Hello and welcome to REVEAL Scotland. My name is Jamie Smith and I’m REVEAL Scotland coordinator.
What is REVEAL Scotland?
Revealscotland.org is a blog-driven website offering disabled artist profiles, a sector-wide contacts database and an up-to-date exhibitions and performance diary. It is curated and edited by partially-sighted journalist and freelance musician Jamie Smith and aims to make all things arts and disability accessible to a mainstream readership. The blog developed out of Jamie’s one-year arts traineeship with Artlink Central director, Kevin Harrison, which was supported by Creative Scotland.
Our work so far…
I came into this post very much as an outsider with little experience of Inclusive Arts. It has been a fascinating first year. I’ve traveled extensively around central Scotland interviewing successful artists – painters, dancers, musicians, actors – on their experiences and aspirations. I’ve recruited eight to ten of these artists, representing the whole range of arts, to our REVEAL steering group. The group has met three times this year to discuss how the project should move forward, debate issues around disabled artists’ careers in Scotland, and advise on the progress and content of the REVEAL Scotland website
What is the steering group for?
This is not a top-down project. Through this website REVEAL Scotland is making itself a central point of contact for Inclusive Arts professionals around Scotland, as well as an invalubale resource for people interested in getting into the sector. However, for the project to be successful it is artists themselves who must grasp this opportunity to pull together and start combining their voices to promote the outstanding work being created across Scotland.
I hope that by meeting each other, often for the first time, these shining lights of the arts scene will feel that there is a great opportunity for collaboration across the sector: that a chorus of voices is stronger than individual ones when addressing the wider arts sector, funding bodies and society as a whole. I am very excited about the possibilities.
What’s coming up…
REVEAL Scotland will be adding more artist profiles over the coming months. If you’re an artist who thinks they should be included, please do get in touch: revealscotland@artlinkcentral.org. We aim to come up with practical ways to move forward and collaborate more widely across art forms and across geographical areas and want to involve and inspire the next generation of artists, regardless of their impairment or disability. For us, it’s all about the art!
