Reflecting on SCAN Summit 2025: The Grid
SCAN Summit 2025: The Grid took place on 13 May at Eden Court in Inverness, the first time our annual flagship event has taken place in the Highlands. It was an invigorating day of talks, activities, screenings and discussions interrogating systems of power distribution, which saw artists, art workers, thinkers and writers from the local area and all around Scotland come together to think about alternative energy, land ownership, and the culture and politics of local and international societies in transition.
As a way of reflecting on the Summit, we asked participants, attendees and staff members alike to highlight aspects of the day that particularly inspired and invigorated them.
Emma Gibson, SCAN Member Development Officer (Highland): As an artist who lives and works (for SCAN) in the Highlands myself, having the Summit event locally felt like a real milestone in solidifying the importance of the region’s contemporary art activities. My absolute favourite part of the day was getting to explore explore artist-led activity in the Highlands with Circus Artspace and dig into their work under the moniker CARAVAN. As a group of working artists they have a real breadth of experience on the ground and their networks are complex and always growing. Seeing data come to life about where we are, where we work, what goals and challenges we have in common, in real time, was a nice (and useful!) touch.
The importance of groups like this are hard to define: they become a sort of golden thread running through the land and the people, a kind of grid if you like, connecting the dots and demystifying the process of how artists live and work together here. They are community makers in their own right and I’m very excited to see what they do next!
Jessica Crisp, artist and attendee: The themes that stayed with me were the links between the highland clearances and the transatlantic slave trade, the possibility of people cleared from land reproducing violence in colonies; learning from indigenous knowledge and galvanising communities around community power; the culture and politics of land ownership, absentee landlords, community land ownership, the possibility of breaking away from concepts of private property; and looking at approaches to energy generation in the Highlands and Islands, primarily through wind farms, examining the distribution of the energy generated and ‘just transition’ for oil workers.
The questions that are still resonating with me are, how do we break away from the concept of private property? With the rapid acceleration of wind power in Scotland, who is profiting? Are communities in Scotland benefiting? Is the transition to renewables being treated as another technology with the same extractivist priorities?
Patricia Niemann, artist and attendee: It appears that the world is at war, and not just in the global South and East. Humanity overall is at war – with itself and the world. It is a struggle for power, the generation of power, and domination. The SCAN Summit provided an examination of how the arts and artists are grappling with this in the face of powerlessness.
While all the presenters and activities I took part in were hugely illuminating and there was no dull moment, the presentation by Les Bicknell, currently Artist-in-Residence at Sizewell C nuclear power station, has stayed with me the longest. He offered a deeply insightful, inspiring and humorous artistic attitude to making work – to ‘point things out’, being a war reporter and utilising play may hold the only solution to survival.
Les Bicknell, artist and presenter: As ever when talking about my work there is the opportunity to reflect in the moment. The comments from others inform my thinking about my practice and in many ways explain to me what the work is actually about. I realised that I’m not an activist, or even an artist/activist in what might be considered a ‘traditional’ sense, but I think my activism, if I have any, is positioned in a broader, more socially engaged way. I guess the point or intention of what I do is to enable or encourage thought, creating a space to consider, or reconsider an issue. A moment to contemplate.
It was fascinating to hear about issues I had never thought about. The effect of the transition from oil and gas to wind power on workers involved in generating power and the knock-on effect on their communities. The devastation brought by a lack of investment in the area, places having huge changes imposed on them, without consultation or true community engagement, as ever the money going out to private firms, investors and shareholders. Follow the money! I had many devastating conversations about the environmental damage we are inflicting and the global apocalypse we are living in….I left unsure of a future, but I did have a great time! and maybe some strategies to cope and make work.
Shireen Taylor, SCAN Finance and Development Lead: The thing I enjoyed most was seeing people come together, meeting some members and non-members for the first time, and seeing how the different presentations sparked conversation between the events. I saw people getting into deep conversation and swapping contacts, so I am excited to imagine what new ideas and projects could emerge as a result. It was also really great to get out of the central belt, and be part of a conversation that felt energised (no pun intended) by local issues.
Iona Gibson, Highland Zine Bothy: It was a real joy to facilitate the ‘Connecting the dots’ breakout session on behalf of Highland Zine Bothy. We were blessed to have such a thoughtful, curious group engage with big (and difficult!) questions in an open-minded yet vulnerable way. The format invited honest responses, but it was the discussions around them – particularly on whether the internet should be treated as a public utility – that truly sparked something special.
The energy in the room was shaped by the care and insight everyone brought, including some of the day’s speakers, whose earlier talks clearly rippled through our conversations. I could clearly see everyone’s cogs turning! It felt like a rare and meaningful moment of collective reflection, punctuated by vibrant lunchtime chats and the pleasure of seeing both familiar and new faces.
In addition to the session itself, a personal highlight from the Summit was the hand-carved eraser-stamp stickers marking each breakout in its own unique way and acting as a keepsake from the event. This small gesture beautifully echoed the spirit of the day: intentional, collaborative, and full of character.
Images: Alexander Williamson