This summer the public and MSPs across Scotland are being urged to go out and reconnect with the country’s exciting visual arts scene.
SCAN has today launched its #ArtUnlocks campaign to encourage people to visit a gallery, take part in an art activity, or seek an artistic experience that really means something to them. And if they like what they find, SCAN is asking them to use the hashtag to spread the word about what art has unlocked for them.
It’s time to remind ourselves what art can do. All across Scotland artists and arts organisations are adding new meaning to everyday experience, giving people tools for thinking and doing, and enhancing lives for the better. The changes we experience through art can be subtle and small, but the difference they make can be immense.
As part of the campaign, MSPs will be encouraged to visit the people and places making art in their constituencies. From the Hebrides to Dumfries, politicians will be invited to learn about the great work being done by artists, art venues, and art workers. They will be encouraged to take that message back to their parliamentary offices, where new knowledge could make a difference to communities across the country.
Moira Jeffrey, Director of Scottish Contemporary Art Network, said:
‘Right across Scotland the visual arts make our lives richer, adding new meaning to everyday life, creating space for learning new skills, and providing tools to think about the issues that affect us. From simple visual pleasures to talking about big social challenges, art which is free at the point of access in communities across the country, unlocks new experiences at a time when the road to recovery after the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis are creating huge challenges.’
And this summer there’s no shortage of artistic riches to discover SCAN members around Scotland. SCAN members are working with a wide range of local communities to help people find their creative voice. Artlink use participation as a tool to encourage partnerships between people with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) and some of Scotland’s most renowned artists and designers including Claire Barclay, Laura Aldridge, Laura Spring and Lauren Gault. Glasgow venue Tramway is currently hosting the exhibition Human Threads (until 28 August). This show crafts beautiful artworks as rich sensory experiences derived from many years of developing methods and ideas with people with PMLD, their families and care staff at the Cherry Road Learning Centre in Midlothian.
Artlink Artist Laura Aldridge said:
‘In these dark times it is very necessary to be open to changing perception, connecting to different forms of creativity that will make us all feel good, better on the inside; more alive, kinder, compassionate and full of empathy. More able to be in this together.’
Artlink Artist Lauren Gault said:
“Working with Artlink and developing this collaborative artwork has utterly changed my relationship to materials, my types of attention…things I cannot describe in written language. I have learned how adaptable, resilient and capable of collective, circular care we are. I have learned how art can catalyse a new ‘closeness’, and that there is a feeling of shared togetherness only possible through encounters with art”
Kenneth Fowler, Director of Communications and External Relations at Creative Scotland, said:
‘We know from independent research and testimony that art and creativity makes life better, improves our wellbeing, helps us learn, and brings us together in shared experience. We wholeheartedly support the Art Unlocks campaign from the Scottish Contemporary Art Network which demonstrates the positive impact that contemporary art has on people’s lives and encourages us all to get out, see some art, engage and participate.’
What’s happening in Scotland’s contemporary art community?
There’s no shortage of art to share this summer, with artists and venues reflecting the breadth and diversity of Scotland’s population while offering a range of fresh experiences.
Peacock Arts in Aberdeen creates opportunities for care-experienced young people to devise exhibitions and artworks. It also hosts visiting artists with socially engaged practices. The Donkey by Julio Jara, running until 16 July, is the first instalment in a multi-part project to create a “New Aberdeen Bestiary.” This compendium of spectacular animals fills in the gaps left in a 12th-century illuminated manuscript, The Aberdeen Bestiary. Jara creates his work with people who have experienced homelessness. The image of the donkey, with its many metaphorical associations, engages with thorny issues of social exclusion.
Looking forward across the summer, artists and venues at the Edinburgh Art Festival celebrating the 200th anniversary of the city’s Union Canal, exploring the theme of “wave of translation,” Many artists will offer imaginative insights into global cultures. Glasgow-based artist Ashanti Harris will bring the Caribbean carnival spirit to life at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, while at Sierra Metro in Leith, Studio Lenca will take stock of the complex history of their native El Salvador. Over at Collective on the iconic Calton Hill, artist Ruth Ewan will cast new light on the life of Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919). The Scottish-born steel magnate is known as a philanthropist of the arts, but exhibition The Beast will use archival research and surreal animations to focus on his exploitation of people and nature in pursuit of wealth.
At Dundee Contemporary Arts, Turner Prize-winning artist Douglas Gordon spins a mesmerising story of human resilience and creativity set against the backdrop of Europe’s troubled past. His multi-screen film-work k.364, on display until 7 August, follows two Polish-born Israeli musicians on a train journey from Berlin to Warsaw, where they perform Mozart’s k364 symphony. Along the way, Gordon’s subjects reflect on the very different journeys their ancestors might have been forced to make across the Polish-German border during the Second World War. But the power of creativity and of human relationships shines through, a moving message in a year when Europe is once again counting the costs of war.
Contemporary art can be found in every corner of Scotland, from Shetland to the Scottish Borders, and from the city to the countryside. In Arbroath on the Angus coast, arts venue Hospitalfield will host artists across 2022. In a unique partnership between Arbroath 2020, Angus Council and led by Historic Environment Scotland and Hospitalfield a beautiful new temporary building will be sited on the grounds of Arbroath Abbey. The New Scriptorium is designed by artist Bobby Niven and takes inspiration from the library or “scriptorium” that would have been part of the medieval abbey complex. The Short Sharp Stories programme will work with young participants to develop the skills and art of short story writing.
Meanwhile, in Portree on Skye, Atlas Arts are staging Feeling Wor(l)ds across 2022. This project encourages artists and audiences to consider how written correspondence between countries can help us to think differently about the places where we live, work, and create. Four artists, Camille Auer in Finland, Ashanti Harris and Katharine McFarlane in Scotland, and Astrida Neimanis in Canada, are exchanging ideas of “radical localism” informed by the others’cultures. Their learning will inform a programme of public performances and workshops.
In Orkney, the exhibition Inspirational Journeys, at Stromness’s Pier Arts Centre until 20 August, takes a fresh look at the life of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912-2004). Barns-Graham is an inspirational figure in the history of modern Scottish art, whose travels took her all over Europe in search of creative inspiration, including a period in Orkney during 1984-85.
Follow the #ArtUnlocks campaign on social for the latest updates using the hashtag #ArtUnlocks and visit www.sca-net.org/artunlocks for updates.
For further information please contact [email protected]
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Notes for Editors
SCAN
Scottish Contemporary Art Network (SCAN) connects and champions Scotland’s contemporary art community. Its 300 organisational and individual members work at the heart of communities from Shetland to the Scottish Borders and from East Lothian to the Western Isles. They include Scotland’s leading galleries, artists’ studios and workshops and production facilities and a highly skilled workforce of artists, art workers and creative thinkers. They sustain a network of free at the point of access galleries and venues, responsive and flexible institutions that anchor local communities and open their doors to their neighbours and visitors alike.
Creative Scotland
Creative Scotland is the public body that supports the arts, screen and creative industries across all parts of Scotland on behalf of everyone who lives, works or visits here. We enable people and organisations to work in and experience the arts, screen and creative industries in Scotland by helping others to develop great ideas and bring them to life. We distribute funding provided by the Scottish Government and the National Lottery. For further information about Creative Scotland please visit www.creativescotland.com. Follow us @creativescots and www.facebook.com/CreativeScotland
Our Creative Voice
Find out more about Creative Scotland’s project to encourage creativity and art at www.ourcreativevoice.scot
Picture by Julie Howden.