Dreaming of a fairer future for Scotland
Earlier this year, we launched phase 1 of a newly reimagined EDI co-learning network, delivered in partnership with Equal Media and Culture Centre for Scotland (under the leadership of Katie Goh), with expert guidance from Matthew Hickman, and thanks to support from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
The work of this new network will grow iteratively, rooted in opportunities to learn, share, discuss and think together. To frame, inform and inspire our thinking, we began 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".
Today, we’re delighted to share their work:
Alberta Whittle
We are our hope
Watercolour on paper
29.7 x 42 cm
“WE ARE OUR HOPE” is simultaneously a reminder to come together, a call for resistance and an incantation for hope. These ideals ground my practice and keep me going in the harrowing conditions of climate and political apocalypse.
Harry Josephine Giles
A letter fae the wrack
Letter
In a time of disaster, how should we think about culture? When equality, diversity and inclusion are under multi-pronged attack, what do we truly want to defend? Were the seeds of the present crisis planted in these words all along?
Harry Josephine Giles wants a more human conversation about these questions. If we want to think differently, maybe we need different methods. Away from the noise and fury of an ever-available online, she'd like to send you a letter and invite you into correspondence.
Complete this form to request a personalised, hard copy letter in the post from Harry Josephine.
Harry Mould
DREAM BIG
Essay
I tell you I’ve been asked to write something. Respond to a theme–you know,artistically,because I am an Artist.I tell you the theme, and you say Wow, that’s hard. Everything is already so fair!and I agree, nodding emphatically,and we go to a show, mine or yours or someone we don’t know, becausewe can, and becausethe day is curious and I have paid my electricity bill without even really noticing. The show is bold, properly genuinely bold and destroying, and in the darkness of the theatre, I am excited to be alive with you.
Indra Wilson
Short film
Kezia Lewis
Artist, Mother, Mother Artist
Digital collage
Description:
An amalgamation of figures of women in various arts settings, at times alone, as viewer or creator or facilitator, and sometimes in community or with her child in tow.
Kezia says: “This piece speaks to the juggle of being a creative and a mother, and in particular a mother of colour. To navigate the arts as a working parent, the conflict of time to make work as a parent if it is not your main job, the need to create more spaces for women of colour working in creative fields, more affordable access to the arts and exhibitions for parents, the need for more free creative spaces and hubs for children, more funding for artist parents to access workshops and residencies with physical or financial support in place for childcare”.
Miwa Nagato-Apthorp
Untitled
Song
Miwa says: “It took me a while to figure out how to approach the prompt as I found it difficult to know where to begin with imagining a fairer future for culture without that contemplation unfurling outwards to encompass so many things that it would be impossible to fit them all in a song (fair pay for artists across the sector; dismantling capitalism; defunding the police; an end to racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, ableism; legitimate steps taken to slow down/prevent environmental collapse; funding the NHS and mental health services; revolutionising the education system and and end to the occupation and genocide in Palestine). I think we are all trying to do our bit but in reality I don't know if we will ever truly have a fair society, therefore sector, without those changes being made and a lot of it is out of our hands..
I do however have ultimate faith in the advocacy, protest and revolutionary space-taking that I see being enacted by friends and peers who have lived experience of marginalisation and are using their voices/bodies/art to push for change. The song that I ended up writing is an ode to those people and was written in heartfelt solidarity with them”.
Lyrics
Love I know you’ve been healing,
I’ve been healing too
I hate that you understand the feeling
Of being split in two
Taught to face one half of you while the other fades from view
And in this way you are never truly known, truly known
You wish to be loved and left alone
My love is a dancing revolution
On tired feet
Those who came before are dancing with them
In the quiet street
We are here we are here we are here, we always have been
We are going nowhere, nowhere
We wish to be loved and left alone
Love is an ancient understanding
Born again each day
Love is to look upon the moment
and not turn away
And finding strength to listen to
the story as it summons you
To speak the truth about the things you see
Love is rebellion and integrity
Love I know you’ve been healing
And you’ve been trying to
Weave the fibers of this feeling into something new
So may every kindness that you give return to you threefold
may you know what is and isn’t yours to hold
May you be loved and left alone