Symposia

‘State of Play – Art and Culture in Scotland ’

A series of three one-day symposia planned over the next two years in different locations in Scotland

Art and cultural activity has always been a low priority for our politicians – 10 different culture ministers for Scotland in as many years is evidence enough. It is imperative for artists and the art world to step up its lobbying to persuade politicians of the crucial significance of art and culture for our society.

Our ambition is to be pioneering and challenging, developing and supporting a series of events that are visible and relevant locally, while being nationally and internationally aware. AHM want to act both as a catalyst and an importer and exporter of thinking and debate on contemporary art practice and how it can benefit society and the perception of Scottish culture internationally.

The symposia aim to establish a forum to examine and explain how art and culture help us to define our relationship with the world. We are developing themes that we believe are central to our overall aims. Gerry Hassan’s call to ‘bring the radicals in from the margins’ and ‘the crucial challenge will be how we nurture and encourage the radical imagination, and devise cultures, spaces and institutions, as well as our politics, to be more open to the new, the unorthodox and the daring’, is our starting point for the symposia. The symposia will also aim to encourage and promote what Neil Mulholland regards as a major problem within the art world itself which he describes as ‘ the lack of an on-going generative critique’. He argues that most writing on visual art is ‘reportage’ and very little addresses an overarching interrogation of the current condition.

These symposia will offer a platform for alternative ways forward for art and artists. The symposia will be held in three cities in Scotland to enable the proposed debate to be national rather than regional.