SCAN’S Cultivate programme supported by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
SCAN is delighted to announce that we have been awarded £130,000 from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation to support the next two and a half years of our Cultivate programme.
SCAN’s Cultivate strand focuses on creating meaningful opportunities for participation in art, allowing everyone to access cultural work and professional development that is fair, equitable, and geographically widespread. Our Cultivate projects invest in equity, collaboration, peer support, skills, and critical thinking.
In response to the ambitions and challenges of the visual arts sector in Scotland, we have designed an expanded Cultivate programme for 2025-28 to offer more comprehensive and tailored support. Projects include Affiliations, Constellations, Ley Lines in the Highlands and the next chapter of SCAN Sparks focusing on Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility (EDIA).
Cultivate Programme 2026-28:
Affiliations
Our Affiliations programme supports artist run initiatives (ARIs) with the practicalities of running a small organisation or collective, creating a lasting impact for this vital part of the arts ecology. It responds to the community’s collectively identified need to develop skills and build capacity.
Part 1 of Affiliations focuses on opening access to ethos-led training and expertise from beyond the immediate cultural sector, running across November 2025 to February 2026. Previous sessions included Collective Working, Ethical Fundraising, Commercial Property. You can still book spaces on the Charitable Finance and Reserves Policies sessions with charity financial resilience specialist Liz Pepler.
Following the online sessions, Affiliations participants will have the opportunity to apply to be part of the second part of the project, Affiliations Cohort: a focused incubator programme running between April to August 2026.
Affiliations Cohort will offer bespoke training, in-person events and field trips to partner organisations. In addition to this skills training, all participants will form a peer network, helping to build resilience within this crucial yet vulnerable area of the sector.
Expressions of Interest for the Affiliations Cohort are now open – details here.
If you have any questions, please contact Lydia Honeybone, Programme Development Lead at [email protected].
Ley Lines
Ley Lines is SCAN’s creative placemaking project for the Highlands, led by SCAN Highland Development Lead Emma Gibson and building on our previous work in the region. The project supports the equitable sharing of national resources, strengthens fragile networks and connections, and works towards a more resilient and connected visual art community.
Ley Lines, or Lay Lines, is a term coined by Alfred Watkins referring to connecting lines or possible ancient pathways connecting significant prehistoric sites across Britian. Additionally, in Scottish culture, “ley” has a variety of different meanings including a piece of fallow land, a meadow, or any open, uncultivated ground.
During 2025/26, SCAN is developing a comprehensive report that maps current activity, sets the wider regional context, and identifies gaps in support for artists and organisations. Extensive research is complemented by case studies exploring how organisations collaborate with artist-led groups across geographic distances, the role of tourism, and how collective approaches balance deep community engagement with wider visibility. Drawing on survey responses, mapping exercises and in-depth consultations, the research builds a detailed picture of the Highland contemporary art ecology.
More than a presentation of data, the report tells a story of connection, creativity and collective vision. Key themes are emerging across the research, reflecting not only the challenges facing the region, but also the shared values, priorities and ambitions shaping a cultural future for the Highlands that is both equitable and enduring.
This report, launching publicly in the summer of 2026, will be accompanied by a new visual identity co-created with a Highland-based graphic designer, reflecting the values and aesthetics of the creative community it represents.
Ley Lines Commons Open Call
From April 2026, the artistic community in the Highlands will have an opportunity to come together to via a series of participatory “Commons” to ensure their voice and support equitable power-sharing within creative placemaking processes.
Facilitated discussions will explore core themes such as isolation, visibility, transport, networks, and tourism, enabling practitioners to co-design ideas for long-term cultural development. This will be a place where practitioners move from being consulted to becoming co-authors; a space to listen, contribute, and build connections that extend beyond the report itself.
This is a paid opportunity, with travel support provided to ensure accessibility for participants across the Highlands. In addition, participants will have the chance to access seed funding for their own creative placemaking projects (whether these are already happening, in development, or dormant) offering a practical route to put ideas generated in the Commons into action.
Applications for the Ley Lines Commons will open in February. Sign up to the SCAN Circular to be the first to hear.
If you have any questions please contact Emma Gibson, Highlands Development Lead at [email protected].
Constellations
Due to start later in 2026/27, Constellations is an 18-month project for early-career curators, attempting to address the current lack of support, mentoring and practical guidance for this next generation workforce. Delivered with partners from both academic and artist-led backgrounds, the project is aimed at curators emerging from postgraduate-level courses and self-led projects alike.
Selected from an open call, six Constellations participants will be supported with seed funding to undertake a research trip and produce a small-scale curatorial project.
SCAN will also host some public events to bookend the project, enabling participants and the wider curatorial community to share best practice, connect to industry professionals and form peer networks. Constellations will support equitable career progression in our sector, ensuring that varying lived experiences, voices and approaches are platformed.
Further details and open call to follow later in 2026.
SPARKS
SCAN’s Sparks programme explores ways in which the cultural community can support grassroots activism and equalities-focused working. Following our 2021-22 project focused on grassroots BPOC activism, our next Sparks project focuses on neurodiversity within the context of disability justice and intersectionality. It will explore the Neurodiversity Affirmation Framework in creative practice, reflecting the statistically high rate of neurodivergence in the visual arts workforce.
Further details and open call to follow later in 2026.
If you would like more information, or are interested in partnering with SCAN on Sparks, please contact Veronique AA Lapeyre, Director at [email protected]
About SCAN
Scottish Contemporary Art Network (SCAN) is the member-led support network for contemporary art in Scotland. Founded in 2012, SCAN connects, champions, and cultivates the sector, while creating capacity for change. Our vision is of a Scotland where everyone has the right and the opportunity to experience the benefits of contemporary art.
About Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation aims to improve our natural world, secure a fairer future and strengthen the bonds in communities in the UK. We unlock change by contributing everything we can alongside people and organisations with brilliant ideas who share our goals.
The Foundation is one of the largest independent grant-makers in the UK. In 2025, we provided £52.9m in funding towards a wide range of work in support of our aims. We also provide social and impact investment for organisations with the aim of creating social and environmental impact.