Two of Aberdeen’s major arts festivals, SPECTRA and Look Again, are looking to Aberdeen’s business community to offer large work spaces for major pieces of festival art to be produced in the city.
Both festivals take place in Aberdeen and are currently looking to build big scale artworks for the 2017 festivals. SPECTRA takes place in February 2017 with Look Again stepping out over a long weekend at the end of April next year.
The two festivals are now calling on businesses in Aberdeen to think about offering unused large spaces in places such as factories, storage facilities, warehouses or business premises to enable festivals to create and produce major art in the city. The ideal space would be ground floor and have vehicle access ensuring work can be created at scale.
As well as benefitting the creative life of the city, businesses can take advantage of a number of incentives that can be applied for when utilising space in this way such as charitable mandatory relief, fresh start rates relief and the small business bonus.
Andy Brydon Curator & Director of Curated Place, the organisation that delivers SPECTRA said: ‘Developing, creating and building large scale artworks in the city is an ambition driven by a recent resurgence in the city’s cultural, arts and festivals sector which means that festivals and artists are seeking to produce major pieces of public art in Aberdeen. It’s an exciting time in Aberdeen at the moment and it would be brilliant if we could develop, create and build pieces in the city. It also means that the people of Aberdeen can feel more ownership of the art, rather than this work being built somewhere else and then delivered to Aberdeen in the run-up to the festival.’
SPECTRA is the city’s ‘Festival of Light’ and attracted 35,000 people to its four day free public event in February this year. The festival saw famous Aberdonians projected onto Marischal College’s historic granite as well as famed outdoor artwork ‘The Pool’, by Jen Lewin in Union terrace Gardens. There were also light inspired art installations in St Nicholas Kirk.
The festival recently won the ‘Festival of the Year’ accolade at the annual national Scottish Events Awards in Glasgow.
Also looking for a space to develop innovative new work is the city’s leading visual art and design festival, Look Again. Famed for its re- dressing of the city’s statues in 2015 and the installation of a mirrored pavilion at the Castlegate this year, Look Again asks locals to ‘Become a tourist in your own city’ and attracted over 15,000 attenders to the festival this year.
Led by Robert Gordon University and delivered by local arts specialists and curators, SMART, Look Again has brought major pieces to the city including Turner prize winners Assemble during the 2016 event.
The festival takes place over the last weekend of April and into May in 2017.
Sally Moir is founder and director of SMART and director of Look Again. She said:
‘The benefits of having art developed and created in Aberdeen are that the city and its people really reap the rewards. Artists living and working in the city adds vibrancy to the sense of ‘place’ and boosts creativity for all. If businesses or other organisations offer premises for art to be created the business will also be rewarded as the knock-on effect is that staff and business owners are connected to the work and are able to watch the process as the art develops.’
Both festivals are members of Aberdeen Festivals, a consortium of ten festivals in the region that have come together to collectively promote Aberdeen’s festivals, develop audiences and strengthen the festivals and cultural sectors.
Further benefit to the city’s cultural economy could be unlocked through a like for like arts grant funding scheme which could mean that the support could be eligible for £1 to £1 match sponsorship from Arts and Business Scotland.
Businesses are encouraged to contact Angela Michael at Aberdeen Festivals if they have any questions or ideas about spaces that could be used.