The Space Between: A Creative Learning Exchange

Ali Pretty unites communities through extraordinary silk-based designs and public spectacles that inspire social action and enrich local environments. Her session includes a distinctive walking-based arts practice, using multi-day journeys to invite reflection, gather stories, and strengthen people’s connection to place. At ‘The Space Between’, she will explore how walking has transformed her life and work – how the rhythm of the trail offers not only clarity and inspiration, but also a profound tool for empathy and environmental stewardship.

Angela Adams-Gray comes from a multi-disciplinary arts background incorporating film, theatre and outdoor arts. She is Director of Articulation which supports Outdoor Arts, Circus and Spectacle in Scotland. Her talk for ‘The Space Between’ will explore how creative work in the public realm changes the way people experience place. Outdoor arts often has a deep engagement with place, drawing on the heritage and stories of the place they are located in. It can shift the narrative; dismantling traditional hierarchies, changing the way people experience these places and strengthening connection to that place.

Coleman & Hodges, public artists from Dumfries and Galloway, create context-responsive work exploring ecological and social systems through inclusive, participatory methods. Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, and cultural theory, they examine liminality as a space for transformation. Their talk at ‘The Space Between’ explores the “theta state” between sleep and wakefulness, cultural borderlands, and radical spaces like Temporary Autonomous Zones and queer spaces as fertile grounds for creativity, resistance, and alternative futures.

Katharine Wheeler is a creative practitioner, producer and facilitator of grassroots work and based in rural southwest Scotland with over 20 years’ professional experience and 10+ years focused on the civic role of culture in community-led change. Her talk at ‘The Space Between’ explores the adaptive, collaborative nature of her work at The Stove, using arts as a catalyst for placemaking. She highlights the iterative process, the importance of building cross-sector connections, and the storytelling and translation skills needed to create lasting impact and legacy within communities.

Penny Chivas, a Glasgow-based dance artist focused on improvisation, community practice, and social justice, will lead a brief hand-based movement exercise at ‘The Space Between’ exploring the space between people, ideas, and conversations. This will serve as a starting point to reflect on dialogue, collaboration, and connection. She will then share insights into how conversation has shaped her team’s work with audiences and communities, particularly around environmental change, and explore how dance can open up new ways of engaging in meaningful, inclusive dialogue.

Julie Brook studied art at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford. She creates large-scale sculptural and drawing works in remote or human-altered landscapes. Using materials found in each environment, she integrates photography and film to document and explore the making process. Her work reveals transient elements – light, tide, gravity – through a balance of what is made and left unmade. Listening and observation are central, as is openness to each site’s cultural and ecological context. Four key works – Firestack, Winter Wall, Ascending, and Tide Line – highlight how physical forms express invisible natural forces.

Rosie Newman is a Multidisciplinary Artist and lecturer at UHI Inverness, with a studio in Cromarty. Her work combines sculpture, performance and photography to explore the relationship between people and the natural world. Her workshop offers an embodied exploration of “The Space Between” using artmaking, sensory awareness, and dialogue. Rooted in socially engaged practice, it reframes pauses as spaces of presence and potential. Drawing on The Liminal Zone research project and a sea-based performance with a marine biologist, the session blends movement, stillness, and material play, inspired by Agnes Martin, John Cage, and James Turrell.

Gabby is an Award-winning Designer and Regenerative Futurist who often works in rural contexts to surface hidden narratives and explore alternative futures. She is the founder of Feeldwork Futures, a creative studio that uses sensory methods, participatory tools and place-based research to support others in imagining and shaping what comes next. In her workshop, Gabby will talk through a series of prompts, card draws and collective reflections that explore what it means to be in a moment of transition, whether personally, creatively, or environmentally. You will be encouraged to step out of solution mode and into a state of noticing, speculation and slowness.

DJ McDowall, Creator of The Imaginarium, is a seasoned Community Development practitioner based in Dumfries & Galloway with over 25 years’ experience delivering award-winning grassroots youth and community projects. Their session at ‘The Space Between’ offers a gently immersive space between memory, imagination, and transformation. Through guided prompts and participatory exercises, you will explore what emerges when we slow down and listen inward. Using creative mapping, embodied reflection, and speculative storytelling, the session invites collaborative dreaming rooted in radical imagination and restorative practice.

Kate MacKay is an artist who works collaboratively with people, places, and materials to unlock potential and shift perspectives. Her session uses the Polychrome Card toolkit, which explores the space between opposites as a site of possibility rather than division. Drawing on traits often associated with neurodivergence, the cards plot these characteristics and their opposites on a colour wheel. This creates a visual, creative pathway to explore balance, connection, and transformation – offering a supportive process for moving from stuckness toward growth, both individually and with others.

Elspeth Murray is a Poet, Librettist, Celebrant and Creative Facilitator whose work spans writing, ritual, live sketching and participatory arts. Her session offers gentle reflection on “the space between,” inviting us to consider our life itself as a work of art. Through prompts and quiet sharing, you’ll explore what you wish to carry forward, how we shape our intentions, and how to make them tangible. Bringing attention to the ordinary moments that so often slip past unnoticed, we discover how they can become gateways to fresh perception, deeper meaning, and renewed connection with one another and with ourselves.

Sam Eccles is a Strategic Partnerships and Business Development professional with over 20 years’ leadership experience in the cultural sector. Her workshop offers a calm, reflective space to shift from reactive to intentional thinking, helping you to reconnect with your “why” and find your North Star. Rather than focusing on business plans or KPIs, the session explores strategy as a personal tool – clarifying what’s valuable, creating direction, and supporting more intentional decisions. It’s about working on your practice, not just in it.

Clare-Louise Battersby is an artist inspired by the ancient, the wild, and the regenerative rhythms of nature. Working with wax, textiles, wood, and pigment, her practice draws on folklore and biodiversity. In her reflective, hands-on workshop, you are invited to slow down and create without pressure or extraction. Using natural and reclaimed materials, you’ll make layered, intuitive marks and collages in silence or stillness. Guided by prompts around breath, memory, and creative pauses, the session is less about producing something and more about tuning in – responding to what’s present, what’s waiting, and what shifts in the space between movement and rest.

Jideofor Muotune, a digital artist and multi-platform storyteller, creates projected animations, interactive displays, sound installations, and augmented reality works. With the Articulation team, Jideofor will lead an interactive discussion on his recent project uncovering Glasgow’s hidden past and links to slavery. Together, you will explore how creative interventions can transform public spaces, fostering identity, autonomy, and belonging. Through varied activities, the session will examine how outdoor arts can shift a place’s narrative, incorporating multiple contemporary perspectives.