Year of Highland Culture

FIONA HAMPTON, the Director of Highland 2007, tells the Arts Journal about the state of play so far in putting together the flagship year of Highland Culture

HIGHLAND 2007 is the year that Scotland celebrates Highland culture. I’m not sure there is an official title as such, but that is the one that people are starting to use.

The project is a real opportunity to celebrate the best of Highland culture, past, present and future. It aims to attract people to the region from the UK and from overseas, and to take part in that celebration in all its aspects. At the same time, it aims to help people already in the Highlands to appreciate and enjoy that culture even more, and to build on it, so it is about raising awareness and pride within the region as well.

There have been no shortage of ideas or potential projects, and what I’ve been trying to do for the last few months is to look at ways of dealing with them and making them a reality. I needed to have a clear idea of what we were trying to achieve and what resources we had to do it. I didn’t want to fuel expectations ahead of that, but we will be doing a lot more awareness raising from now on in, and we can get onto a more public footing for the whole project, including the marketing.

We will start to make it clear how people can get involved, how they can access the project and the funding, how the resources will be allocated and what is going to be happening. And of course, just tell people what a great thing it is going to be. There is a website under development, and we are working with HI~Arts on that, among other things. We are also in the process of appointing a company to work on the branding of the event, and we plan to tailor different kinds of information for different targets.

“We hope that by bringing people together we can enhance and strengthen the impact of many of the events”

Highland culture has been given a very flexible definition. It falls into six strands: Arts, Heritage, Language, the Environment, Science and Sport. It is about celebrating the past but also creating and building the future. Within the strands we have seven working ‘themes’ to help focus projects: Youth, Gaelic, Creativity, Access and Inclusiveness, the Highlands as an Inspirational place, Highland Homecoming and the re-interpretation of traditional Highland Icons.

Some events will be classified as International events and some of Regional events, largely because of funding considerations. An international event has to attract participants and visitors from outside of Scotland, and be something that will attract major media interest, and make a significant impact on Scotland.

A regional event will attract people from outside the region, and will attract attention to the Highlands. We are currently categorising events proposed to us, and looking at feasibility – can we do it and do it successfully in the particular area, and can we finance it?

The only confirmed event on that schedule at present is the World Mountain Biking Championships in Lochaber. We have also launched the Highland Quest project to create a major Scottish musical, working with Sir Cameron MacIntosh. We want to start the year with a major event at Hogmanay, and there are various things under consideration.

“Highland 2007 should not just parachute in and disappear again without trace”

A third strand will be events that we can stimulate in local areas with funding help directed through a local group, and that also has an element of sustainability. A fourth strand is working with national agencies and events to celebrate Highland culture throughout the rest of Scotland, and we’ll be looking at festivals running Highland events and so on.

There is also the Cultural Pledge, working on the concept that young people in the Highlands should have access to cultural activity in 2007 and beyond, and how that can best be achieved.

My hope is that we will have events of sufficient stature to draw a lot of attention to the Highlands, and to bring people here in numbers, but at the same time will also provide activity at local level that will also have a developmental function beyond the project. It sounds like a grand series of aims, but I think they can be achieved.

I don’t anticipate Highland 2007 delivering events directly. For the majority I would foresee us as being brokers, working with others to deliver the event, and to market and promote them. We hope that by bringing people together we can enhance and strengthen the impact of many of the events as well.

Highland 2007 should not just parachute in and disappear again without trace – we have to make a sustainable impact in the region, and I see this as a chance to do that. It’s not a panacea for all ills, but I feel if we do it properly we can make a significant impact.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2005