Meanwhile Spaces in Edinburgh

Join us for a tour of Outer Spaces’ Exchange Place building currently used by over 140 artists, including four artists-in-residence. 

The event features the workshop ‘More Than Meanwhile’, led by researchers Dr. Emma Coffield and Gareth McMurchy from Newcastle University. This session seeks to better understand how artists and practitioners experience accessing and running creative spaces and will inform a scoping study commissioned and funded by Creative Scotland. By bringing together artists, businesses, grassroots organisations, and researchers, we will reflect on "meanwhile use" models, exploring their unique opportunities, challenges, and long-term impacts on creative communities. 

This workshop leads into a discussion featuring Edinburgh-based practitioners who have utilised temporary spaces to exhibit, collaborate, and animate the city. Gain insights from researchers on how temporary models function and the motivations driving their current research and share your thoughts. Following the discussion, please stay to continue the conversation over refreshments. 

Schedule 

        1pm – A brief tour of Outer Spaces Exchange Place  

   1.45pm – Coffee and biscuits 

        2pm – More Than Meanwhile workshop (2 hours) 

        4pm – Discussion  

   4.45pm – Refreshments and networking  

Booking link:

Eventbrite page here

Bursaries to support workshop participation

Attendance is free and we have a limited number of bursaries of £89.80, available on a first come first served basis, to attendees who would benefit from financial support to attend the workshop. If this bursary would support you in taking part, please contact info@outerspaces.org.

Facilitators

Dr Emma Coffield is a Lecturer in the School of Arts and Cultures at Newcastle University. Emma is internationally recognised for her collaborative work around artist-run/led initiatives and meanwhile use. For over 15 years she has worked with a range of self-organised, grassroots artistic practices run by and for artists across the UK, as well as local and national governments, to highlight the working conditions and limitations imposed upon creative practice by temporary use. To date, Emma has led or co-led 10 collaborative, transdisciplinary projects in this area bringing together artists, creative practitioners, academics and local policy makers in order to foster co-designed, long-term urban futures. Emma also has a keen interest in notions of ‘employability’ in the cultural and creative industries, and the impact of this discourse on students’ experiences of teaching and learning within Higher Education.

Gareth McMurchy is a PhD student and design researcher based within the multi-disciplinary research group Open Lab, Newcastle University. With an educational background in product design and a keen interest in the arts, his research focuses on the relationship between archival processes and uses of technology within artist-run initiatives. Employing a Research through Design methodology, he uses provocative design artefacts as tools for scrutinising these existing practices and to speculate upon preferable future technological possibilities. Through this work, he has gained a deep understanding of the difficulties artists face operating within a cultural sector profoundly affected by precarity, austerity, and limited provision of creative space. As a workshop co-ordinator, Gareth will draw upon this knowledge and experience to facilitate a series of workshops that aim to enrich our understanding of meanwhile spaces’ contribution to Scottish arts ecology.

Outer Spaces supports the creative and professional development of artists through studio and project spaces, awards, commissioning and partnerships. We create temporary art spaces in major towns and cities and subsidise the research and production costs of artists in our network with free studio space. Our curatorial projects and partnerships offer new avenues of support, promoting exchange, engagement and visibility.

This event and research is funded by Creative Scotland.