Aberdeen has lots to offer for the intrepid explorer who's willing to step off the beaten path and go a little bit deeper to find their art. With stunning architecture, a beautiful beach, wild dolphins, museums, botanic gardens and all the usual things that attract visitors, its Aberdeen's creative scene that's been my focus and trying to promote and help people find what's out there. Having lived here my whole life I've seen the city change and grow along with the cultural sector from the high end big budget festivals to the smaller grass roots collectives and spaces which have popped up.
With a failed 'City of Culture' bid and council strategies that often feel at odd's with what makes a city's culture fun and engaging, I'd like to take stock and dive into what our cultural footprint actually looks like along with the people, organisations, spaces and groups who drive and make things happen. This is important as it's often those who shout the loudest who get the attention but really a healthy art scene is made up of lots of big and small parts which in an ideal world would work together, collaborate and support each other. Some do, some don't and as with any city the deeper you go the more politics you have to navigate but ill leave that to one side and focus on what for me, makes Aberdeen a City of Culture!
CREATIVE SPACES
Creative Spaces are really important as artists need space to work and create and although many opt for home studio's the communal aspect of being in a shared space is also really important. Existing studio spaces like Wasps on Langstane Place and Shore Lane have been around for a number of years but tend to fly under the radar. We've seen an explosion of studio spaces in the last 5 years with the emergence of The Anatomy Rooms space, now ARKADE which offers studio space, an analogue photography darkroom, woodwork workshop and gallery space. Across from ARKADE you'll find Citymoves Dance Agency who offer dance classes for all levels and abilities. A whole building of creativity located at the back of the iconic Marischal College.
Studio wise you'll also find Kekun Studio in Rosemount & Deemouth Artist Studios in Torry. More recently Edinburgh Printmakers aka EP Spaces have set up a new initiative to access temporary studio spaces in commercial properties across Scotland including Aberdeen. Learning and making spaces are important both for artists and communities and Aberdeen has a wide range of spaces and initiatives. The Creative Learning team form part of the local councils arts outreach and provide opportunities for engagement through workshops and various other activities for children, adults and families.
Station House Media Unit (SHMU) based in Woodside offer a wide range of services and workshops initially working with residents in the cities 7 regeneration areas but have expanded to cover other areas and work with various diverse groups in the city. They run a Community Media program which teaches users about radio and video production, online publishing, music production and employability training. If you're looking tolearn or make prints and laser cuts then Peacock Visual Arts on Castle Street offer a range of services including screen printing, etching & riso printing. Peacock also have the WORM gallery space on the Castlegate. Peacock also launched their 'Boredom Boxes' in 2020, an initiative to help young people be creative during the 2020 Covid Lockdown and run various community programs.
Further afield you can learn a host of skills at the Scottish Sculpture Workshop located in Lumsden. They host courses and residencies so you can fully immerse yourself and learn new skills from blacksmithing, bronze & iron production and ceramics. Closer to home you'll find community and cakes at Second Home Cafe + Studio who run community focused workshops for all ages and host exhibitions. Although of no fixed abode, Open Road have spent the last year becoming embedded into the Fittie Community Hall where a team of artists, musician and community workers developed and delivered the Open Harbour : Open Sea project. Community based, community focused and community delivered projects with heart and passion is a direction I hope to see more of over the next few years.
You'll find links to all of these spaces below.
ARKADE - Citymoves Dance Agency - Creative Learning - Deemouth Artist Studios - EP Space - Kekun Studios - Open Road - Peacock Visual Arts - Second Home Cafe + Studio - Station House Media Unit SHMU - Scottish Sculpture Workshop - Wasps Langstane - Wasps Eagle House - We Are Here Scotland - 57 North Hack Lab
GALLERIES
Aberdeen boasts a large number of galleries and art spaces where you can see and engage with a range of art from the high end contemporary to humble paintings. For local museum collections and contemporary art ranging from Tracy Emin to Monet then Aberdeen Art Gallery is the place. With an estimated 40 million pound overhaul, the gallery is more accessible than ever and is home to an incredible collection along with large scale touring exhibitions. Also boasting an impressive collection of local art, Grampian Hospitals Art Trust are responsible for curating work around the North Easts NHS sites but also boast a fantastic gallery, The Suttie Art Space & The Small Gallery located at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. With ongoing work to digitize and make their extensive archive of work available to view online, the GHAT team do an amazing job showcasing art in the city along with workshops and events working with NHS patients and staff, providing support and some relief to both.Arkade Studios have recently established a new dedicated gallery in Arkade Gallery which aims to to support existing and emerging visual artists along with providing space for more off the cuff exhibitions. Peacock have been curating great shows at the WORM from across the contemporary art landscape from both UK and International artists since opening in 2017. Lesser talked about is their work with community groups and outreach workshops with a range of people from across the city. You can also find their brand new Peacock Print Store located up the West End of Union Street. You cant go wrong with smaller and independent galleries like Gallery Heinzel who show work all year round from some of Scotlands top painters and sculptors.
RGU's Look Again Project Space has played host to some great shows from both emerging and established artists from across the board. An extension of the Look Again Festival, the project space has rooted the team in the city centre and provided much needed space for artists while also building connections to Grays School of Art at RGU. RGU is also home to an impressive collection of art works under their RGU Art & Heritage Collections while Aberdeen University displays some incredible items via their Museums & Special Collections branch and their dedicated gallery space in the Sir Duncan Rice Library. Both universities have works on display across their campuses and also loan artifacts to other institutions from artworks to historically significant artifacts. Along with the museum team Aberdeen Uni is also home to the Art History team who cover a significant area of expertise from satirical political art of the 18th century to the Renaissance masters of the 15th century and up to modern eras and have been looking closely at the creativity that flourishes in our city.
A bit further out of Aberdeen you'll find The Barn in Banchory and in Huntly you'll find the fine folks at Deveron Arts. With a move online you can still find serene landscapes and moody cityscapes at The Butterworth Gallery. Artist Mary Louise Butterworth is also my partner and I'm constantly amazed by her talent. If you're up in Royal Deeside then the Braemar Gallery is a great place to check out both for art and their recurring music program. North of Braemar you'll find the LOST Gallery in Strathdon. Back in Aberdeen you'll find art for sale in the Nicole Porter & Enid Hutt Galleries.
You'll find links to all of these spaces below.
Aberdeen Art Gallery - Aberdeen University Museums & Special Collections - Aberdeen Uni Art History - ARKADE Gallery - The Butterworth Gallery - The BARN - Braemar Gallery - Deveron Arts - Enid Hutt Gallery - Grampian Hospitals Art Trust - Gallery Heinzel - LOST Gallery - Look Again Project Space - Nicole Porter Gallery - RGU Art & Heritage Collections - WORM
STREET ART & PUBLIC ART
If you prefer stumbling upon art then the city centre holds many wonderful art works both by local artists and a host of international street artists. Since 2017 we've been lucky to host Nuart Aberdeen, the first UK outing of the internationally renowned Nuart Festival based in Stavanger. Now in its sixth year, you can find work from some of the biggest names in the international street art scene. From Langstane Place to The Green you'll find over 30 painted doors curated by Painted Doors Abdn. The project shows off some of the incredibly talented artists who live and work in Aberdeen.If you're prepared to venture beyond the city centre then check out Victoria Art Road project. Featuring artworks and murals by local artists, the project looks to connect creative and community to improve the historic streets of Torry. Community and grass roots projects are in abundance in Aberdeen with initiatives like Throwup Gallery which bridges the gap between graffiti, street art and the cities outlying communities. Throwup along with graffiti writer Slave helped to convert Sunnybank Park into a legal graffiti wall which at the time was the first Wallspot location in Scotland. Wallspot
Aberdeen has numerous public artworks and sculptures dotted across the city from Hazelhead to the Beach with a whole load just a short walk from Aberdeen Art Gallery. You can find a handy online brochure from the council highlighting many of the artworks here and I also run a Sculpture Tour that takes in the city centre works along with some Nuart pieces, you can book on here. I'm also working on an expanded map of Aberdeen's public artworks. Along with art you can also learn about our local history with Hidden Aberdeen Tours headed up by local historian Fiona Jane Brown. I think we often forget about the contribution people like Fiona make to our city along with her colleagues at Aberdeen Universities Elphinstone Institute and the important work they do in telling our stories and reinvigorating our history.
You'll find links to all of these below.
Elphinstone Institue - Hidden Aberdeen Tours - Nuart Aberdeen - Painted Doors Aberdeen - Spectra Festival of Light - Sunnybank Wallspot - Throwup Gallery - Victoria Art Road
DANCE, MUSIC & PERFORMANCE
If performance art and dance are your thing then Citymoves have you covered. Citymoves Dance Agency have studios both on Schoolhill and at The Anatomy Rooms where I get to hear the pumping tunes from their kids dance classes on the daily. As I mentioned before Citymoves offer a range of dance classes and lessons for all abilities along with organising the impressive Dance Live festival which see's performances take place across the city from local groups to internationally acclaimed performers. This years festival is set to return in October so be sure to keep an eye out for the full program.
If music is your bag then Captain Toms have been providing rehearsal and recording space to the cities musicians for over 20 years along with helping to record & release music via their own record label. A true pillar of the Aberdeen music scene since 1997! Venues like Krakatoa also provide a much needed stage for bands in the city while the Blue Lamp is a friendly venue to all whether a night of music and poetry or an entire jazz festival. Speaking of which you'll find the Aberdeen Jazz Festival program online if that's your groove. You can often find live music whether its up and comers ripping up the stage at Drummonds or big touring bands at The Music Hall. If its the more avant-garde and experimental stuff your after then Sound Festival have you covered.
The Music Hall, Lemon Tree and His Majesty's Theatre all come under the Aberdeen Performing Arts umbrella. APA curate a host of events ranging from touring bands at The Music Hall, a venue with a fantastic history that has recently benifited from a 9 million pound refurb, His Majesty's Theatre who host big theatre productions and Broadway musicals along with the occasional gig like the Celebration of Kate Bush in 2016, part of the APA True North Festival. The Lemon Tree is the smallest venue on the APA portfolio but has played host to some incredible bands over the years inclduing Bloc Party before they exploded into the charts and Sigur Ros in 1999. The Lemon Tree also plays host to comedy acts and theatre productions in their upstairs studio space.
Just a short walk from The Lemon Tree you'll find the Aberdeen Arts Centre and Breakneck Comedy Club. Breackneck have been providing a stage for local comedians and international acts bringing some much needed laughs to the Granite City. The Arts Centre has also been an important cultural venue with a real focus on theatre & stage skills from performance to production. Along with hosting local productions and theatre groups they also run a Summer School program along with supporting creative learning across all areas of the performative arts. A hop and a skip down to The Tunnels where you'll also find a host of gigs and club nights for those who enjoy dancing into the early hours. Spin Aberdeen has emerged from the pandemic with regular DJ nights featuring all vinyl players and is home to an impressive record shop upstairs which host's regular record fair events.
One of our most iconic venues The Beach Ballroom also has an incredible history famously hosting The Fab Four and Aberdeen heartthrobs The Little Kicks. It's a beautiful piece of Art Deco architecture and the sprung dancefloor is unique. From ceilidh dancing to bouncing to Future Islands, the beach ballroom is an iconic venue and I hope the council keep it shining!
You'll find links to all of these below.
Aberdeen Arts Centre - Aberdeen Performing Arts - The Beach Ballroom - The Blue Lamp - Breakneck Comedy - Citymoves Dance Agency - Captain Toms - Drummonds - Foodstory Cafe - His Majesty's Theatre - Jazz Festival - Krakatoa - The Lemon Tree - The Music Hall - Sound Festival - Spin Aberdeen - True North Festival - The Tunnels
POETRY, LITERATURE & SPOKEN WORD
A new scene has emerged for those interested in poetry, literature and spoken word. Although that's probably really naive of me and I'm sure there have been untold people working in this area for decades especially with the Elphinstone Institute starting in 1995. But the last 2 years has seen the emergence of new groups like Hytseria & Leopard Arts both putting words at the forefront of what they do. The team at Leopard Arts also showcase lots of writing and visual work on their website along with pop ups at the Music Shop on Crown Street. And local writer Shane Strachan has been a leading light in the charge to highlight our literary heritage but also bringing it bang up to date with a doric twist.
Local poets and writers like Jo Gilbert and Kimberly Petrie have both recently produced and published great work. A search through the Leopard Arts site throws up a host of new names and writers to check out so well worth a look. The Granite Noir Crime Writing festival also highlights the cities appetite for literature and often throws up some interesting and gruesome history thanks to the Aberdeen City & Shire Archives team. Creative Me Podcast has been engaging in creative conversations with a host of artists, musicians, jewelers, rappers, festival organizers and bloggers like yours truly.
Literature events take place in a host venues across the city from the cities libraries to venues like The Blue Lamp and Spin. It's so important to recognize the contribution that grass roots organisations and venues make in helping culture bloom in our city whilst also helping to create space for the next generation.
You'll find links to all of these below.
Aberdeen Libraries - Aberdeen City & Shire Archives - Creative Me Podcast - Elphinstone Institute - Granite Noir - Hysteria Aberdeen - Leopard Arts
Craft, Design & Fashion
We've seen a resurgence in traditional skills in recent years or maybe its just become more visible but it's amazing to see so many talented makers and creators in the North East who stretch from Stonehaven to Peterhead and beyond. There's often a blurring of the lines between craft, design, fashion and art, often with one complimenting the other and many creatives may be well known for their design work but this is underpinned by traditional painting & drawing skills and vice versa. I felt it was important to look at design across all fields and to try and build up a better picture of what it looks like across Aberdeen and the shire.
When it kicked off in 2015 Look Again Aberdeen originally launched as a Visual Art & Design Festival which aimed to showcase the very best from both fields. This led to great initiatives like Look Inside Design Collective with their 'Aberdeen Collection' and the HAAN Design markets which has also led to makers work being exhibited and sold in Aberdeen Art Gallery. SMART also helped kick off the craft fair resurgence with their Tea Cosy & Glass House events which provided a platform for hundreds of makers. The quality and range of work has always been impressive and showed that good design exists in the North East. A logical extension of this has been the development of Deemouth Artist Studios which is home to designers like Aubin Jewellery, Camban Studio & Kevin Andrew Morris.
Kevin is also part of the Aberdeen Ceramics Studio, a group of makers who hope to provide an open access ceramics studio for access to equipment and workshops for potters in Aberdeen. You'll find a great number of potters and ceramicists based across the area like Artroxinabox & Cloud Pottery so it will be a well used space I'm sure. Local ceramicist Helen Love created a brilliant online resource in the Glaze Spectrum which shared recipes and visual aids for making up ceramic glazes with a real life version on show at the art gallery. The website was designed by the team at Design and Code who've really helped to bridge the gap between design and art through emerging 3D and virtual technologies. If you viewed the digital degree show during 2020 / 21 then you have DAC to thank for it. The team work on a wide range of projects from commercial and 3D design to more creative projects like 'Glisk'.
Design & Fashion is perhaps the are I have the least knowledge of. I remember filming the very first RGU fashion show at Aberdeen Art Gallery many years ago now and was amazed by the quality of the production, comparable to anything you'd see in Paris or London and the art gallery provided a stunning backdrop for the models who walked the walk with confidence and grace. Since then I've seen a few fashion shows at the Degree Shows in Garthdee and always enjoy seeing the students garments on display across the school. Of course no all fashion needs to be high end couture pieces and designers like Fernweh, Kiss My Kunst, Cannibal Cubs & Doric Skateboards have all carved out their own niche wares.
Beyond Aberdeen you'll find exciting spaces like the FOLD shop at The Barn in Banchory and The Smiddy in Banff, a community enterprise space focusing on jewellery making and silversmithing. With this years NEOS North East Open Studios on the horizon its the perfect time to check out who's there with hundreds of home studios and facilities dotted around with artist's working across all mediums.
You'll find links below.
ARTISTS & MAKERS
Aberdeen is home to so many incredibly talented individuals, working across lots of mediums from fine art to music, graffiti and performance. I'm going to try and create a repository of everyone who's making, doing and pushing both their own and others creative practices in the city. You'll find my MoC Artist A to Z below. Also Creative Me Podcast has been shining a light on creativity in the North East through a series of podcast interviews with well known and less well know artists and makers, it's well worth a listen!
Aberdeen Artists Society share many of our goals with regards to the promotion and support of artists in the city although they've got a 180 year head start on us. The council also have a handy search feature for the Art Galleries extensive collection so if you want to see more by T. B. Huxley-Jones or James Furneaux then simply type in their names and hit send. The only downside is that not everything has been digitised yet so you might find blank tiles for some of the search results.
You'll find links below.
CREATIVITY & COMMUNITY
Art and culture focused on connecting creatives with their communities is something that I think will be central to the success of culture in Aberdeen but it also the biggest challenge. And I don't just mean within the creative community but how we as artists can help in our own communities where we live and work. I recently did some research off the back of an article that implied having artists and curators from other cities working in Aberdeen was a bad thing. Where the authors think they have all the answers to solve Aberdeen's problems I think they are only a small part of the solution and it actually requires a complete overhaul of how we think about culture in our city, looking at art as a holistic service that can be used along with provisions like health care and mental health support to mend some of the wounds we see in our society while also creating space for artists and their ideas to flourish as self serving projects, art for art sake without the need to fit into funding criteria to be validated or supported.
Art for art sake is fine as is the academic route and I've seen many artists come through both and go on to do great work in their wider communities through initiatives like Creative Learning and Art Room from GHAT. Indeed they are probably already doing all of the above in helping to heal and support people in Aberdeen but I sometimes struggle to untangle these streams. It's the work that goes on in the background or behind the scenes, often the important stuff that get's the least attention. I think the people doing this work are so busy doing the good stuff that they don't have time to also shout about it and be their own cheerleaders. One of my favourite examples of the community based approach comes from Newton Dee who use art and creativity as not only a tool but a way to find deeper human connection with their residents, a way for people to express themselves and find fulfilment in the everyday and a way to connect with others. I recently visited Simeon and found out more about what they do and it was perhaps one of the most inspiring places I've been to.
So what do we need to take that model and extrapolate it across the city? Financial resources yes, willing artists and new graduates I think we have in abundance, people to start those conversations with communities? Asking communities what they need and what issues they face is an important question. Maybe being prepared to do the ground work with no or little resources or support too. There's a lot of interesting road ahead on this subject and its something I'm still investigating and learning about so if you have any input into this subject or indeed any of the work I do then I'd love to hear from you.
You'll find links below.
