Culture, Arts and Refugees

With the support of Creative Exchange, one of the PLN participant organisations, Paragon Ensemble, organised a conference in November 2007 to bring together those practitioners, organisations and agencies working in the field of culture with refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland and, in particular, the City of Glasgow.

At the event, representatives from the Scottish Refugee Council, Scottish Arts Council (now Creative Scotland), Sport Glasgow Trust, Paragon Ensemble, Creative Exchange and Strathclyde University, as well as other practitioners and cultural consultants, discussed the issues and challenges facing the sector and opportunities for a more sustainable future. Participants agreed that a networking system could help the sector to have a more cohesive and strategic approach in the delivery of art programmes, and the need of art organisations to embrace a more inclusive and inter cultural perspective for cultural and social integration.

A set of recommendations was proposed and followed up with the forum of the Arts & Refugee Strategy Group, hosted by the Scottish Refugee Council. For Ninian Perry, CEO of Paragon Ensemble, ‘there is a clear need for those involved in the sector to create a network which will inform, lobby and create long term opportunities for the arts and new settlers in Scotland’.

A few months after the November meeting, a group of art practitioners, cultural organisations and refugee agencies decided to form ICAN, the Inter Cultural Arts Network, to support the development of inclusive arts practice including new settlers from other parts of the world.

A report on the formation of ICAN was prepared by Ninian Perry and is available to download as a pdf.

For further information on ICAN please contact Ninian Perry, Artistic Director and CEO of Paragon Ensemble, through the following website: http://www.paragon-music.org