"I’m writing this on Christmas Eve - my emails and phone are quiet as most of the sector is getting ready for the festive season. I did have a phone call yesterday with Scottish composer Jim Sutherland about bringing a film event to Mareel, and I am hoping to agree a date for an exciting celebration of Scottish poetry, but today is an opportunity to look back.
Our 2024 has been dominated with support for Shetland based (or connected) artists and performers, funding applications to our core funders Creative Scotland and Shetland Charitable Trust, as well as ongoing applications to local and national funds and trusts to support building work and projects.
This year saw incredible performances from some local stars, including Norman & Corrie, Amy Laurenson, Marjolein Robertson, Aly Bain & Phil Cunningham and Sophie Rocks with her Harp Trio The Willow Tree. The regular Young Musicians Sessions continued to captivate audiences every month and the debut of our Singer Songwriter Nights has quickly become a key fixture in the Shetland music scene. Photographer Dave Donaldson had his first solo exhibition 'Dispecta Est Thule', which documented the work and people on site of the old Anderson High School demolition, a part of Shetland Islands Council’s Knab redevelopment plan. Filmmakers JJ Jamieson and Liz Musser used the feature space in Mareel to show the outcome of their Remembering Together work and this was followed by 'Work in Progress', an exhibition by Aimee Labourne displaying her recent studies, experiments and development drawings.
Our retail space at Mareel continues to celebrate Shetland talent with a wide range of products available from a variety of creatives, including Linda Newington, Soapery 21, Julie Williamson, Paparwark, The Pottery North Roe and plenty more. We also supported Shetlands Arts and Craft Association with the delivery of a successful Up Helly Aa Craft Fair.
Local promoters and festivals have also featured heavily this year's programme, and I am forever grateful for the diversity and energy they bring to our buildings. Our long-term relationship with Shetland Folk Festival continued this year and we were pleased to be able to support Rising North, Boppapalooza, Shetland Young Promoters Group and Shetland Pride. Country Nights at Mareel, Briggistanes Events and Ragged Wood all staged successful events, too.
We presented one of the largest Homemade short film screenings ever with twenty nine different films screened and it was exciting to see the audience award go to one of our youngest filmmakers, Sally Stickle.
Young people and learning are a significant area of work for our team and one of my favourite events of the year is the annual sharing from Film Crew and Shetland Youth Theatre, which this year featured technical and storytelling techniques and monologues and duos from young people who may want to audition for acting roles in the future. We also hosted the Shetland Youth Music Festival and The Youth Takeover of Mareel with our partners at Shetlands Islands Council - both events were great celebrations of creativity with over 600 young people enjoying the experiences.
Our formal education programme, supported by UHI Shetland and Shetland Islands Council, has over 60 students registered locally and another 27 joining us from across the UHI partnership, studying film, drama, music and the creative industries. These courses are verified by The Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA), and I was chuffed for the team to read a report that highlighted the "innovative", "integrated", and "holistic" delivery, recognising the excellence of the programme. We are so proud of all of our students and what they go on to achieve, and this year we waved two of our alumni, Amber and Daisy, off to major national conservatoires to continue their studies - we caught up with them in May before they finished up their time with us, you can read the blog post here. One of our Customer Services team members, Martha, also joined Daisy in Wales to study musical theatre.
We have also continued investing in Shetland talent. The Visual Arts and Craft Makers Awards (VACMA), supported by Creative Scotland and Shetland Islands Council, has enabled us to continue to support the development of local creatives with another 6 artists recently securing investment of either £500 or £1,000. Phase Two of Remembering Together, Scotland’s Covid Memorial Programme, has also enabled 5 artists and 4 content creators to build upon the work done by Christina Inkster during Phase One - each artist has completed their memorials, with a commemorative book compiling these projects to be launched soon.
Over the past three years, Shetland Arts, Taigh Chearsabhagh, The Pier Arts Centre, and An Lanntair have collaborated on various Culture Collective projects. Even Here, Even Now (a manifesto advocating for transformative change in island-based art) was one of these projects and earlier this year we advertised for, and appointed, 5 Artist Advocate roles totalling £26,000 to promote and progress the manifesto. We have already had some great local and national press coverage of the project.
The year hasn’t been straight forward though. The continual rising costs of running the organisation, whether this is energy related, insurances, travel or accommodation, has impacted us. We have continued to avoid price rises for cinema tickets, but it has been sobering to see cinemas and organisations across Scotland reduce activity, get mothballed or cease trading. The staffing challenges that were already plaguing a range of sectors in Shetland began to disrupt hospitality, with some locations closing completely. I am so grateful for the work the team at Mareel did to maintain a level of service focused around our core activity of events, exhibitions, workshops and cinema. We are in a much stronger position now and have created a development role to encourage more people to explore what a career in the arts sector can offer - find out more about this role here.
We also felt the long-term effect of the writer and actor strikes in the US with the number of films being released about half the amount we would have expected pre-pandemic. This makes a big difference to the number of films we can show in a week and on top of the impacts of the pandemic, cinema is being slower to recover than anyone in the industry had hoped.
The announcement we were expecting in October from Creative Scotland about our application to their new Multi-Year Fund has been delayed until January, but it was great to see the Scottish Government deliver on their promises around culture and announce over £30m additional funding in their budget announcement. It was amazing to receive the news from Shetland Charitable Trust that they were increasing their investment in our work by over 39% in 2025. This is a real recognition of the importance they place on the impact that we have and the difference we make against their priorities. It means the organisation is secure, though the scale of what we can do will be greatly enhanced if we receive further investment from Creative Scotland.
Personally, it was a great honour to give the closing address at this year's UHI Shetland graduation ceremonies and then a few days later to be asked to join the steering group of the national advocacy body for arts, culture and heritage, Culture Counts. I then took part in my first ever TikTok interview hosted by members of the Shetland Young Promoters Group.
2025 is shaping up to be a fun yet challenging year in equal measure. Work will be starting at Bonhoga and we will be installing a Changing Places toilet in Mareel. The programme is shaping up nicely with a good variety of celebrating our home-grown talent alongside some inspirational visiting artists. We are continuing to invest directly in Shetland Creatives, with a new round of the Visual Arts and Craft Makers Awards and a new round of commissions focused on creation, presentation and training which we will be launching on Wednesday 8 January.
If you want to come and join the fun we are currently recruiting for three roles (Support Services Manager, Customer Service Assistant with Development Programme and Maintenance Technician). Or, if you feel you would like to help shape our future, please enquire about being a trustee by contacting [email protected].
If you are interested in seeing in more detail what we've done and what we've achieved, we publish quarterly and annual reports on our website (they can be found here) and the quarterly reports date back to my first full year in charge.
I would like to thank our trustees for their wisdom and support, our funders for their commitment to the work we do, my colleagues for their constant inspiration and the performers, students, creatives and audiences that we do it all for."
