Feature: Being an artist during the pandemic

Artists and creative practitioners will be crucial in supporting communities with co-creation during Remembering Together. Storytelling Associate Adil Iqbal looks at how artists and the cultural sector are being impacted during the Covid pandemic.

Art can be a powerful and effective tool in times of adversity. Whether responding to conflict, displacement or a global pandemic, artists are often able to find distinctive ways to understand and express their experiences. Some of the most powerful works have been developed in response to crises, such as Palestinian art during the Intifida where numerous artists brought the struggle of freedom and occupation to people around the world. Trans artist Alok Vaid Menon uses art and activism to inspire young trans people and the LGBTQ community.  Poetry and creative writing have been influential in times of despair to build resilience and healing. Poets such as Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Mamoud Darwish  are world renowned for exploring themes of resistance, identity and politics. The Emergency poet is also a brilliant anthology and resource  to overcome stress, and anxiety in moments of hardship. 

Artists and art can act as catalysts to unpack the multiple layers of social, economic, cultural and environmental disparity and bring them to the surface. However, the pandemic has had a colossal impact on the livelihood of artists across the country, the competition for funding within the creative sector has been fierce and many artists are suffering from multiple layers of trauma and grief.

According to Scottish Artist Union, 81% of artists are self-employed; 83% earn less than £10k per year and 88% do not get contracts consistently. These figures suggest the uncertain nature of the artist and the high levels of anxiety that come with it. Creating things is often about risk, intimacy and vulnerability and many creative endeavours are solitary efforts, which leads to ‘creative anxiety’. The artist is given a challenge and wants to respond through their individual lens of lived experience and practice. The pandemic has intensified this and added to the on-going anxiety the artist faces.  This is reflected in the conversations I have had with my artist friends who have pointed out that they were even more concerned about personal finances than a year ago and that their funds were already being impacted.

Although events across Scotland are planned to reopen in summer 2022, the pandemic reveals profound inequality within the art sector and has bought to surface the urgency in addressing this. Race, Class, Disability and LGBTQ identity are on the high priority agenda for many organisations in the arts and across different sectors. This is reflected within the EDI policy of Creative Scotland to ensure fairness and access for those experiencing barriers. The barriers faced by artists are shared by many community members and have often meant increased challenges during the pandemic. This is an important consideration we have made when developing Remembering Together – working with artists and creatives that share these lived experiences can only strengthen the work we do together.

The way the arts are surviving and emerging from the pandemic has left important legacies that we hope Remembering Together can be part of protecting. For example, during the Covid pandemic, the emergence of digital tools and technologies paved new ways of collaborating and working for the artist and the creative industries. The Digital boost grant scheme by the Scottish government supported many small organisations during the pandemic.  The Connect and Collaborate fund by British Council Scotland and Creative Scotland supported a range of arts and cultural projects through the pandemic, such as, bothy project and Cove Park.

We can all learn from our colleagues working innovatively with technology, and using it to reach people from all kinds of backgrounds, such as:

Enable Scotland created digital training around key topics such as animation, gaming, coding and digital security for young disabled people in Dundee.

An Lanntair’s Creative Connections project in Lewis and Harris worked with isolated people aged 60 and over through online creative workshops delivered by freelance artist educators in both English and Gaelic.

Solar Bear provided creative writing and storytelling workshops, bringing together care- experienced disabled and deaf young people.

Remembering Together also uses digital means to work with our partners, artists and communities co-create memorials across the country, and also has a strong commitment to working in-person with communities, where possible. Without important programmes that centre communities, such as Culture Collective, Dandelion and Scottish Government’s Creative Communities, Remembering Together may not be working in this way.

It is our hope that by working with communities, partners and our colleagues, we can be part of this shift to better support for artists to work within places and communities while deepening the public's understanding of how creativity and art can benefit everyone.