene investigates new approaches to ecological, social and economic sustainability. The author of five books and over forty scientific papers, Keith is the founding director of the Biosphere Research Institute and former Head of the Living Laboratory, University of Dundee.

Marwick’s Vegan Kitchen is a family business based in North East Fife. They aim to make plant-based food tasty for everyone and help you travel the world through food. For Samhain, expect flavours from the Greek Taverna, made with produce from the fields and gardens of Fife.

Willow G Mullins is a lecturer at University of Edinburgh who specializes in folklore, with a special interest in material culture, foodways, and death. Her recent research examines weatherlore, a concept that describes the folk beliefs and traditions about the weather that are passed down casually among groups of people.