In the latter part of 2025, the Applied Arts Scotland (AAS) CULTURALITY Project Team – Carol Sinclair, Netty Sopata and Clare Waddle – turned their attention to delivering our second Rural Spot event in the Project. Building on the foundations laid by earlier project activity and Consortium visits across Europe, in particular the first Rural Spot event on the Isle of Lewis, the Twenty-Four Hour In-Person Creative Discussion offered an opportunity to deepen conversations in a more focused and intimate way. Clare at Yellow Broom reflects on those twenty-four hours.

We brought together a small group of makers and creative practitioners at the Dell of Abernethy for an intensive twenty-four hour, in-person creative discussion. Those gathered explored how creative practice in rural areas intersects with tourism, place, and local economies, and what this means for the future sustainability of rural creative work.

CULTURALITY, a four-year Horizon Europe funded research project led in Scotland by AAS in partnership with the University of St Andrews, seeks to better understand how craft, culture and creative practice currently operate within rural tourism contexts and how these relationships might evolve in more sustainable and equitable ways. Our second Rural Spot event was designed to take many of the questions, themes and insights emerging from the intentionally Consortium and stakeholder dominant first Rural Spot event and explore them with a smaller, maker-led group. As all participants were practicing AAS Professional Members, it allowed for deeper peer-to peer exchange and lived experience discussion.

Given CULTURALITY’s focus on rural and remote creative tourism, the Cairngorms National Park felt like a fitting location, not least because it is where I am based. The chosen venue, the Dell of Abernethy sits on the edge of the Abernethy Forest and offered an ideal rural setting for this stage of the research. Co-owners Ross and Polly hosted our group with great care, providing accommodation and food that showcased local produce alongside thoughtful, place based hospitality. Their approach to combining business, food, and experience offered valuable insight into the kinds of rural models CULTURALITY is exploring. For participants, the setting itself soon became part of our conversations, reinforcing how environment, creativity, and hospitality are so deeply connected.

Our vision for this strand of the Project was for it to feel more intimate, organic and distinctly maker-led. We wanted to offer AAS Members a rare opportunity to slow down, step away from everyday pressures and reflect collectively on the realities of rural creative practice. Discussions were facilitated by the Project Team and centred on lived experience:

• how participants work with place
• how tourists encounter creatives and vice versa in rural settings
• what a sustainable creative future might look like for rural communities

How we Approached this in Practice

The response to an open call to AAS Members was overwhelmingly positive. The most difficult task was selecting just four makers to participate in the event as the quality, relevance and honesty of applications was incredibly strong. Although capacity limited our selection of participants, we agreed to ‘bank’ other interested AAS Members for future CULTURALITY activity, all of whom agreed to be involved at the next stage.

Part of AAS’s contribution to CULTURALITY is to represent the disciplines of wood, ceramics, textiles, and metal in Scotland. Therefore, our selected rural craft practitioners were Aaron Sterritt (wood), Patricia Shone (ceramics), Lucy MacDonald, Arra Textiles (textiles), and Amy Ferguson Niven, The Third Eye (metal). They were joined by rurally-based creatives working across music, food and storytelling, Will Boyd Willis of Greenshanks Music, Anja Baak of Great Glen Charcuterie, and Sarah Hobbs of Strathspey Storywalks respectively.

Our core research task was to gather information directly from the field, placing emphasis on what it truly means to work creatively in rural places and how making practices intersect with tourism, place, and local economies. The conversations were focused, wide ranging and deeply engaging, made possible by the openness, generosity, and honesty of all participants. Many AAS Members will relate to the questions that sat at the heart of our intensive discussions:

• How do we sustain creative work in rural and remote places?
• What role does tourism play in supporting or challenging our practices?
• Do we want this tourism and what cost does this have on makers?
• How can creative and cultural tourism help shape and support more resilient rural economies in the future?

Connecting Physical and Digital Practice

Alongside discussion and reflection, our second Rural Spot event also contributed to CULTURALITY’s digital strand. A researcher from the Open Virtual Worlds Lab at the University of St Andrews attended the gathering to scan a collection of tools and handcrafted objects presented by each participant.

These digital scans will form part of VERA, a new immersive platform being developed through CULTURALITY to promote creative practitioners across all of the participating countries. For AAS Members this work points towards new ways of sharing practice, reaching audiences and creating visibility beyond geographical boundaries.

What Happens Next?

The ideas, reflections and documentation gathered during these twenty-four hours will inform AAS’s next phase of the Project, two in-person events:

• A Living Lab, where proposed business models will be explored and exampled with stakeholders
• A Rural Event, open to the public where these ideas will be refined, shared, and tested

Each country involved in CULTURALITY will contribute to and present examples of their research helping to build a shared European understanding of how creative practice can support sustainable rural economies and tourism.

Why this Matters for AAS Members

CULTURALITY is rooted in listening to makers. Across the four-year Project, physical gatherings such as the second Rural Spot event will sit alongside digital development to ensure that the voices, experiences and realities of rural creative practitioners help shape future opportunities, platforms, and income generating models.

As an organisation run by makers for makers, AAS is committed to ensuring that this research translates into tangible benefits for our creative community, from increased visibility and networks to new ways of working and collaborating. Our twenty-four hours together gave us all time to pause, connect and think collectively. It was a surprisingly emotional, powerful reminder of the value of conversation, place, and shared experience in sustaining rural and remote creative practice in Scotland.

AAS Members, if you would like to contribute to or be involved in future CULTURALITY activity, please contact Carol, Netty, or myself via aasculturality@gmail.com.

Not yet a Member? Discover how to join and the benefits of membership.

Read AAS’s CULTURALITY blog series.

Photographer of all images (unless stated otherwise): Clare Waddle