Deveron Arts is a United Kingdom arts organisation based in Huntly, Aberdeenshire that hosts international artists from a variety of disciplines to collaborate with the town community. Deveron Arts follows a '50/50' approach, which gives equal attention to impact on the local community and impact on the international art scene. Residencies have been provided to artists from China, the Americas, India, Africa and mainland Europe as well as North East Scotland.
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History
Deveron Arts was established in 1995. As well as organizing artist residencies, Deveron Arts has also carried out annual events, including the Slow Marathon, and has created a major collection of contemporary art in the town through their town is the venue methodology.
In 2008 Deveron Arts joined forces with the Huntly Development Trust and artist Jacques Coetzer to create a new motto, "Room to Roam", and created a regional initiative 2014, "Aberdeenshire Ways". In 2013 a Creative Place Award FROM Creative Scotland funded an initiative spearheaded by Deveron Arts: The Walking Institute.
As part of its 20th anniversary year Deveron Arts commissioned a work of public art influenced by inspired by Joseph Beuys' seminal 7000 Oaks. The project created a small woods grown from acorns collected from Beuys' oak trees.
The Town is the Venue artist residencies
Deveron Arts arranges residencies which result in the creation of public art based on research into topical issues – economic, social, political – that affect both the local community and the wider world. Deveron Residences have explored the history, context and identity of Huntly with the town acting as studio, gallery and stage for the artists. Most residencies last three months; others have been over a more extended period. About 80 artists from 23 countries have undertaken a Town is the Venue Residency since 1995. They include Baudouin Mouanda, Böller und Brot, Celia - Yunior, Dalziel + Scullion, Emily White, Gayle Chong Kwan, Gemuce - Pompílio Hilário, Hamish Fulton, Jacqueline Donachie, Kenny Hunter, Mihret Kebede, Nancy Mteki, Paul Shepheard, Paul Anderson, Peter Liversidge Priya Ravish Mehra, Roderick Buchanan, Ross Sinclair, Stéfanie Bourne and Utopia Group. Each artist leaves at least one work at the end of their residency, so over time Huntly has amassed a large collection of contemporary art: The Town Collection, which is dispersed about the town.
Funded by the first of two Creative Scotland Creative Place Awards, Deveron Arts invited food consultant Simon Preston to undertake a Town is the Venue residency in 2012. The Town is the Menu residency led to the creation of a signature menu devised to show off the best of the Aberdeenshire larder
Room to Roam
In 2007 Deveron Arts invited Cape Town-based artist Jacques Coetzer to create a branding for the town. Coetzer found the poem “Room to Roam” by Victorian author and Huntly resident, George MacDonald. The poem was set to music by Mike Scott of the Waterboys, who donated tune to the town as its anthem. Coetzer’s branding was unveiled in 2008, and included a contemporary logo design with a traditional Scottish antler and a road map. The branding was officially accepted as part of the town crest by the Court of the Lord Lyon in 2010.
The Walking Institute
In 2010, Deveron Arts commissioned Hamish Fulton to create a new walking work for Huntly. The resuling piece 21 Days in the Cairngorms (2010) featured two group slow-walks, as well as a group of walkers to see Fulton off on the first day of his twenty-day journey, and new and unusual experience for Fulton. This project inspired the development of the Walking Institute and a further focus to walking as an artistic medium. in 2012 Ethiopian artist Mihret Kebede introduced the Slow Marathon concept, in the spirit of the Ethiopian tradition of long distance running, leading 100 people in a 26-mile slow walk in the countryside around Huntly. The 2013 Slow Marathon, Cabrach to Huntly, was held on John Muir Day and the 2014 event started at the Glenkindie on the edge of the Cairngorms National Park. Other Walking Institute projects have included: In the Footsteps of Nan Shepherd: a long distance walk looking by Simone Kenyon at issues, plights and pleasures of women walking in wilderness; Huntly Perambulator, a series of walks by Clare Qualmann looking at walking with prams; Hielan’ Ways, a programme that included poetry (Alec Finlay), music (Paul Anderson) and art (Simone Kenyon, Gillian Russel). Hielan’ Ways explored the old drover routes that cross north-east Scotland and culminated in a symposium with contributions from mountaineer Doug Scott , Turner Prize-winning artist Richard Long and the Cloud Appreciation Society. In 2015 Anthony Schrag completed The Lure of The Lost, a walk from Huntly to the Venice Biennale in Italy.