Towards a Scottish Collection of Artists’ Moving Image, Glasgow

What does it mean to build a Scottish collection of artists’ moving image? What should such a collection comprise and what functions should it fulfil?

LUX Scotland hosts the first in a series of events around the establishment of its new distribution collection of Scottish artists’ moving image work. The intention for this project is not only to promote and make this work publicly accessible on both a national and international level, but also to explore how such a collection might function as a way of consolidating a history or tradition of moving image culture in Scotland.

LUX Scotland’s collection building process is conceived as an open research project, working in consultation with the arts community across Scotland over the next few years. Through these public discussions, we hope to open out some of the questions around what it means to establish such a collection and what should be included, as well as acknowledge some of the precedents for collection building that already exist within Scotland. We will also address issues such as the problematics of defining a collection by national or geographic borders; questions around archiving, distribution and accessibility; and criteria for inclusion and exclusion.

These questions will be explored in a panel discussion chaired by writer and academic researcher, Sarah Neely (University of Stirling). The panel will include: Julie-Ann Delaney (Curator, Scottish National Galleries of Modern Art), William Fowler (Curator of Artists’ Moving Image, BFI National Archive), Cloudberry Maclean (Co-founder, GLITCH Film Festival), Adam Lockhart (Archivist, Visual Research Centre, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design) and Francis McKee(Director, CCA Glasgow).

The discussion will be followed by a screening programme entitled Five Propositions, for which we have invited five people working in different roles within the Scottish arts sector to make a personal proposition for a work that should be included in the collection. The screening programme will bring together introductions and film selections from the following contributors: Anne-Marie Copestake(Artist), Alexander Hetherington (Artist, curator and writer), Moira Jeffrey(Writer), Dr Sarah Smith (Head of Art Context and Theory, Glasgow School of Art), Alexander Storey-Gordon (Artist).