What is CULTURALITY?
CULTURALITY will research the current landscape for craft practitioners across Europe and explore how creative and culinary industries in rural areas currently interact with tourism, and how they could in the future.
Over four years, organisations and universities in Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Estonia, Romania and Slovenia will be collaborating to generate data to support digital archives, and a virtual platform. At the same time, physical research events will be held to listen to the voices of the creative sector in rural areas: the idea being to create conversations and concepts to help design new ‘Rural Events’ and generate sustainable forms of income for creative practitioners.
Culturaility is an international network of consortium partners, funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme, with the Scottish partners funded by Innovate UK.
Read Carol Sinclair’s blog about the CULTURALITY Project Kick-Off Meeting in Oviedo in April 2024.
How is this going to happen?
The Project is divided into a number of work packages focusing on data collection, education, 360° scanning and networking opportunities – to name but a few!
There are also a series of ‘Rural Spots’ and ‘Living Labs’ during which creative practitioners are asked (and paid!) to participate in, and contribute their voices to the research and ultimately the design of the Rural Events in 2027/28.
Read Clare Waddle’s blog and Netty Sopata’s blog about AAS hosting its first Rural Spot event on the Isle of Lewis in November 2024, the very first of partners’ nine European rural events.
Why is Applied Arts Scotland involved?
Applied Arts Scotland is run by makers for makers and has an opportunity to amplify the voices of Scottish craft practitioners in this Project. We will be placing call outs to AAS Members for paid opportunities at our ‘Rural Spots’ and ‘Living Labs’. We will also be reaching out to makers to complete fieldwork interviews and scanning of their studios. At the same time we will be working alongside the team from the Open Virtual Worlds at the University of St Andrews to deliver digital, cross border networking opportunities exploring the use of immersive, virtual reality.
Recent Activity
Consortium Visits
As part of the CULTURALITY project, each partner country is required to host representatives from the Consortium and in doing so facilitate a schedule for project briefings, feedback, discussions and planning. Within the week-long event the hosts are also required to introduce the partners’ to craft, culinary and creative practitioners working within rural areas in their country. AAS and St Andrew’s University fulfilled this role in the Isle of Lewis in October 2024. Early in 2025 Slovenia took the lead, later that year the AAS team set off to visit hosts in Viljandi, Estonia, and in May Carol and Clare headed to Sweden. The Tean are documenting their trops and encounters in the CULTURALITY blog series, with the most recent edition being Netty’s reflections and observations from Lofoten, Norway.
Making Place: Heritage in Action & Cultivate
A two-day gathering in October 2026 at Highland Folk Museum / Taigh-tasgaidh Sluagh na Gaidhealtachd explored craft in the context of place, considering the heritage of the Scottish Highlands through traditional and contemporary craft demonstrations and talks. Access to the Museum Collections Store and workshops supported exploration of how this heritage can shape the future of contemporary creative communities in Scotland.
The event provided the opportunity to learn more about CULTURALITY, including how to contribute artefacts to be 3D scanned by The Open Virtual Worlds team from the University of St Andrews for inclusion in VERA — an online platform cataloguing the work of creative practitioners from across Europe in 3D.
Living Lab
As part of CULTURALITY, and with the temporary and excellent addition of Kate Mclauglin as Project Manager, Applied Arts Scotland hosted a Living Lab in Nethy Bridge 5 – 9 October 2026. In the immersive, hands-on workshop two small and diverse groups explored and collaboratively developed these ideas:
- Craft as Connection proposes developing a flexible framework that helps artists, heritage organisations and rural communities create hands‑on, place‑based making experiences rooted in local materials, stories and traditions. Using Scottish straw craft as an example, the project will explore how making by hand can deepen visitor connection to rural creative life, moving beyond simple craft workshops toward meaningful cultural engagement. The Living Lab will create and test an initial version of this framework and a prototype visitor journey for future use across Scotland.
- Crafting Futures: A Manifesto uses optimism, ecological awareness and imaginative “refuturing” to strengthen collaboration and resilience within craft communities. Drawing on ideas such as rewilding the imagination and designing with local ecology, the concept explores new, sustainable approaches to craft practice beyond tourism‑driven pressures. Participants will co‑create a manifesto aimed at fostering hope, community building and practical strategies for a more sustainable creative future.
Both Making Place and the Living Lab instigated important conversations and created a positive presence in the rural areas of Scotland, provided paid opportunities for makers and kept the Project Team (with the temporary and excellent addition of Kate MacLaughlin) engaged and very busy and engaged. The Team will reflect on both events in blogs to be published shortly.
Rural Spot
On Thursday 12 and Friday 13 September 2025 we held our second ‘Rural Spot’ activity, a 24 hour creative discussion bringing together a small group of practitioners in the Cairngorms National Park to explore and exchange ideas on the role of creativity in shaping, sustaining and reimagining rural economies.
Following an open call, we selected four rural Scotland based makers whose creative practices, experience and geographical locations connect to creative rural tourism and will support and inform the AAS CULTURALITY Project Team’s research at this stage of the Project. They (and their disciplines) are:
- Amy Ferguson Niven, The Third Aye (metal)
- Lucy MacDonald, Arra Textiles (textiles)
- Patricia Shone (ceramics)
- Aaron Sterritt Woodwork (wood)
Read the AAS CULTURALITY Team’s reflections on the Rural Spot.
Share your insights
Your experiences and insight into local craft and cultural traditions are essential to our research. Please take a few minutes to complete a short, confidential survey focussing on the value of traditional skills in your community, both tangible (e.g. materials, patterns and techniques) and intangible (e.g. music, storytelling and food).
Your responses will help us to shape new ways to support and promote craft heritage and making practices in rural and remote areas across Europe.
Want to know more?
If you are interested in learning more about CULTURALITY, you can:
- sign up to AAS’s regular newsletters and keep an eye on our socials
- email one of the Project Team – Carol Sinclair, Netty Sopata or Clare Waddle – aasculturailty@gmail.com.
- Read the CULTURALITY blog series
Please visit the Artefact Gallery for profiles of artefacts, artisans and cultural practices that partners are engaging with and establishing as key areas of investigation.
