Our passion is to tell stories and help you tell yours.
We achieve this through our own events, cultural projects, productions, community work and talent development, and we can help you with yours. We can produce large scale national productions, as well as guide your community through storytelling projects of the past, present and possible futures. We’re also here to offer advice, mentoring and training. We’ve worked with organisations from the National Theatre of Scotland to Scottish Communities Climate Action Network and have gathered together a few examples of the work we’ve undertaken below.
We Are Here is a Community Interest Company with an aim to amplify the voices BPoC (Black People and People of Colour) in particular Artists and Creatives who reside in Scotland with opportunities to share their work, connect with each other, and have their voices heard within the wider art community. The presence of BPoC artists and creatives working within Scotland's creative industries are significantly underrepresented.
This must change.
From visual arts, music, dance, poetry, photography, and much more, our stories need to be heard. The conversation has to start somewhere and we hope this space will provide you with a sense of community, inspiration and motivation, whilst also reaffirming the importance of BPoC representation within the arts in Scotland.
Based in Aberdeen, Elev8arts C.I.C. deliver and develop art projects connecting artists to the public, community, business or the third sector. We are here to work with artists in ways which benefit our communities and are always looking for good people to work with to make that happen!
Maja Zećo [maya zecho], originally from Sarajevo and now based in Aberdeen, is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans performance art, sound, video and installation. As she works in different geographic and institutional contexts, her works are often site-specific and relational, negotiating personal and group narratives of identity and history. She has exhibited internationally. In 2019 Maja obtained a PhD in fine art, on sound and performance art practice, based at Gray’s School of Art (RGU) with the support of the Sonic Arts Programme at the University of Aberdeen.
Working primarily in photography and digital collage, her work undertakes explorations of a range of preoccupations, including the construction/deconstruction of the self, both online and off, the tensions in our relationships with the non-human world, and seeking often missed details of the every day.
Under her ‘Corvid Eyes‘ remit she has completed site-specific outdoor and indoor collaged ‘paste ups’ across Scotland. As a working moniker, ‘Corvid Eyes’, describes a ‘magpie’ method of working- collecting a miscellany of imagery from a variety of historical and contemporary sources, to be reassembled into new narratives of sorrow, joy, and the absurd.
As a creative practitioner she also offers a range of workshops, and has worked in partnership with organisations across Aberdeen city and shire, including Elev8 Arts, Creative Learning, Aberdeen Performing Arts, The Barn, The Fife Arms, and many more.
Originally from London Ica Headlam is Creative Practitioner who moved to Aberdeen in 2004.
In late 2017 Ica started to independently produce and host Creative Me Podcast a fortnightly show that explores creativity, art, and culture in the North East of Scotland, with an aim to draw a wider focus on Aberdeen's creative community. Ica moved into All In Ideas in August 2018.
He is also the founder of We Are Here Scotland a non-profit organisation that aims to amplify the voices of Black and People of Colour artists and creatives across Scotland. The organisation's work is rooted in anti-racism practice, mentoring, project development, and creating events that further highlights the work and achievements of Black and People of Colour artists and creatives.
Ica is a strong advocate for representation across Scotland's creative industries and values the importance of open and honest dialogue.
I am an oil painter working at Arkade Studios. My practice concerns the emotional relationship one has with the landscape as an urban person in the present day. Many of my compositions come from views from vehicles or buildings which represents the distance I feel from the actually existing landscape, as well as my anxieties, insecurities and self-consciousness about it, and about being a landscape painter that has such a distanced and alienated relationship with the landscape itself.
Alan Davidson trained at Gray's School of Art many years ago, winning first prize in the Contemporary Art Society's 'Interior Motives' exhibition.
For a few decades he abandoned his artwork in favour of music, recording as Kitchen Cynics.
Since taking a place in The Anatomy Rooms he has gradually returned to oil painting, collage and illustration, and now splits his studio time between art and music.
Within my practice, I employ a broad range of media to explore the concept of time –
time rendered finite and limited through the act of measurement. Whether measured geologically, astrologically, by my lifetime, or through societal perspectives, I investigate how the omnipresence of death and the pressure of limited time imposes and instills values. What constitutes productivity, progress, pleasure, beauty, and value in the face of mortality? How do I, within my impermanency, consume or have my time consumed? In this exploration, my practice spans sculpture, film, audio, drawing, painting, writing, embroidery, performance, and installation. I often use contrasting elements to create open-ended allegories; allegories that quizzically point to what is perceived as virtue and vice rather than defining what they are.
My current area of research focuses on the relationship between the notion of Heaven, utopia, and fantasy; both as a verb and as a genre.
I am inspired by the constant change and fluctuation, according to set patterns, traditions and passed-down knowledge in nature. There is something soothing in the constant state of change and order that the natural world lives by. I look for pattern and movement in my surrounding and use my work as a way to respond to it.
An abstract figurative artist based in Arkade Studios in Aberdeen City. I explore local and personal identities and histories from a feminist perspective through the processes of painting, drawing and printmaking.
I began my professional artistic journey at Leith School of Art, attending evening classes alongside my career as a primary teacher before spending 2 years on The Painting Course. I have also studied painting at Gray's School of Art, drawing at the Royal Drawing School and printmaking at Peacock's print studio and Edinburgh Printmakers.
I have experience in delivering engaging art workshops for adults, children and families, and have also worked as an Art and Creativity Specialist Primary Teacher sharing my love of creativity and image making with the next generation of artists - and being inspired by them in return!
Explorations at time of writing (23-01-24):
Letterforms - simple resonant/reflective phrases - photographs of people around me - see time as an ingredient - economy of line - simplicity - acceptance - health - the process included in the piece - light and the opacity of different materials - archiving - calcium carbonate and how seashells grow over time - natural materials - synthetic materials styled as natural materials - artificiality - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Materials/tools most used at time of writing (23-01-24):
Audio:
Digital: Sound recorder (phone + dictaphone), laptop keyboard as musical keyboard, digital audio workstation, retro computer game music samples,
Analog: voice, drum machine.
Visual:
Digital: Scanner, various imaging software, mirrorless camera, phone camera, mono laser printer.
Analog: Paper, ink (fluorescent, biro, archival, permanent), repurposed packaging, point and shoot camera, 50mm prime lens, colour photo film, torch, found seashells."
Jon Reid is an artist and blogger based in Aberdeen. Over the last 16 years, he’s been pushing and promoting artists and culture in the North East of Scotland and connecting with artists and cultural organisations across the UK. His blog uses photographs, reviews, videos, artist studio visits and any other form of interaction to shine a light on the culture in Aberdeen, revealing a different set of values through making connections and creating moments for genuine engagement with creatives. Along with founding the blog in 2008, Jon has organised and taken part in numerous events, exhibitions, mural projects & short film screenings.
Making connections and engaging with the local community has been central to Jon and many of the projects he’s undertaken. Jon is currently General Manager at Peacock Print Studio and helps run the street art tours for Nuart Aberdeen, using his extensive knowledge and passion for street art to enlighten the masses!
Jon also holds a trustee position on the Board of All In Ideas.
Andrew is an artist and researcher interested in media and how we interact with it.
They studied Contemporary Art Practice at Gray's School of Art as an undergraduate before moving to post-graduate research in Psychology at Robert Gordon University. Their research mostly focuses on how extreme groups use emerging social media platforms for discourse, communication, and recruitment.
A significant portion of their undergraduate work focused on video and instillation work. After graduating they have been experimenting with different ways of making artwork, including returning to abstract painting and printmaking.
They have been involved in several projects around Aberdeen. Including collaborating as a supporting artists during the Wonderland Festival (2022) to produce a set of instillations modelled on sensory spaces. For three years they edited a section of the University of Aberdeen student newspaper, The Gaudie.
A self-taught artist, painting professionally from her studio in Aberdeen at Arkade Studios. Featured in numerous North East galleries, including the family run Butterworth Gallery, Mary is celebrated for her atmospheric paintings and night scenes. Her work often explores contemporary spaces that serve as havens for reflection and solace, highlighting the dramatic interplay of light. Mary's artistic signature lies in her rich palette, profound depth, and the emotional resonance that permeates her creations, making her distinctive style instantly recognisable and sought after by private collectors world wide.
Over the last 10 years, she has dedicated herself to nurturing the local arts scene, contributing not only as an artist but also as a producer of various art projects, charity fundraisers and independent projects as founding director of Elev8arts C.I.C. Mary passionately believes in the profoundly human need for creativity and expression. A graduate in psychology and philosophy from Edinburgh University, this academic background is seamlessly woven into her works, with a keen interest in wellbeing, psychological response and the dynamic interplay between spaces and emotions.
As she continues to explore themes surrounding emotional spaces in both natural and urban environments, her recent journey delves into the meanings and associations within objects, most recently focusing on themes of memory, decay, comfort, and loss. Mary's art not only invites viewers into mood driven realms but also encourages contemplation of our environment and the intricacies of and the human experience.
Claire Abbott has worked as a creative community worker in the North-East since 2013. Having studied Sculpture at Grays School of Art in Aberdeen she then went on to achieve a Masters in Eduction, Community Learning and Development which helped to deepen a socially engaged practice.
Claire has worked across communities of place, interest and purpose and is particularly interested in trauma informed practice, relationship to place and understanding ‘the self’ through healing modalities. She always brings creativity and play to her work, which is often with vulnerable people, wholeheartedly subscribing to the view that creativity is fundamental for life.
Forever a student, she trained to become a yoga teacher and achieved a second Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Aberdeen.
She founded Out Beyond Ideas as the umbrella organisation for the different strands of her practice and is developing Pranamama, a creative coaching programme to support women through the early stages of motherhood.
Claire is currently working as a freelancer in the third sector with charities including North East Sensory Services, Growing2Gether - a transformative youth mentoring programme, the Bridge of Don Community Centre Association and Grampian Yoga Association. She is a creative journaling facilitator for Let’s All Talk North East Mums.
She’s also having a lot of fun exploring how she could develop a multi-disciplinary personal practice experimenting with illustration, printing, mark making, music, poetry, story and song writing.
Collaborations and creative conversations are always welcome.