The universities are back, and this week I found myself in Dundee. Over the summer, the city felt strangely hollow without the familiar energy of students.

I have a complicated relationship with this city — equal parts affection and resistance. Every time I cross the Tay Rail Bridge, I feel a queasy, intense emotional jolt, perhaps a reminder to pay attention.

It takes me back to when I left secondary school to pursue my dream of going to art college. Things didn’t unfold the way I’d planned or imagined, and those memories still carry a sense of mourning.

Travelling to Dundee is a journey I feel more comfortable making alone — something about it demands solitude. It holds pieces of me that aren’t easy to explain.

The Perth Road, Magdalene Green, the old Groucho’s record shop building now given over to something new, the thick Dundonian accent, and the art college itself — which I still can’t bring myself to step inside — all stir a wave of what ifs that are both tender and unsettling.

But this week, something shifted.

**Growing Pains - 15 Reform Street, Dundee**

I went to see Growing Pains, a new installation by Lindsey Mendick, commissioned by Jupiter+ Dundee. It’s housed in an abandoned estate agent’s office on Reform Street, right in the heart of the city’s busy High Street. I didn’t quite know what to expect, but I know with absolute certainty that I walked out feeling like I’d just had one of the most powerful therapy sessions of my life.

Mendick’s installation explores social mobility and the tangled, often painful transition into adolescence. So much of it echoed my own adolescent struggles, many of which still sit quietly inside me.

Set on a spiralling desk that mimics the looping confusion of adolescence, the work features eight ceramic dolls’ houses — blown open and bursting with surreal, larger-than-life teenage figures. Each house represents a different coming-of-age milestone from the 2000s — pre-social media and pre-smartphone. A time shaped by braces, Nokia 3210s, Blazin' Squad songs, Bacardi Breezers, and the holy grail of TN trainers and hoodies.

In the accompanying film You Couldn’t Pay Me to go Back, Mendick returns to her childhood neighbourhood in North London for the first time in 15 years. It’s a haunting, deeply human piece that speaks to the push and pull of adolescence: that desperate need for acceptance alongside the fierce urge to rebel.

The carefully placed box of Kleenex tissues on the floor felt like a quiet message - a reminder that I wasn’t the only one moved by this work. It also felt like a warm hug, knowing someone had thoughtfully purchased them for anyone who might need them.

It feels fitting that Growing Pains is being shown in Dundee, a city that mirrors so much of the installation’s emotional terrain for me. The themes felt scarily familiar.

Mendick, now based in Margate, works primarily with clay. Margate also happens to be home to my absolute creative hero, Tracey Emin — who mentored Mendick when she first moved there. That influence hums quietly through the installation: bold, vulnerable, and unafraid to confront discomfort with honesty. I can see how they would make good friends.

For me, Growing Pains reinforced just how much art is meant to be felt, not just observed.

Thank you for coming to Dundee, Lindsey. You have made crossing that Tay Rail Bridge much easier.

Art, Agency and Creative Activism for every young person in Scotland

As part of Jupiter Artland’s wider JUPITER+ Dundee project, Growing Pains isn’t just a standalone artwork - it’s part of a broader mission to empower young people across Scotland to discover their own creativity and develop a sense of agency.

Through free guided tours and practical workshops, the JUPITER+ Learning Team invites local youth groups to explore artistic expression in an open, inclusive environment. To help remove financial barriers, travel bursaries are available, helping to make the experience accessible to all.

See it for yourself

If you’re anywhere near Dundee, don’t miss Growing Pains.

🗓️ Open until Sunday 21st December 2025
📍 15 Reform Street, Dundee
🕙 Tuesday to Sunday, 10am–4pm
🎟️ Free entry

Visit the Jupiter+ Dundee - Jupiter Artland website for more details about ways to get involved.

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