Phase 1 laid the groundwork and Phase 2 is where it becomes actionable.
Filling the gaps: Some communities were not reached properly in Phase 1. We are working with freelance consultants who bring both lived experience and professional expertise in access and inclusion, BSL provision, and the experiences of LGBTQ+ creatives, parents and carers, disabled and neurodivergent practitioners and more.
A multilingual wellbeing dictionary: The English words for mental health do not exist in many of the languages spoken by the people we worked with. We are documenting how different languages and communities name and understand wellbeing, psycho-emotional health and healing. It will be free to use.
Race and class: Financial precarity ran through almost every conversation, and class is something the sector rarely looks at honestly alongside race. Phase 2 makes that the centre of the research. Rurality runs through it too, because where you live shapes what you can reach, and the picture looks very different outside the central belt. That shapes how we map the sector, who sits on the steering group, and a hybrid approach to sessions so that taking part does not depend on being able to travel and access.
Universal Basic Income: Financial precarity ran through almost every conversation. We are exploring what UBI could mean for creative practice, making the case for it to Creative Scotland, the Scottish Government and funders, and working alongside organisations already campaigning for it.
Access and venue sustainability: People named accessibility as essential. We are looking at what venues and organisations actually need in order to meet those requirements, rather than asking them to absorb it.
Phase 2 will conclude with a full report drawing both phases together, with recommendations for change grounded in evidence and lived experience.
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This report is available as a PDF, Word document, large print and audio. If you need it in another format, or want to talk about the research, we would like to hear from you.
‘Finding The Radiance In Between’; Reimagining Scotland’s Creative Spaces
Racialised creatives in Scotland are navigating real, structural barriers that affect their mental, emotional and financial wellbeing. They understand those barriers clearly, and they have thought carefully about what would help.
Creative Balance is a multi-phase research and advocacy project built with the communities it serves. Phase 1 was shaped from the start by a steering group of creatives and healthcare professionals, deepened through individual case studies, and carried forward in group interviews across Scotland. Using collage and mind mapping alongside conversation, people explored what wellbeing means to them and what by-and-for spaces could look like.
