New Scottish Institute sells culture to US

The UK has the British Council, Germany the Goethe-Institut, the French their Institut Franais, and soon the Saltire could be flying over a small corner of New York under plans for a government-funded Caledonian cultural outpost.

The Scottish Arts Council (SAC), buoyed by the success of this year's Tartan Day celebrations in New York, has commissioned a feasibility study into the prospects for a Scottish Institute in the US.

The new outfit's most likely home is Manhattan, where most European countries now have some form of cultural embassy. It is likely to start as a small operation, with a couple of staff organising exchanges between US and Scottish artists, but might eventually grow into a fully fledged arts venue.

The SAC wants to capitalise on the success of Distilled, a three day Scottish arts showcase in a Manhattan loft which featured bands, visual art, comedians and writers, and was timed to coincide with the 2002 Tartan Day celebrations.

The SAC's head of arts development, Stuart MacDonald, and its former head of literature, Jenny Brown, travelled to New York to investigate the idea last month. MacDonald is preparing a report which will be presented to the council within the next few weeks.

"We are looking to foster an international profile for Scottish arts," said an SAC spokeswoman. "If there were to be one place to have it, New York would be high up on that list if not number one on that list, so there was an exploratory trip to look at who else is doing things there, whether it would be possible to carve out a niche for a Scottish Institute."

However, she warned that plans were at an embryonic stage: "The idea of a Scottish Institute is just that, an idea, at the moment." If the SAC does decide to champion it, the findings will be presented to the Scottish Executive, and eventually a request made for government funding.

The politicians could take some persuading. Scottish culture is already represented, with varying degrees of success, by the British Council, which organises 3000 arts events around the world each year. Two British Council staff based at the embassy in Washington DC are tasked to promote British artists across the Atlantic.

However, the British Council's main focus is on spreading the English language around the world, and it also counts British science and human rights as part of its remit.

The SAC's intention is that the Institute would co-ordinate its work with that of the British Council so as to avoid an overlap.

The idea may find favour with those who supported the former First Minister Henry McLeish's idea of creating a Scottish diplomatic corps, based in British embassies, to promote business and tourism.

McLeish only made one appointment before he was replaced by the current First Minister Jack McConnell. Susan Stewart was appointed as a Scottish Executive official in the British embassy in Washington with the rank of first secretary.

McConnell announced during this year's Tartan Day that he would be keeping Stewart on but had dropped the general policy in favour of asking the British embassies and tourist offices to do more to promote Scotland. Plans to appoint diplomats in Europe, Australia and the Far East were abandoned.

McConnell's administration has put (pounds) 250,000 into next summer's Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, which is to have a Scottish element for the first time. A spokeswoman said: "The Scottish Executive is keen to see this develop and our involvement in next year's Smithsonian Folklife Festival shows our interest."

Copyright 2002
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.