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Artist Residencies: Richy Carey & Marta Bernal Valencia
Image Credit: Richy Carey, film still from Accents
Richy Carey
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Artist Residency
HEI
Artist Residency University of Glasgow and The Glasgow School of Art
UNESCO City of Music Residency at Glasgow Life
In 2018/19 SGSAH worked in partnership with Glasgow Life to offer the first ever UNESCO City of Music Artist Residency, which was undertaken by Richy Carey who is completing his PhD at the University of Glasgow in collaboration with The Glasgow School of Art.
Adopting an innovative, community-based approach, the project involved working with a range of community groups and choirs across the city, and was supported throughout by Glasgow Life’s Arts and Music teams. Richy created a new film and choral work, Accents, investigating the idea of accents in Glasgow today.
The project culminated in a one-off public performance at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall in March 2019, where all of the choirs and participants came together to perform the score live alongside the film. The choral work was composed in a form that can be easily adapted for performance by choirs in other UNESCO Cities of Music to present the unique identity and accents of their own city.
Glasgow’s place as a UNESCO City of Music is an important accolade for the city, and for Scotland as a whole, recognising its significant contributions to the global music scene. Richy’s project has drawn on the power of research to drive cultural innovation, and has established Glasgow as a leading centre for the UNESCO City of Music movement.
Through this project, Richy has worked with a wide and diverse range of stakeholders, from community groups through to venue staff and strategic leaders at Glasgow Life. He has managed a complex, multi-stream project and delivered a high-profile public engagement event as an output of his work.
In terms of impact on wider society, the project brought together 400 participants to share the joy of music in a unique and innovative context. This included the participation of five choir groups across the city as well as workshops with four other cultural groups in the city. Around 350 people attended the final event at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.
Marta Bernal Valencia
Internship
HEI
Internship University of Edinburgh
Mapping the Landscape of the Creative Industries in Scotland at Creative Scotland
In 2016/17 Creative Scotland hosted SGSAH intern Marta Bernal Valencia from the University of Edinburgh as one of two interns to investigate academic activity on the creative industries in Scotland, with a view to informing policy and enhancing support for the sector.
Over the course of the 3-month internship, Marta researched activity across Scottish HEIs, identifying key themes and centres of global excellence. Marta produced a database which signposts research and researchers, and is still used by staff across Creative Scotland to develop mutually beneficial partnerships.
This embedded knowledge exchange infrastructure has enabled Creative Scotland to identify emergent evidence to support future policy directions, with a particular focus on sustainability and the growth of the creative industries.
As an additional outcome, the University of Edinburgh hosted a workshop in which academics, practitioners and policymakers explored and identified areas of current research and future research plans and possibilities, which impact and inform policy based decision-making.
Through this internship, Marta developed expertise in the Scottish creative industries and supported Creative Scotland to develop policies tackling the most urgent needs of the sector based on robust academic studies.
Dr Stuart Fancey, Director of Research and Innovation at the Scottish Funding Council (SFC)
