Culture Counts

New open access book, Performing Artists and Precarity by Philip Hancock and Melissa Tyler offers an in-depth focus on the different kinds of precarity experienced by cultural and creative workers:

How the fusion of emerging technologies and the Creative Industries can transform the UK’s approach to skills, innovation and business. New report from The Royal Anniversary Trust, funded by DCMS

Our next Core Members meeting, focuses on the theme 'Looking forward, looking outward', considering what aspirational vision for the future for the sector in Scotland might look like. Thursday 20th March, 10am-1pm at the Adam Smith Theatre in Kirkcaldy.

"Despite economic constraints, it is possible to increase funding for the arts if the political will exists". Alistair Smith writes in the Stage on what recent developments in Scotland's cultural funding might mean within an UK-wide context:

We're excited to have launched phase 1 of a newly reimagined EDI co-learning network, we're aiming to create space for Core Members of Culture Counts, and others across the sector, to learn and work together on questions around building a fairer and more equal culture sector. Delivered in partnership with Equal Media and Culture Centre for Scotland, and with expert guidance from Matthew Hickman, the work of this new network will grow iteratively, rooted in opportunities to learn, share, discuss and think together. To frame and inform this thinking, we’re beginning by commissioning six diverse artists from across Scotland to create short, new pieces of work on the theme of "dreaming of a fairer future for culture". These commissions, from Alberta Whittle, Harry Josephine Giles, Harry Mould, Indra Wilson, Kezia Lewis and Miwa Nagato-Apthorp will inspire and guide our discussions as a network, and offer us fuel to think together about the kind of future we're aiming toward. The first opportunity to hear from some of our commissioned artists, and discuss what comes next for us as a network, will be at our next Core Members Meeting. This will be held on Thursday 20. March 2025, at the Adam Smith Theatre in Kirkcaldy. Find out more about the relaunch of the network, and the upcoming core members event below:

The next meeting of the CPG on Culture & Communities, is coming up later this month the theme: "Big ambitions for culture and communities" in Scotland". The meeting takes place online Tue, 25 Feb 2025 18:00 - 19:30 Find out more and register: https://buff.ly/3Wm7CA4

Our full reaction to today's Creative Scotland multi-year-funding announcement welcoming the security of funding over the coming three years that many creative organisations, across the country, will now have. Read more: https://lnkd.in/esTZi-Ts

Creative Scotland have announced the outcome of the multi-year funding process: https://lnkd.in/eqdcwUaG

Even Here, Even Now, a live event celebrating island-based artists at St George's Tron Church, Glasgow, on Friday 31 January at 6pm. Even Here, Even Now is a new “manifesto for change” collectively written by artists living in Shetland, Orkney and the Outer Hebrides. It represents the voices of island-based musicians, visual artists, film-makers, theatre-makers and more, and sets out what needs to change so that creative voices who are a vital part of the national cultural conversation are heard and supported. Their first event on the mainland - taking place the same weekend as three major Celtic Connections gigs showcasing musicians from Orkney, Shetland, Uist and the Isle of Lewis – will include live performances by Josie Duncan (Isle of Lewis) and Amy Laurenson (Shetland), finger food by Milk Catering (Shetland) and creative opportunities to respond to the Even Here, Even Now manifesto. Find out more and register: https://lnkd.in/dAr2a5zF

From economic value to audiences to placemaking, our updated Useful Facts indexes a host of new facts demonstrating the impact and value of arts, heritage and creative industries. https://lnkd.in/gyt9D8G