Monday October 13th 2025
Watery Commons artists in residence at the festival (Photo by Sarah Jamieson, Pictorial Photography)
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Paul Kelly
Culture vultures should venture to Peebles later this month for a new creative festival in celebration of the River Tweed ahead of the launch in three years time of a 113-mile trail.
Destination Tweed is a unique source-to-sea river revitalisation project that features the creation of a trail running from Moffat, past the source of the River Tweed and on to Berwick Upon Tweed, where the river meets the sea.
The multi-faceted initiative, which will see an investment of around £25 million in the area, also includes a wide range of cultural, river and landscape enhancement projects.
All will combine to deliver significant economic, environmental, educational and social benefits to the south of Scotland and North Northumberland.
As work on the trail progresses the wealth of creative practitioners who live and work in the catchment area are about to be celebrated.
This month sees Connecting Threads launch a new annual Tweed River Festival, with the inaugural edition taking place from Friday to Sunday, October 31 to November 2.
Staged across multiple indoor and outdoor sites near Peebles, including the town’s Burgh Hall, the three-day event will feature an array of creative activities in, on and alongside the River Tweed.
Visitors can expect an inspiring mix of river-focused activities, including: microscopic drawing workshops; gift-giving rituals; riverside listening walks; experimental film screenings, music; poetry; storytelling; printmaking; song learning; communal reading; eco-friendly photography and more.
Connecting Threads is the cultural strand of the landscape-scale project Destination Tweed. Supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, it brings together creative practitioners with conservationists, environmentalists, scientists, river specialists and communities of place and purpose, to celebrate the Tweed through a five-year programme of cultural activity.
The inaugural 2025 edition of Tweed River Festival is the culmination of Connecting Threads’ 2025 programme, Watery Commons, which charts connections between the local and the global, the bodily and the systemic, the material and the metaphorical – always from the position that there can be no meaningful thinking of rivers or the commons which is not at the same time political.
The 2025 Watery Commons artists in residence are: Anna Chapman Parker, Emily Cropton, Georgie Fay, Sam Gillespie, Jessie Growden and Miwa Nagato-Apthorp.
Other creative practitioners involved in Tweed River Festival include: Craig Aitchison, Lucy Baxandall, Rosemary Everett, Kat Gollock and Zoe Hamill, Kirsty Law, Bint Mbareh and Anne Waggot Knott.
Conceived as a gathering of river-loving communities, the first edition of Tweed River Festival takes place in Peebles, towards the upper reaches of the River Tweed. Subsequent editions in 2026 and 2027 will take place in the middle and lower stretches of the River Tweed as it makes its way from the source in the hills above Moffat, through southern Scotland and north Northumberland, and out into the sea at Berwick-upon-Tweed.
River Culture curator Tiki Muir says: “Tweed River Festival is the highlight of our 2025 programme. Amid a growing consciousness of the importance of rivers, Connecting Threads aims to encourage people to develop deeper and more meaningful relationships with the River Tweed, its surrounding habitats and ecologies.
“Tweed River Festival feels like a vital opportunity to grow these relationships together. The festival is about being equal and active participants: it is an opportunity to gather, to centre the river, to share knowledge and stories and to help sustain caring, resilient and river-loving communities.
“While we look ahead to the creation of the River Tweed Trail, Destination Tweed’s 113-mile walking and cycling route, scheduled to open in 2028, this is also a moment to pause and really celebrate the Tweed and the wealth of creative practitioners who live and work in the catchment area.
“We’re especially excited to share works in progress by our incredible 2025 cohort of artists in residence. This is a rare opportunity to share in new art projects as they develop, and to gain fresh perspectives and emotional connections – not only with rivers but also with each other.”
For full festival details go to: https://www.gotweedvalley.co.uk/all-events-festivals/tweed-river-festival
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