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Artists-in-residence programme will create 'vital employment' in Caithness


By Alan Hendry

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Lyth Arts Centre is seeking proposals from professional artists who work in any art form or medium. Picture: SDM Photography
Lyth Arts Centre is seeking proposals from professional artists who work in any art form or medium. Picture: SDM Photography

An ambitious community arts project is to provide "vital employment" in Caithness as the creative industries begin to emerge from the Covid-19 crisis.

CAIR: Caithness Artists in Residence, led by Lyth Arts Centre (LAC) and other local organisations, will connect artists and creative practitioners with distinct communities within the county.

It will mean five artists being employed for seven months in an initiative aimed at boosting people's wellbeing and supporting community cohesion during the recovery from the pandemic.

LAC is seeking proposals from professional artists who work in any art form or medium, with a deadline for applications of Monday, November 23.

"We hope this project will explore how LAC can work with artists and facilitate creative responses to local problems, encouraging creative cultural activism and looking at what an artist and community-centric approach to recovery after coronavirus might include," LAC co-director Charlotte Mountford said.

"As part of their application we're asking artists to identify the communities they want to work with. The community could be a geographical community but it also includes social communities, communities of interests or a specified demographic.

"During the residency, we'll work with the artists to co-design a bespoke programme of work that will be participatory and socially engaged and will collaboratively explore local themes and issues.

"We've also asked artists who are thinking of applying to read to three locality plans that Caithness Voluntary Group produced earlier in the year. While there were many positives, these reports clearly capture the nature of deprivation in the three areas described in the reports – Wick, Thurso and rural Caithness.

"Unfortunately, many of these inequalities have been worsened during the pandemic. This project examines the wider socio-economic crisis that surrounds Covid-19.

"LAC has identified several community partners across Caithness who all are excited about the potential of culture as a transformative opportunity across our society. These include Thurso Community Development Trust, Home-Start, Pulteneytown People's Project and Caithness Community Connections."

Charlotte Mountford, co-director of Lyth Arts Centre. Picture: SDM Photography
Charlotte Mountford, co-director of Lyth Arts Centre. Picture: SDM Photography

It is hoped there can be a strong physical element to the project, rather than an all-virtual approach, depending on coronavirus guidance.

"Of course, the national guidelines for social distancing and safe working will be observed at all times," Ms Mountford said.

"We are encouraging creative responses at this difficult time and are imagining a combination of virtual and socially distanced delivery – but we're really keen for the residencies to be as 'physical' as is safely possible.

"The residencies will be available to artists who are based in Caithness, or have a strong connection to the area or the Caithness communities they will be working with. We hope that means they will be able to deliver on the ground, in person, when it's safe to."

Ms Mountford described it as one of the biggest creative initiatives ever undertaken by LAC.

"We were lucky to receive funding from the highly competitive new fund from Inspiring Scotland called the Creative Communities programme and also used a portion of the Performing Arts Venues Relief Fund we received for the project," she said. "We will be employing five artists for seven months, as well as providing training and materials budgets for them and participants."

She added that the benefits would be threefold.

"For our Caithness communities and participants, I really believe CAIR can create spaces for change and transformation.

"The potential for art and creativity to improve people's wellbeing, and to support community cohesion, has really been evidenced through this pandemic and now is the time to capitalise on that energy and really see what we can achieve.

"For artists and creatives in Caithness, I hope this project will provide vital employment at a time when much of the creative industries is in crisis. This is not a traditional ‘artist residency’ – we use the term residency to describe the fact of being in a place and in a community.

"We anticipate the residencies will be an opportunity for artists to collaboratively explore their practice and process.

"And for us, we really want this project to re-imagine what an arts organisation for Caithness can be as our community moves forward from coronavirus. It's a new way of working for us that we hope will be a framework for the future."

The artists who are selected will start their initial training and planning days in mid-December ahead of the project's launch in January 2021.

Details of the call-out are on the LAC website.


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