Amidst budget cuts, ubiquitous burnout, and individual and organisational precarity across Scotland’s arts landscape, we must centre care, collaboration, and solidarity – and demand better from the systems we operate under. With this gathering, open to any and all who want to see a flourishing and just arts landscape in Scotland, we hope to provide the time and space to come together in action-oriented discussion and imagine ways to do things differently.

The session will welcome a series of short provocations by arts workers with a wealth of perspectives across the film exhibition and arts sectors, inviting collaborative reflection, response, and strategising.

Contributors:

Morvern Cunningham (she/they) is a freelance creative with almost two decades of experience working across the arts in Scotland, with particular focus on the grassroots and community sectors. They recently were Creative Lead with nationwide participatory arts programme Culture Collective and are Project co-Lead of the Creative Community Hubs Network in Edinburgh, specialising in network development and peer support initiatives. Morvern also leads on the Community Cinema Hubs project, whose Local Cinema programme takes place across multiple community venues across Edinburgh during autumn/winter 2023.

Sanne Jehoul is the programme director of Glasgow Short Film Festival and works across the short film slate of Vienna-based festival distribution & sales agency Square Eyes. She regularly freelances across curation, writing, and as a panelist or speaker. She is focused on supporting emerging filmmakers and other art workers, as well as cultural organising across the international industry. In the past she has worked for various festivals and other arts and media organisations. She also sits on the board of Belgian short film platform Kortfilm.be. 

Beulah Ezeugo is a Nigerian curator, programmer, and researcher interested in ideas around the archive, memory, and mythology. She is currently a research associate at CCA Derry~Londonderry and an independent curator, interested in supporting collaborative and research-led artists’ practices.

Liz Chege trained as an architect and town planner. In 2022, she was invited to be a Salzburg Global Seminar Fellow, Acumen Fellow and BAFTA member. She is a Berlinale Talent alumni and founding member of Come the Revolution, a collective of creatives committed to exploring Black life and cultural expression through cinema. She was programme producer of British Council’s “No Direct Flight” at the British Film Institute, a cross-media exploration of global African diaspora moving-image makers. She has served on international film festival juries and continues to work as a curator and critic. Most recently, she was appointed director of Africa in Motion Film Festival (Scotland).

Erica Monde (she/they) is a filmmaker and anthropologist working across directing, academic research, and film education. She is co-founder of IMPRINT Documentary Collective, an international film collective working on the body and embodiment in film. She holds an MFA in documentary directing and an MA in medical anthropology, and currently tutors on the Film Medicine course at the University of Edinburgh. Their Bridging the Gap film, There’s Not Much We Can Do, had its world premiere at EIFF, internationally premiered at DOC:NYC, and was nominated for best documentary short at Raindance. They have recently been commissioned by Short Circuit’s Sharp Shorts scheme to develop their first fiction film, and are working on their first feature length nature documentary.

Neha Apsara is the curatorial and programming assistant, with a particular interest in film programming, at the CCA. She started her programme Begana: Musings on South Asian Queer Stories last year and has since partnered with other film festivals such as SQIFF. Through this work she has been working to increase visibility of South Asian folk in the creative scene of Glasgow. With a passion for loving rage and feeling, Neha hopes that this moment in time really moves us towards change.

ACCESS: BSL and/or live captions available on request. Please contact access@takeoneaction.org.uk by 1 December to make a request.