SCAN Decades

Marking our first ten years of activity by looking to the next ten years, DECADES is SCAN’s new programme of free conversational events. Matching friends, collaborators and alumni in Scotland with the thinkers, activists and organisers who inspire them, each 90-minute event will centre 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.

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

DECADES will take place over a number of weeknight sessions, online and in venues across Scotland, between February and May 2023.