HI~Arts, the arts development agency for the Highlands and Islands, will celebrate twenty years of successful initiatives with the launch of two ambitious new ventures to ensure that the agency is as open and connected as possible to arts organisations and communities across the Highlands and Islands.

HI~Arts was originally established by Highlands and Islands Enterprise in November 1990, and so its 20th birthday coincided with the major conference on November 12/13 Old Maps and New: where culture and social enterprise meet, which HI~Arts coordinated on behalf of HIE and Creative Scotland.

To mark its 20th birthday, HI~Arts used this major conference to announce the re-launch of its award-winning Online Arts Journal ‘Northings’ as a social network, similar to Facebook or Twitter. The new-look web portal at Northings.com uses cutting-edge technology to allow Northings’ 3,000 daily readers to interact directly with each other, as well as with the region’s event promoters, artists, writers and performers.

Northings.com launched on November 12 with a live webcast of the Old Maps and New conference, which ensured that the conference had a global audience. ‘Virtual’ delegates from across Scotland, alongside viewers from as far afield as North and South America, were able to participate in the cultural conference via this webcast.

At the conference, HI~Arts also announced the launch of the Cultural Exchange, an online community to represent audiences of cultural events, concerts, exhibitions and festivals across the region.

These new online tools will enable HI~Arts to be far more accessible to anyone interested in the cultural scene in the Highlands and Islands, and will also encourage lively debate about how that scene should develop and be supported in the future.

HI~Arts is an independent charity which is contracted by Highlands and Islands Enterprise, and is a Foundation client of Creative Scotland. During its 20 year life span it has been responsible for initiating and developing many major innovations in bringing arts and culture to the widest possible audience, and in supporting the work of arts organisations and individual artists and performers. Highlights of those twenty years have included:

• The Screen Machine mobile cinema, which for the last twelve years has been bringing new movies to the most remote communities in Scotland. Since 2009 it has been operated by Regional Screen Scotland, which was also established by HI~Arts
• The Booth online box office, which currently enables over 100 cultural organisations across Scotland to sell tickets online and accept payments by credit card. The Booth is now operated by an independent company, Booth Scotland, set up by HI~Arts
• The Go North showcase festival of unsigned music acts. First staged in Aberdeen, this is now an annual event in the Inverness calendar, linked to Rock Ness. It is organised by Go Events, a music promotion body set up by HI~Arts
• The Artsplay programme linking artists of all kinds with the pre-school sector. Eight years on, independent Artsplay projects are still running successfully in many parts of the Highlands and Islands
• The ‘Work in Progress’ scheme which has provided detailed, anonymous critical assessments for over 300 writers across Scotland
• The Growing Audiences North East programme which HI~Arts is currently delivering on contract from Aberdeenshire Council
• The Atlas Visual Arts programme which was recently launched in Skye and Lochalsh as a successor to the now defunct An Tuireann arts centre.

HI~Arts celebrates its 20th anniversary at a time of great challenges and uncertainty for the cultural sector, not only in the Highlands and Islands but in Scotland as a whole. Through Northings.com, and the Cultural Exchange, HI~Arts aims to provide tools that will help those involved in the arts to explore the best ways to meet these challenges, and to increase the visibility of the very rich arts and cultural communities of the Highlands and Islands.

Source: HI~Arts