THE founder of the KLF and the man who famously burned £1 million on a Scottish island is to return to the countryside of his upbringing to stage Art in Scotland’s Book Town.
Bill Drummond, whose career has combined chart hits, art, situationist stunts and the infamous £1m conflagration on Jura, is to return to Dumfries and Galloway at the annual Wigtown Book festival.
Drummond, who makes art under the name of Penkiln Burn, is choosing the Wigtown Book Festival as the site of his “sculpture in progress”, 40 Beds.
From 2006 until 2025 Drummond, who was born in South Africa, but grew up in the Dumfries and
Galloway town of Newton Stewart, close to Wigtown, is making wooden beds by hand in public and then raffling them away.
Drummond will be one of the main presences of the first weekend of the festival, which runs from September 25 to October 4 in the town, with a showing of a film,
the staging of his Penkiln Burn library, which lends out his books, as well as
his public creation of his beds.
Adrian Turpin, artistic director of the festival, said: “Newton Stewart is just up the road – and as far as I know it is the first time he has been back to the area to show his art work.”
A theme of the festival in the town is the relationship between the city and the country, which will be marked by events, including films from Cold Comfort Farm to Deliverance.  
The festival is now one of the biggest in Scotland after the Edinburgh International Book Festival.