I’m Gillian Martin. Also known as Misssy M. I’m a creative type, I’m also a yes voter. I’m a member of National Collective and I want to get out there and start talking to people about independence. I’m not a politician, I don’t belong to any party and I don’t have a mainstream media outlet to talk to people. I just make things and want my country to run its own affairs.
This summer Scotland is going to be thrumming with people like me doing creative things for independence, one glance at the National Collective website is testament to that. Like many folk I’ve created art that is inspired by the independence debate. I realise that lots of you feel the same and are creating are based around Scotland’s Referendum.
We artists might not be the types best suited to canvassing or standing on a podium but we still have something to say and we still have a lot to give the campaign for independence in our own unique way. In talking to likeminded friends I realised we could do something pretty special. So we decided to set up an art exhibition called Aye Inspired which is full of art inspired by independence.
Last month I put the call out on Twitter, initially thinking that because we had an Aberdeen venue it would be Aberdonians who showed an interest. I was wrong, it was bigger than that. In the space of 24 hours I had over thirty artists wanting to submit, from all over Scotland and even from overseas. There’s forty-four of us at the moment, but we want you to join in. Submissions are open now and your art would have to be with us by June 1st.
At the moment we have our debut venue in Aberdeen’s Priory in Belmont Street. We will be opening the exhibition on the Saturday and Sundays of the last three weeks in July, spilling out from our venue onto the pedestrianised artistic hub of Aberdeen that is Belmont Street (weather of course permitting!). But we’re also looking for other suitable Scottish venues that could take it on for set periods right up until the 18th September.
Are you an artist who would like to submit an independence inspired piece of work? If so, get in touch. Are you a gallery, venue, cafe, pub, village hall, castle, boatshed, cinema, arts venue, theatre or anywhere where we can show art and have the public come in and look at it and talk to us? Get in touch. And if you haven’t got a venue, aren’t an artist but want to help us make it happen why not donate a few bawbees to our Indiegogo funding page? Everything we crowdsource will be used to get the exhibition to venues, have launch nights, buy materials, get publicity material printed and facilitate any travelling the exhibition does. We’ve already raised over £700. All named contributors will be having their names incorporated into a piece of work made by artist Lindsay Allardyce, who is also one of our organisers. And as with all Indiegogo campaigns there’s a range of other perks for those that dig deep. So if you want to help us get out there as artists and start our conversation with the voting public as artists, please give whatever you can. It could be 50p, it could be 5 bawbees, it could be what you’ve saved in not buying David Bowie’s latest album.We’re grateful for anything. So if you are an artist, a fan of art or a venue that would be suitable for showing art, get in touch by going to our blog here and using the Contact Us form.
Let’s get people talking about the arts movement.
Gillian Martin
Aye Inspired
National Collective
