SCAN Decades: our 2023 event series

18 January 2023

DECADES was a programme of free conversational events marking SCAN’s first ten years of activity by looking to the next ten years. Matching friends, collaborators and alumni in Scotland with the thinkers, activists and organisers who inspire them, each 90-minute event centred an issue prescient to the lives of artists, art workers and the wider public.

We know that the past few years have seen our contemporary art community work harder than ever in navigating the compound challenges of COVID-19, Brexit and an unfolding cost of living crisis. DECADES marks a conscientious pivot for SCAN, making a space away from the present tense to envisage futures with expertise summoned from across disciplines, experiences and borders.

During DECADES, we extended an invitation to think laterally about the world we want to build and what tools we’ll need to do so. With topics including the future of arts education, artists and the housing crisis, new visions for civic space and institutional power, each event asked what conditions were needed to make a liveable world for all and a thriving environment for contemporary art in Scotland.

DECADES took place over a number of weeknight sessions, online and in venues across Scotland.