Summerhall Arts is a new independent charitable organisation that has been created of a real necessity to develop and support the artistic and cultural community of Edinburgh and Scotland as a result of the significant cuts to opportunities within established institutions.

Summerhall Arts has risen from the work started within Summerhall, the venue, a cultural phenomenon that has captured the hearts and imaginations of the artistic community of Edinburgh, Scotland and the rest of the world.

Summerhall Arts supports opportunity, inclusivity and accessibility and develops emerging and early career artists, providing a safe, inclusive and accessible base for creatives to play with form and find a voice. It will also programme seasons of new writing to give finished pieces of work an outlet, which is just not happening in the city.

As the funding landscape at best, sits at standstill for established building based organisations, the sector is seeing huge cuts and reductions to development programmes, learning opportunities and support to creative practitioners. Current organisations are having to shed the very programmes and opportunities that have led to an incredible wealth of Scottish creative talent within the sector. This will soon run dry and we will feel the effect of these cuts and reductions until it is too late to save. The cuts to programmes and opportunities are being done to maintain significant core costs that come with traditional building-based arts organisations.

Summerhall Arts is agile and flexible with regards to administration and institutional costs and is looking to provide a diverse and ambitious programme of opportunities for professional development, to creative practitioners, across the performative and visual arts.

30 years of experience in the sector have equipped us with the knowledge and understanding of what is required to support creative practitioners and the creative community, as well as the skills to do so. We can provide the creative practitioners of the sector the building blocks and support mechanisms they need no matter what stage of their career or project is at.

We use the analogy of the Trivial Pursuit counter to describe the role of Summerhall Arts for the sector. At the start of a game, it is a daunting prospect beginning with an empty counter, huddled in the middle of the board with many others in the same position with many choices of which direction to go in. You may not be confident about some areas, do you tackle them first or leave till last, the route or the strategy you negotiate the board is different for all and you are forced to change plans and directions at a moment’s notice due to the roll of the dice. Summerhall Arts is going to be there to allow each emerging arts organisation or early career individual or practitioner to begin the game with two wedges in their weakest areas.

By providing this for them they will complete their project more effectively and quickly creating more capacity within the sector. For some, that is Time and Space, for some Space and Money, for others it is Mentorship and Time. Summerhall Arts will be able to provide this ‘leg up’ to allow them to be able to compete on a level playing field, nationally and internationally.

Summerhall Arts, being based at Summerhall has access to much space to allow opportunities to happen, space that is so vital and very hard to come by. We will be able to facilitate five time the opportunities to other organisations purely due to the number of spaces it has access to.