A new £1.4m scheme is set to fund a series of artists? residencies in communities previously defined as ?culture-poor?. The Partners initiative is a Scottish Arts Council (SAC) scheme designed to support residencies lasting from three months to two years in Social Inclusion Partnership areas and in areas where people have had few or no opportunities to participate in the arts.
SAC hopes that the scheme will offer financial security to artists from a variety of artforms as well as providing the opportunity for communities to learn how artists work, encouraging participation in the arts. Launching the scheme, Richard Holloway, Chairman of the Scottish Arts Council, said, ?One of the things we have learned from all the research that has been done into what is now called social exclusion is that the people caught in that particular trap are not only money-poor, they are culture-poor. Since the culture-poor find it almost impossible to access the transforming possibilities of art, art has decided to come to them.? Sixteen initial partnerships were announced at the launch including a two-year dance residency in Clackmannanshire run by Scottish Traditions of Dance Trust; a project involving a writer, graphic artist and web designer helping children in West Dunbartonshire to produce animated stories, poem posters and cartoons; and a project at Hidden Gardens in Glasgow where a resident artist will develop a programme of events with the local community, resulting in exhibitions and events presented at Tramway. The scheme is now accepting applications from communities, schools and workplaces wishing to host a residency, with the next deadline for applications in early July. A toolkit for prospective applicants is
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w: http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/information/publications/1001859.aspx