Articulation presents an industry afternoon with pitches, performance, and networking as part of this year’s Surge and Merchant City Festival. Join us on Friday 24 July to explore the evolution of multidisciplinary outdoor arts practice.
Time: 12noon-4pm
Date: Friday 24 July 2026
Venue: City Halls, Glasgow, G1 1NQ
Tickets: £5 / Free for Articulation members
The multi artform nature of outdoor arts is repeatedly cited as one of the key issues impacting art form recognition in Scotland. This industry afternoon will explore the evolving nature of outdoor arts and how multidisciplinary practice incorporates wide-ranging art-forms to create cohesive, immersive, and boundary-breaking works. We’ll be exploring the growth of multidisciplinary outdoor arts practice that embraces innovation, challenges categorisation and how this informs the programming and curation of outdoor events.
We start with lunch and networking and will hear from Katy Fuller, Director of Pinwheel – a creative agency based in North East England. Pinwheel delivers outdoor and site-specific arts projects, major cultural events and festivals regionally, nationally and internationally. The opening insights will be followed by a panel discussion with festival directors, producers, artists and cultural agencies from across the UK, Ireland and internationally . We’ll also have ‘Lightning Pitches’ by artists and organisations sharing brand new work. MULTIFACETED will close with Mark Bleakley’s Dance Makes the Floor – the grand finale of this Merchant City Festival performance.
Running Order
12.00noon-12.30pm: Registration with lunch and networking
12.30pm: Welcome – Angela Adams-Gray, (Director, Articulation)
12.40pm: Surge Introduction – Alan Richardson (Artistic Director, Surge)
12.50pm: Opening insights: Katy Fuller (Artistic Director, Pinwheel)
1.00pm: Panel Discussion with Q&A:
- Katy Fuller (Artistic Director, Pinwheel)
- Zoe Munn (Senior Producer, Greenman Festival – Wales)
- Deirdre Dwyer (Senior Producer, Spraoi Festival – Eire)
- Ben Torrie (Head of Theatre, Creative Scotland)
2.00pm: Multidisciplinary Programming Insights – Dawn Taylor (Artistic Director, Manipulate)
2.10pm: Lightning Pitches – 5 minute presentations of new work by five multidisciplinary artists and organisations (apply to participate)
2.50pm: Closing statements
3.00pm-3.45pm: Mark Bleakley’s Dance Makes the Floor performance
