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Artists in Exile Glasgow

The project attempts to address the need to provide access for asylum seeking, refugee and displaced artists to the arts community in Glasgow and its resources, and to provide opportunities for professional development within this community in an integrated network which is capable of harnessing the creativity of individuals from multi-cultural backgrounds in the creation and performance / exhibition of new work.

The project draws on the expertise and experiences of London based Artists in Exile. The company was established in September 2000 in response to the need for a focus for a growing number of refugee artists. Artists meet on a regular basis to experiment, to share practice and ideas, to discuss and plan potential collective projects and to feedback on current work. The company also facilitates production of public performances and exhibitions, giving members an opportunity to showcase their work.

A series of regular fortnightly meetings will take place over a six month period to March 2004 and will allow time for the viability of the project to be tested, and the level of demand determined. The content of these meetings would be determined by the group, but could include training in particular performance techniques, sharing and discussing members work, and workshopping of collaborative projects. These meetings would be held at The Arches and would dovetail with the organisations existing Artists Forum. This would allow a genuine integration of artists from a wide variety of backgrounds, rather than establishing a network for refugee artists only that fails to integrate with the existing arts community.

Our Philosophy

Artists in Exile is open to individuals working in all artistic disciplines. An integral objective of the project is to offer opportunities for performance and exhibition of work created by the members of the network. This will be facilitated in an informal way through opportunities for sharing at the fortnightly meetings, but in addition a number of opportunities for larger scale public performance/exhibition have been identified. The Arches have programmed space at the end of this six month pilot for a performance / exhibition / event by the group.

In the long term, it is hoped that continuity can be maintained and that the established group evolves in a similar way to Artists in Exile, able to fulfil a similar role in providing a focus for professional artists from asylum seeking and refugee communities, and facilitate the professional development of artists and the production of new work.