Andrew Dixon’s Sabhal Mòr Ostaig Lecture, St Andrew’s Day, 2010

THANKS TO Boyd Robertson, Donnie Munro and the Sabhal Mòr Ostaig Board for inviting me to speak at this annual lecture.

I was recently asked about my political credentials and replied ‘Northern.’ The fact is that I feel a deeper sense of commitment to places the more northern they get. My career has been steeped in the North West, mid-North (Yorkshire) and North East of England, and my strong affinity for Scotland is rooted in having spent many years visiting from my 40 years living in the border lands of Cumbria and Northumbria.

Andrew Dixon, Chief Executive of Creative Scotland

This is my 9th visit to the Highlands and Islands since arriving full time in May, and my third to Sabhal Mòr Ostaig.

I wanted to start by asking the audience a question.

How many of you are bankers? How many of you work in car manufacturing? How many of you work in the creative industries or education?

Well this may not be scientific, given that it’s an arts lecture in a college, but it is at the very least circumstantial evidence for the fact that more people work in the arts and creative industries than banking or car manufacturing.

With a chairman who is a banker I would hesitate to suggest that banking is not important to Scotland’s image, it is. However the arts and creativity are far more central to defining Scotland’s contribution to the world.

I’d like to work the lecture audience a little harder.2

How many of you went to see the careers officer at school? Keep your hands up if they said you were going to work in the creative industries or the knowledge-based economy!

I arrived in Scotland at 1.30pm on the 12th of February, about six years after Creative Scotland was first mooted and four hours before my first press conference. The birth of Creative Scotland the non-departmental public body had been long and drawn out, but the birth of a Creative Scotland, started much earlier. Its roots are centuries old and our role is to interpret them in contemporary Scotland in 2010.

Having been to the West Coast of Scotland many times for holidays my first trip to Edinburgh was to perform at the Fringe, my first to Glasgow to see Peter Brook’s Mahabharata in 1990. My first visit to Dundee was to see Dundee Contemporary Arts some 10 years ago, my first to Aberdeen to see the Lemon Tree and my first to Pitlochry to see its festival theatre.

OK, so I live and work in the field of the arts, but the association between culture and place is actually more common than you imagine. I saw Mull Theatre last week at the Tron in Glasgow – for years Mull was known for having the smallest theatre in the world.

Scene from Mull Theatre's The Weir

I flew to Stockholm recently to speak to local authorities and cultural leaders in Sweden who are watching Creative Scotland with real interest.

I flew out from Newcastle airport and felt some pride as the walls of the airport were lined with huge photos of cultural projects that I’d had a hand in.

The Angel of the North, The Sage Gateshead and Claes Oldenberg’s Bottle of Notes in Middlesbrough. In the North East of England we had spent 20 years redefining the place through culture. I was sat on the plane scribbling note for this lecture when I opened the British Airways magazine – guest edited by artist Tracy Emin.

People may remember that over 20 years ago British Airways had the tailgates of their planes painted by artists.

It was a clever piece of branding but it’s a broad step from there to getting one of the most controversial of the Turner prize winners to edit your corporate PR with a circulation world-wide of 2.5 million.

Anyway the magazine had the word Fife on the front cover.

Ah, you think, Visit Scotland doing its job and promoting the Open at St Andrew’s or the beaches of the Fife coast. Wrong.

The article on Fife was about artist Jack Vettriano and how he associated his success with a sense of rootedness in place. I then arrived at Stockholm airport where the walls were lined with faces. The faces were of writers, musicians, film directors and the cultural and sporting icons of Stockholm. Welcome to Stockholm. Welcome to the things that make us distinctive, the things which make us proud of where we live.

We see Creative Scotland as a champion and advocate for Scotland’s culture and creativity, not just a funder.

Airports are the ultimate dens of global merchandising, WH Smiths, Ritazza coffee and the same duty free displays with Toblerone bars stacked high in 4-for-3 deals .

And yet here were two airports differentiating themselves through culture. Copenhagen Airport is one of the biggest commissioning agencies for public art in Europe, and Manchester Airport is a major sponsor of the Manchester international festival. Schiphol in Amsterdam even has an art gallery and museum in the airport.

Back to 12th February when I met the journalists for the first Creative Scotland press conference. They asked the inevitable questions about my Scottish credentials and why I’d left the seemingly vibrant scene in Newcastle Gateshead. Just as my move to Newcastle 20 years earlier, it was the place that had drawn me and the cultural strengths that had taken little to persuade me to enter a creative Scotland.

Creative Scotland the organisation may be a merger of the Arts Council and Scottish Screen, but we see it as something different. I have been keen to stress that Creative Scotland is not an institution, but a rallying call. We want to get everyone behind promoting the concept of a creative Scotland. The two words are a pretty powerful brand in their own right, but we want to ensure that they are synonymous with creative success, not a cash machine in Edinburgh handing out grants.

We see Creative Scotland as a champion and advocate for Scotland’s culture and creativity, not just a funder.

Its role now brings together arts, film and creative industries and our functions include the international promotion of Scotland’s cultural work and a commitment to celebrating its languages through culture. Alba Chruthachail – our Gaelic name sits alongside Creative Scotland to demonstrate our commitment. After myself, the next appointee to Creative Scotland was Brian O hEadhra, our Gaelic officer, shared with Bòrd na Gàidhlig. Gaisgeach airson Alba Chruthachail.

Brian Ó hEadhra

Creative Scotland was born in a world where cultural barriers are being torn down by cultural collaboration and new technology. Whilst maps and nations have borders, the arts and creativity never did, and now the barriers to global audiences are being removed as well.

The web and broadcasting provide new opportunities for access and distribution of film, music, the visual arts and digital creation.

Creative Scotland’s draft mission is:

That Scotland is recognised as a leading creative nation – one that attracts, develops and retains talent, where the arts and the creative industries are supported and celebrated and their economic contribution fully captured – a nation where the arts play a central part in the lives, education and well being of our population.

Rather than the old language of subsidy and funding we have started to use the language of investing. Investing may be seen by some as having negative connotations but in terms of the arts we are refer to the dictionary definition that talks of spending time or money on something that is worthwhile.

To say that we don’t invest in the arts is to suggest that they are not worthwhile.

Creative Scotland will

• Invest in talent
• Invest in quality production
• Invest in audiences, access and participation
• Invest in the cultural economy
• Invest in places.

Creative Scotland needs to define itself by the unique contributions which its artists and film makers offer, but also by the contribution of places and communities across Scotland. Everywhere I’ve travelled, from Dumfries to Orkney, there is a unique contribution being made to a creative Scotland.

Let me say something about the global competition – Professor Tony Jones in his speech for UHI highlighted that China’s 20 top art colleges had 10,000 students each but that there were another 400 colleges developing with the same numbers. We only have a few thousand students at our universities and colleges studying cultural subjects but this is a real and growing strength in Scotland.

China may make Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Glasgow School of Art and the RSAMD look like the corner shops in the global supermarket of education, but what we have in Scotland is quality and distinctiveness. Inspiring places to learn. This campus, the new RSAMD facilities at Spiers Lock in Glasgow, Mackintosh’s masterpiece and the new plans for Glasgow School of Art, provide facilities and teaching that can rival anywhere in the world.

Then there is the games industry at Abertay in Dundee and the remarkable campus of Gray’s in Aberdeen. Their strength lies, amongst other things, in their local roots and relationship to place. The fact that the RSAMD courses have 20 applicants for every student place says it all, but they do sit in a global market.

I was preparing a speech for the AGM of Feis na Gàidhlig in Ullapool and I found some 1.1 million pages on Google relating to the Feisan movement.

The web gives us access to the world’s culture and the world access to ours.

Now, I don’t know what the average audience was in the past for a folk concert in Fort William (obviously higher when Donnie Munro is performing!) but when an artist can get 20,000 hits on YouTube you realise that ‘rurality’ is no longer a barrier to large audiences.

An online artist-led project in Glasgow called Central Station has over 3000 artists exhibiting and taking crowd-sourced decisions over small grants for projects. This sort of creative industry is the new territory that Creative Scotland inherits. Central Station is hosted on the 4th floor of a Glasgow tenement office by a company called ISO.

ISO is a team of designers, directors, animators, software developers and producers.

Their studio specialises in motion graphics, dynamic content and interactive experiences. They are designing everything from the interface for the BBC I- Player to a new museum experience at St Paul’s Cathedral.

The size of the sector is significant in Scotland and growing faster than many other parts of the economy. Here in the Highlands and Islands there has been a 20 year commitment to this sector by Highlands & Islands Enterprise.

A report by the Scottish Government suggested that they have a turnover of £5.2 billion employing 58,000 people – some 3% of the workforce.

Culture is an international calling card for Scotland, whether it be our orchestras in Paris, the 350 performers at the Delhi handover or The National Theatre of Scotland with Black Watch. I have been hugely impressed by the scale and range of international work.

Dogstar Productions’ show The Tailor from Inverness has been to Australia, Sweden, Ukraine and Germany, and is invited to Iran, Israel and Belarus.

Matthew Zajac in The Tailor of Inverness

It’s not just the major companies.

The role of individual artists in cultural diplomacy is really important to Scotland – I went to see Martin Creed’s exhibition at the Fruitmarket gallery (three times).

On the wall was his CV – which looked more like a brochure for Trailfinders as he’s exhibited and performed across the world; Tokyo, Jerusalem, Granada, USA, Italy, Germany.

Musicians, film makers and writers may work in a primary language but their work can transcend cultures. Whether Bill Forsyth, Paolo Nutini or JK Rowling will retain the fame or longevity of Kenneth Grahame (Wind in the Willows) or Walter Scott remains to be seen, but they immediately have the advantage of creating on a world stage.

Culture and creativity is part of the brand of Scotland and one of our measures will be how we are perceived internationally through the Nation brand index.

At present we sit around 18th for culture when compared with 50 similar nations.

I think we deserve to be higher but Scotland has an ability to hide things through an in built cultural modesty that precludes it from celebrating its obvious success in the arts.

We need to make the most of our cultural assets. When applying for this job I knew several arts organisations and the obvious festivals but I wanted to research more. There were seven festivals on the VisitScotland web site – understandable that they would promote the biggest. When I asked the Arts Council for a list there were 38. When I arrived I found we have 40 literature festivals alone. There are 77 festivals in the Highlands and Islands and well over 180 festivals nationally.

Some of these are large scale world class events, others relatively small home grown events with niche audiences but together they represent nothing short of an international phenomenon; Scotland is the festival nation – not just August in Edinburgh but all year round.

Celtic Connections in January, Glasgow International every other April, Imaginate in May and Perth Festival in June to the Cromarty Film Festival in December.

Many of them do well but there must be more we can do to shine a light on this incredible collective strength of Scotland. If Festival means a celebration, let’s get the message our that Scotland is celebrating culture 52 weeks a year.

Ullapool Book Festival, Blas, Pittenweem Art Festival. These are not just worthy local events but world-class festivals rooted in places.

Whilst Creative Scotland will have economic objectives and measure the growth in the cultural economy, we will also have social objectives. Access to the arts for local people will be a key measure.

The good news is that 90% of people in Scotland access the arts at least once a year.

The bad news is that this isn’t the same across the whole population or the whole geography of Scotland. Older people, some parts of Scotland and disadvantaged communities are less likely to have access.

When I arrived in Newcastle Gateshead it had the lowest levels of attendance in the arts in the UK. In this case it was down to a fundamental lack of opportunity and no arts buildings, and yet there were exceptional things happening.

I attended a traditional music event some 20 years ago inspired by the Feis movement here. Folkworks, a folk music development agency, ran a youth summer school with a banner at the back of the stage saying ‘Tradition in the making‘ – 10 years on the students were the tutors and 20 years on they are running the Sage Gateshead and performing with artists like Sting.

One of the most impressive people I’ve met since arriving in Scotland is Fiona Dalgetty, of Feis Rois. She has been on the same journey – participant, musician, tutor, apprentice, chief executive of Feis Rois. I am certain that she will play a major part in Scotland’s creative future.

My reason for mentioning Fiona is that career paths will be critically important to a creative Scotland. I recently went to see a show called A Wee Home from Home at the Edinburgh fringe, performed by a company called Plan B from the Highlands.

Frank-McConnell and Michael Marra in A Wee Home From Home (Photo by Maria Falconer)

There were no CV’s in the programme listing how many times they’d performed in Taggart – just a London underground map of their careers and how they have moved through various companies, colleges and teaching positions. They had moved across Scotland, forayed into England and worked internationally but all were rooted in a place. Musician Michael Marra from Dundee, director Gerry Mulgrew and choreographer Frank McConnell from Glasgow.

Creative Scotland has to develop its own plan for how it engages with talent. We can’t do everything, but feel there is an important role to play at the start of careers, spotting talent and introducing it into the cultural ecology – catching the first train. There is also an important role to play in ensuring that our best writers, performers, artists and film makers continue to work and contribute to a creative Scotland at the peak of their careers.

Scotland is very well provided for culturally. Some of those who are closest to it don’t realise how well off we are. We are very fortunate to have the national companies – RSNO, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet and the National Theatre of Scotland. Complemented by our national youth choirs, national youth orchestras and the national youth theatre. Creative Scotland invests in 50 Foundations organisations and 60 other major cultural producers.

If you look at just classical music – I’ve just come from the North East England and Cumbria where we had the excellent Northern Sinfonia orchestra (40 players) for a population of under 3 million. Here with just twice that population we have the RSNO, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and then a whole raft of others such as Dunedin Consort, Scottish Ensemble, Hebrides Ensemble, not to mention the Ballet and Opera orchestras. (250 players at a conservative guesstimate).

I’ve already talked about the numbers of festivals but let’s dwell further on the scale and quality.

Edinburgh – 11 events across 7 months represents the largest festival in the world. This year the Fringe had over 2400 separate productions. Edinburgh – the largest book festival in the world. Two of the most significant film festivals in the UK in Edinburgh and Glasgow; St Magnus Festival in Orkney – a world class event now in its 34th year.

Glasgow International – every two years, a visual arts festival filled with projects, events, exhibitions, screenings and performances conceived and produced by organisations and groups based in the city. Celtic Connections – a world class showcase of Scottish music and traditional music from across globe, attracting over 100,000 people and 1,500 musicians to Glasgow in January.

Shetland Fiddle Frenzy, which is way more than fiddles, running workshops in creative writing, textiles and visual art.

Hebridean Celtic Festival, which has sold over 17,000 tickets and brought at least £1.5million into the local economy.

Niche festivals like Pittenweem in Fife where people open up their homes as galleries featuring local artists.

And then on top of all that the Feis movement – 32,000 young people involved in celebrations in 43 communities.

Many of these festivals have become events that define a place.

Iain Morrison at the Hebridean Celtic Festival (photo © Leila Angus, 2009)

In my previous role we commissioned writer Lee Hall (Billy Elliott) to write a new play for the reopening of Live Theatre. Pitmen Painters is a play in broad dialect about a miner’s WEA painting club in Northumberland. It has run for months at the National Theatre in London, and is now in Austria and on Broadway.

Its another example of how something that has a strong local content can appeal to an international audience. Dundee Rep, who just won the top theatre award in the UK for Sweeney Todd, have been touring Sunshine on Leith – ‘Proclaimers the musical’ for months. Catherine Wheels, our award winning children’s theatre company has been booked to take their play White for under 5s to Hong Kong, USA and Australia – amongst others.

What will be different about Creative Scotland is that we will try and promote and celebrate success. We will work in partnership with others and try and package together the cultural strengths of Scotland. We will look at the whole cultural ecology rather than taking isolated funding decisions.

Some have said that the loss of an Arts Council means the end of ‘art for arts sake’. Actually many would say that ‘art for arts sake’ is a myth perpetuated by the traditionalists who see culture as having more importance than other aspects of society. There is rarely ‘arts for art sake’ – I can think of very few examples. It’s never been a reality.

In Newcastle, we were once approached by an artist wanting to plant 1000 acorns in an artistic pattern around a city. He only wanted £2,000. The trouble was that you wouldn’t see the artwork for 30 years.

There is always another purpose or benefit. There is almost always an engagement with an audience – a development of ideas, an investment in talent or a contribution to some political debate. In this case the environment and climate change some 20 years ahead of when it became a central concern for society.

What I absolutely believe in is investment in the individual artists, musicians and film makers. Giving artists status and time will be central to our work. Too often the power has been with the commissioner or the agency that hires the artist. We want to test models where the artist has the cards to play, the bottles to take to the party, the leverage on investment, the scope to take risks and innovate, the time to test ideas, the space to reach communities and the licence to reach out to the world.

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Sleat, Isle of Skye

I came to Sabhal Mòr Ostaig in May. This is an inspirational place to learn and to work. Boyd and Donnie were the perfect tour guides. It proved to be a key moment in developing some of the thinking that is now evolving within creative Scotland. I met three of the current artists in residence. Visual artists creating stunning installations, a Gaelic writer and a musician in residence.

Three residencies, three applications to the Arts Council, three grants, three lots of cheques and three lots of monitoring.

I went on to meet artists in residence at Cove Park, Dumbarton and Orkney, and saw work of real quality – making an impact locally but hidden to the rest of Scotland.

I came back and asked how many artists in residence did we support. We have 68 artists’ residencies happening now in Scotland, most of them unconnected.

Creative Scotland will add a million pounds and will launch Creative Futures – The Creative Scotland artists residency programme of almost 200 residencies a year – a programme which we think to be unrivalled in Europe.

We will devolve funds to residency hosts like Sabhal Mòr Ostaig to manage residencies on our behalf, but the difference is that each of the artists will be part of a Creative Scotland programme, connected through social networks, coming together to share their experience and create their work.

We will promote the work and build an alumni – 200 this year 1000 by 2014 and so on. We hope that they will stay connected and committed to a Creative Scotland.

The investment will be primarily in individual talent but the benefits will flow into places, communities and younger artists.

I am pleased to announce that Sabhal Mòr Ostaig will be one of our primary residency hosts. We aim to support a three-year residency programme here with an additional investment in a new drama residency bridging Sabhal Mòr with the RSAMD. This has the potential to strengthen the Gaelic drama sector, and the National Theatre for Scotland has also expressed an interest in being involved.

The residency programme will directly strengthen Sabhal Mòr Ostaig’s position as a National Centre for the development of the Gaelic Language the Culture and the Arts. Sabhal Mòr Ostaig has expressed an interest in hosting an annual artist’s conference here on Skye to bring together Creative Futures artists.

Creative Scotland wants to establish a special relationship with the college to explore future projects working in partnership with other Gaelic agencies in both the Highlands and elsewhere.

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig will shortly advertise a part time Arts Development Officer post, representing a real commitment on the part of the Board to develop the arts.

Creative Scotland will doubtless get tabloid stories claiming that we are lining the pockets of artists but when the average visual artist salary is still just over £5000 a year, such claims ring hollow. We often get criticised for supporting the usual suspects – well now we will devolve that decision-making to over 40 organisations.

However – I was reminded recently of the story of the artist residency in Grizedale forest in Cumbria. A Crafts residency for an artist to live and work in the forest for a year – 60 applicants, 1 resident – 59 unhappy artists. We used the same £20,000 to create a public art agency which went on to generate over £1 million of commissions – which is right? The single grant or the investment on economic grounds? There is no right answer.

Both have their benefits, but an agency like Creative Scotland needs to be trusted to take decisions in both directions. To value the individual creator and to spot the opportunity for economic growth.

Last weekend ourselves and the Scottish Government backed Glasgow based NVA to present at the Venice Architecture Biennale. It was an exhibition about an artist-led plan to save St Peter’s Catholic seminary in Argyll and Bute – to save one national treasure and turn it into another – exhibiting sculpture.

Taking risks and backing strong vision and ideas has to be central to what we do. We mustn’t put things into the box that says ‘too difficult’. The V&A has developed a momentum in Dundee because of strong vision and a can-do attitude in the local authority and universities. I believe that the Charles Jencks & Andy Goldsworthy gateway commission for Gretna has the potential to be the next contemporary icon for Scotland. We need to broker that sort of ambition.

Film investment will be another of Creative Scotland’s central planks – our Locations service couldn’t want for better scenery – the Glenfinnan Viaduct on the Mallaig line for Harry Potter, the white beaches of Morar for Local Hero.

Glenfinnan Viaduct, as featured in Harry Potter (rivershiel.co.uk)

However, our film industry is weak by comparison with other sectors. There is no shortage of creativity, but if we continue to invest down a cultural, script-by-script route, we will retain our position as a bit-part player. We need to find new models for support and recognise that other investors are required. They may be in Scotland, but they could equally be in Ireland, Denmark or Hong Kong. Our emphasis will be about giving resources to those best placed to leverage other support. We also need to find creative ways that our enterprise agencies can invest in film production.

It’s easy to see the economic value of a new renewable energy plant. Less so a great new film script about delinquent teenagers in Glasgow. Whilst Creative Scotland has occasionally had money back from films (and it was nice to get a cheque for $60,000 dollars recently for the The Last King of Scotland) we haven’t been big enough players to generate the real returns.

We also need to work more closely with broadcasters. The BBC has made a strong commitment to growing its production from Scotland. Creative Scotland is working on a new partnership with the BBC. We can now have a single conversation that looks across film, drama, festivals, audience development, online and the digital capture of some of Creative Scotland content. It is early days but the list of potential collaborations is huge. We will assign someone full time to developing this partnership. We will also develop partnerships with STV, Channel 4 and MG ALBA.

The plans for a Scottish Digital network would be transformational for the sector and for public service broadcasting, but at £75 million a year this will be a tough call in the current climate.

Through MG Alba we have another strong link to Sabhal Mòr. We are supporting their exploration of a new Gaelic soap. It needs to prove its feasibility but the opportunity for this to link into our broader role for promoting Gaelic culture is obvious. There is also work taking place here on links with Ireland.

I should say a few words on Gaelic even if my language skills preclude me from speaking in it – yet.

We have a Gaelic arts officer shared with and based at Bòrd na Gaidhlig who will take a lead on coordinating the Gaelic arts strategy. This can’t be the responsibly for one body but needs a broader church with the full range of agencies involved, including the college.

We currently support several agencies that help promote Gaelic: Pròiseact nan Ealan,Taigh Chearsabhaig in North Uist (partners for the stunning Chris Drury exhibition which I’ll open later today), Feis Rois, Feis na Gaidhlig. the Gaelic Books Council,  An Lanntair in Stornoway

Many here share an ambition for Gaelic to be more than a minority language. Like Creative Scotland this can be seen as a movement or a rallying call. The signs are good – people queuing to get into Gaelic schools in Edinburgh and Glasgow, a new centre being built in Inverness, the Gaelic language given a boost by government legislation, and I believe that the arts and film have a hugely important role to play.

Poetry, music and the visual arts can transcend language. Yesterday I watched Murray Grigor’s film on An Leabhar Mor: The Great Book of Gaelic. When the roots are deep the growth will always return stronger, and the work that organisations like the Feis and Taigh Chearsabhagh are doing is bringing contemporary Gaelic culture alive and reaching new audiences.

We live in political times and there are elections ahead. I did the big debate on BBC Radio in May. What was clear was that in Scotland we have a cross party support for culture. Passionate and articulate politicians from SNP, Labour, Lib Dems and Conservatives all competing to be the most supportive of the arts.

Creative Scotland is a construct of two successive governments but it will need to bridge any future changes in government by truly operating at arms length and proving its worth. It is a good thing to get guidance and direction from a government committed to culture so long as that guidance and direction comes with pound notes, Euros or Yen attached. It is a good thing to be under scrutiny from opposition parties so long as that doesn’t stifle creativity.

Actually our core grant from government is £35.5 million – to put it in perspective that is the equivalent of:

1. One school

2. painting the Forth Road Bridge twice

3. Paying Wayne Rooney’s salary at Manchester United for the next 2.7 years.

4. one third of what’s has just been cut from the Arts Council in England

These are difficult economic times, with threats on colleges and further education, local authorities and many other sectors. It is therefore a remarkable vote of confidence in Creative Scotland that the Scottish Government has protected its grants budget and maintained the £10 million Youth Music Initiative, £2 Million Expo Fund and our support for Arts and Business. The fact that Creative Scotland had exceeded targets in its own reform saving over £700,000 means that we will have more, not less, to invest next year.

The arts may not be immune from future cuts, but its relative impact is huge. Culture is one of Scotland’s success stories. It defines who we are, where we are and our contribution to the world. There are many convincing economic facts: like the £61 raised from every £1 public money spent on the Edinburgh Festivals, but there’s a bigger message. A Creative Scotland contributes to our everyday quality of life and the competitiveness of Scotland as a place to live, work, learn and visit.

We particularly owe it to the next generation of young people in Scotland. This generation has seen the benefit of a Youth Music Initiative taking 1.75m into musical tuition. The Government’s new Education and Culture Action Plan, which we’ve developed with Learning and Teaching Scotland, will introduce more creativity in classrooms. These things can be swept aside by political change, as has happened with the UK government in England. It is my hope that Scotland recognises that such matters as cultural opportunity are important enough to put aside the politics.

Yes, there has been noise in the press about Creative Scotland and what we do, fuelled by a few detractors, but at the heart of a successful Creative Scotland will be long term policies that span generations – ‘Tradition in the making’, ‘talent in the making’, a ‘creative economy in the making’. These things don’t take weeks or months – they take decades.

On Friday I visited an eco city project in Dunfermline. Facilitated by the Byre Theatre and the Youth Parliament, a group of young people from six primary schools had produced a complete town plan model of their vision for the future of Dunfermline. The town planner in me got excited by the fact that nine-year-olds were visioning aerial walkways, roads called Snake Street and underground car parks with views underneath the river. This was the next generation of Creative Scotland at work.

As the phrase goes – Rome wasn’t built in a day. Rome has stood the test of time because of its strong foundations. We have the same in the arts. Foundations that can be the pillars of Scotland’s creative future for generations to come. I don’t just mean our Foundation clients like Scottish Dance Theatre, Hi~Arts and An Tobar, but the importance of institutions like Sabhal Mòr Ostaig developing a significant national contribution to the arts and language.

2012 will be the Year of Creative Scotland – a chance to promote what we have, a chance to target mass participation in the arts, to get Scotland dancing, to shine a light on the contribution that many parts play in making this a successful show. A chance to recognise our great historic names of culture – JM Barrie, Burns, Mackintosh; to celebrate our contemporary icons – Jack Vettriano, Iain Banks, Paolo Nutini; a chance to create a platform on a world stage for the talent of today’s creative Scotland.

It’s early days for Creative Scotland but I hope you will all find a way to join us on our journey. Let’s use 2012 as a moment to celebrate the fact that culture is one of Scotland’s great success stories.

Thank you. Tapadh Leibh

Andrew Dixon is the Chief Executive of Creative Scotland. This is the text of the lecture he delivered at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on 30 November 2010. A video of the lecture will be available on the Sabhal Mòr Ostaig website.

© Andrew Dixon, 2010

Links

• Creative Scotland

• Sabhal Mòr Ostaig