Create space

Film festivals can be a major boom for town centres too. Now in its sixteenth year, Scotland’s oldest cinema – Bo’ness Hippodrome – has hosted the annual HippFest: Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema. It’s Scotland’s only silent film festival. The festival programme features films from UK and international archives, often accompanied by specially commissioned live music. It also provides school and public workshops, talks on local cinema and cultural heritage, youth engagement activities, music composition projects, and community tours and Hippfest at home, that take the festival to underserved audiences in rural areas.

Hippfest is delivered by Falkirk Council, its brochure and website also highlight opportunities for visitors and locals to enjoy Bo’Ness and the wider Falkirk area whilst attending the festival.

Meanwhile, the Hippodrome itself was the 2019 winner of Best Cinema Experience in Scotland. It screens a year-round programme of the best new, recent and vintage cinema releases plus live and encore shows from the National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company and the Met – not bad for a small town! The cinema originally opened in 1911, and reopened its doors in 2009 after extensive restoration work as part of the Bo’ness Townscape Heritage Initiative.

For more information, contact see the Hippfest website.

For over 40 years, Wasps Studios – a social enterprise working throughout Scotland – has been providing artists, makers & creators with inspiring spaces and places to work from. They operate and manage twenty character-filled buildings across the country, providing a canvas for creativity for over 900 practitioners and businesses. As well as the benefits for arts and culture, WASPS is also helping town centres around Scotland by repurposing otherwise redundant historic buildings, transforming the surrounding areas.

Selkirk: St Mary’s Mill

St Mary’s Mill in Selkirk is a typical Wasps studio: with 15 artists in a former textile mill with studio space, exhibitions and community events. Whenever the artists open their studios or hold an event, they certainly know how to pull a crowd! Since the building was opened, the tenants have improved their spaces, the lighting and constructed and programmed their own gallery space.

Irvine Courtyard

[Image: Courtyard Studios image from here: https://towntoolkit.scot/arts/open-artists-studios#irvine-courtyard-2]

Courtyard Studios in Irvine is a purpose-built studio complex built in 1994 on Irvine’s regenerated harbour front. With funding from Creative Scotland, WASPS were able to buy and refurbish the buildings. They now currently provide 17 studios of different sizes. The Courtyard has a vibrant creative community and is home to painting, bookbinding, jewellery, sculpture, photography, and collage.

All of the studios have shop-front access and are open to the public all year round so that people can drop in and speak to the artists about their work. Many offer public classes and workshops.

Inverness Creative Academy

[Photo gallery: taken from here: https://towntoolkit.scot/arts/open-artists-studios#inverness-creative-academy-3]

Since 2018, Wasps has transformed two B-listed former school and college buildings in the centre of Inverness to create Inverness Creative Academy – the Highlands’ first major creative hub.

The first phase, an ‘artists and makers’ wing, was completed in 2018. It provides 30 artist’s studios, a community-run traditional darkroom, a designated workshop space for classes, and an events/exhibition space in the old gym. The studios were almost fully let within a year.

Phase 2 provided:

• 54 workspaces for creative industries and cultural social enterprises including long term office space.
• Flexible co-working spaces for 26 creatives.
• Public exhibition, events and workshop spaces on two levels overlooking the hall.
• Fully accessible meeting rooms and facilities for hire.
• Public café within the restored, double-height, former Assembly Hall.

For more information, visit WASPS Studios.

An Lanntair is a multi-arts venue in the heart of Stornoway. It was a big project, 40 years in the making, but has brought immense benefits to residents, visitors, and of course the town centre.

An Lanntair helps showcase local and international art and artists and offers an education and outreach programme which works alongside local artists, latest exhibitions and production to bring a wide range of skills and learning to children, young people and adults throughout Lewis and Harris.