Introduction
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| Helping the Visual Arts in the Highlands and Islands |
The Visual Arts in the Highlands and Islands are more vibrant than ever before. There are more galleries, more open studios, more artists working here, more public art projects, more opportunities for people to get involved. The crucial issue is to ensure that this terrific growth can be sustained.
Both the Five Challenges report, commissioned by HI~Arts, and the Highlands and Islands Visual Arts Gathering held in Ullapool in November 2006 have produced a substantial number of views and recommendations on courses of action which would help to develop the broad visual arts sector in the Highlands and Islands—artists, galleries, artsworkers, and those keen to be involved in the visual arts.
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No one agency can take on the responsibility of delivering all these recommendations, but HI~Arts is contracted by Highlands and Islands Enterprise to develop the arts in the area, and so our next step is to draw from these recommendations a coherent plan which it is both feasible and appropriate for HI~Arts to aim to deliver.
HI~Arts has therefore contracted Georgina Coburn, author of the Five Challenges report, to pull this plan together, drawing on, not only her own report and the Gathering discussions, but also the draft Culture (Scotland) Bill and Guidance to Local Authorities, and other relevant documents such as the Highlands and Islands Enterprise Network Strategy and the Scottish Arts Council’s recent strategic changes.
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In addition, and as promised at the Gathering, HI~Arts will be convening two consultative meetings in March, one with those galleries and centres which are in receipt of public funding, and one involving the many artists’ groups and studio trails which have developed in recent years, and which were so well represented at the Gathering.
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Over the sixteen years of its existence HI~Arts has already undertaken substantial work in support of the Visual Arts. From the outset, in the wake of the Hi-Light Year of the Arts in 1990/91, HI~Arts has maintained a comprehensive database of arts organisations and events, including temporary exhibitions throughout the area. In 1999 and 2001 we produced two editions of a highly successful printed Highlands and Islands Gallery Guide and since then we have maintained a comprehensive online gallery guide, with currently over 150 listings. Between 2000 and 2002 we undertook a major marketing project in support of those Highlands and Islands galleries which received Scottish Arts Council funding. For many years now we have been able to offer (with SAC and HIE funding) an annual programme of Awards for Artists. The Gathering last November was just the latest (and by far the largest) of a number of such visual arts events which we have held over the last decade. We have been able to provide funding (from HIE) to assist the programme of presentations of Highlands and Islands artists at art fairs in Glasgow and London, and in 2006 we assisted the first studio trail programme organised by Highland Open Studios. We have also, over the years, encouraged and advised on the development and funding of visual arts facilities in Shetland, Orkney, Sutherland, Wester Ross, Skye, Argyll, the Western Isles, Moray, Inverness and Fort William, among others. We also have strong links with the UHI Millennium Institute and its component colleges, especially Moray College and its BA Fine Art course. HI~Arts is also represented on the SAC’s Own Arts Panel, selecting galleries which can offer interest-free loans for art purchases.
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To date, however, we have not undertaken a single, coherent programme of development which would be equivalent to those which we have devised for music, writing, and drama. One reason for this is that, until recently, the visual arts sector in the Highlands and Islands has been very fragmented, and individual artists have not had the benefit of representative groups which could argue for their needs, and with which HI~Arts could collaborate. That situation has changed significantly, the time is ripe for considering the potential for a more wide-ranging, long term project of development, and the Five Challenges report was commissioned with that possible outcome in mind.
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Of course, HI~Arts, though funded by, and working in partnership with, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the Scottish Arts Council, is only one independent agency, and cannot (and should not) take on the task of addressing all the needs of artists and the wider visual arts sector. In particular, HI~Arts has no remit to work in the formal schools sector, and so when considering questions relating to education, we can only seek to be involved in the informal sector, and in forging links between galleries and artists, on the one hand, and the UHIMI Network on the other. But we can seek to develop, or ensure access to, specific training for artists, especially in the area of business and marketing development.
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Our development programme therefore will highlight those areas which HI~Arts has both the remit and, given suitable funding, the resources to develop, while also indicating those areas which are more appropriately the province of other agencies.
It is crucial, however, that this development plan belongs, not to HI~Arts, but to the visual arts sector as a whole. The Gathering was a very positive demonstration of the energy, creativity and commitment which are driving the visual arts in the Highlands and Islands today. Any development which HI~Arts undertakes must tap into that energy, and ensure that, ultimately, it is the artists themselves who are taking control of their own future!
Robert Livingston
Director, HI-Arts
January 2007 |
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HI~Arts Projects
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