Members' Newsletter June 2021

We hope you are well and starting to benefit from the gradual opening up that is taking place across Scotland. If you are unsure about current guidance for your area you can check here.... Guidance on COVID-19 Protection Levels

The Scottish Government continues to update its guidelines and the current Creative Studios and Shared Workspaces guidance is available to view here creative-studios-and-shared-workspaces.

Thanks to everyone who came along to our Fair Work Contract Templates Online Launch Event last week. The new Fair Work Contract Templates and guidance materials, produced in collaboration with Philip Hannay, of Cloch Solicitors Ltd, are now available to download from the Members Resource section of our website, here. There are also Standard Incorporated Terms, Schedules, and Guidelines for each of the three types of Contract. These continue to be a work in progress and so we welcome your feedback. 

Intersectional Sub Group Next Meeting

Daniel Quasar's "Progress Pride Flag" design (More info here)

Intersect Discussion Celebrating LGBTQ+ Pride Month - An (online) event for all SAU members on Tuesday 15th June at 4:30pm

In celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, and to launch our newly established SAU LGBTQ+ Pride working group, June’s Intersect Discussion Event will focus on Vivek Shraya’s fabulous and uplifting lecture/art video “Next Time There’s a Pandemic”.

Here is the link to watch the video before you join the discussion.

Vivek Shraya is a highly accomplished multi-disciplinary artist in the fields of visual art, writing, music and performance. Shraya is also an assistant professor in the English department at University of Calgary, and she has authored numerous award winning books (which can be found on the shelves at Category Is Books in Glasgow). In Scotland, Shraya’s artwork was curated by Nosheen Khwaja (member of RotU Collective and SAU) for the 2015 Glitch Festival at CCA, and curated by Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, for the 2019 Screams and Whispers programme as part of the 'CRUISING THE SEVENTIES' research project at Edinburgh College of Art.

There are auto-generated subtitles on the Video itself, and we also intend to use OtterAI transcription software to make this event more accessible. 

Even if you can’t join us for the discussion, we highly recommend watching Vivek’s video!

We look forward to meeting up with members and we hope that this will spark ideas for future events and exciting collaborations!

Please go to the event page to register in advance for this meeting, (you will need to be logged into the website).

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting and a Zoom link.

More information about our Intersectional Sub Group

It is important that as a trade union, we take into account the intersections of the inequalities of class, race, poverty, disability, LGBTQIA, geography, literacy, access to education, and social capital when considering access to union learning and support. This discussion group has been developed by the union’s Intersectional Sub-group out of a desire to create a space to discuss equalities issues specifically in relation to our own working practices as artists and members of the union.

Each session we will look at material together - texts, films, podcasts etc, as a way of opening up conversation about how we can question, challenge and shift our working practices to adopt more inclusive approaches. The group is for all our members, and will take place bi monthly and material for the sessions will be selected together by the group.

The union has established an Intersectional Sub Group made up of staff, members and Executive Committee members. The group is working together on an Intersectional Inclusion Strategy which is steered and overseen by the subgroup. The group will work on collating information, resources and support as well as identifying training for members and executive members in racial discrimination, bias and privilege in order to adopt a union- wide, intersectional approach to solidarity.

Upcoming Festival in June

Dardishi Festival 2021 (June 18-27) is a Scottish based online festival produced by Dardishi "a community arts project that showcases the cultural production of Arab and North African women and gender minorities." https://www.dardishi.com/2021festival

Info and Opps from Engage Scotland 

Call out: ART Evolution: Youth Visual Arts Programme

Engage Scotland seeks proposals from visual arts organisations / galleries across Scotland to deliver a co-produced project with young people as part of a new youth arts programme. ART Evolution is Engage Scotland’s exciting new collaborative and responsive programme supporting young people aged 16 – 25, freelance artists, creative educators and visual arts organisations/galleries as we emerge from the pandemic. Excitingly we have secured some additional funding from The Fleming Collection to support this work. https://engage.org/happenings/art-evolution-youth-visual-arts-programme/

We are also recruiting for an evaluator for ART Evolution

https://engage.org/happenings/art-evolution-youth-arts-programme-freelance-evaluator/

And finally our scoping report on the visual arts youth arts sector prepared by our freelance youth arts coordinator, Hannah Rye, has been published alongside the ART Evolution call out materials.

https://engage.org/happenings/youth-arts-project-scoping-report-2021/

SURVEYS GALORE!!

• A project investigating obstacles to women’s participation and representation in Scottish media and cultural industries is seeking your input. 'Experiences of Women in Scottish Arts, Culture, Gaming, and Media,' conducted by a research team at the University of Edinburgh and Robert Gordon University and commissioned by Engender, Scotland’s feminist policy and advocacy organisation, and the Gender Equal Media Scotland project, seeks to advance gender equality in Scottish media and cultural industries. They would like you to share your thoughts and experiences by participating in their which you can access here The survey takes about 20 minutes to complete and will close on 20 June, 2021. 
• Mapping Visual Art and Design Education in Scotland Help Engage Scotland to identify best practice and barriers in developing new approaches that support schools, teachers and pupils to engage more confidently with contemporary visual art and design – survey is live until 30^th June. https://engage.org/happenings/mapping-visual-art-and-design-education-in-scotland/
• Disability Arts Research Survey – Alex Callaghan is an MA Student in Arts, Festival and Cultural Managementat Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. He is conducting research around creating disability art policy recommendations, which will then be put to Creative Scotland for their consideration.  He has designed a questionnaire, which will be open until the 24th of June. This is to gain views from disabled artists to see what they feel the key policy recommendations should be. Please take part in his questionnaire here.

WEBSITE ISSUES

Apologies to any members who have been having trouble signing into the website - we have been in touch with our web-site provider Nationbuilder, and are working to get the problems resolved. In the meantime we'd like to apologise for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your patience. If you have trouble getting access to Insurance documents or other Members' resources get in touch at [email protected] and we’ll email these to you directly. 

If you want to help SAU further please encourage fellow artists to join up, or get involved with the Executive Committee by attending our meetings (all currently online!). Check out our news post here. 

New Rates of Pay for 2021/22

We have updated our Recommended Rates of Pay, that should be used for the current financial year.

You can access these here.

That's all for now but Keep on Keeping on!!

Yours in Solidarity, 
 
Everyone at Scottish Artists Union.

Check out our social media posts and please share on Twitter: @SCOArtistsUnion | FB: ScottishArtistsUnion | Instagram: artistsunion.scot

Support Your Union!! Together We Are Stronger!!

There’s never been a more important time to be part of a union, help us fight for a new ‘normal’ that supports the arts and culture!!

Please help us promote the activities of the union on social media by following us and sharing posts.

We are here to help. We are a small team of part time artists/artworkers and a voluntary executive, currently email is the best way to get in touch. 
Stay safe & healthy everyone.