Deveron Arts is based in Huntly, a market town in rural Aberdeenshire with a population of 4,000. For us, the town is the venue: it is studio, gallery and stage. We invite artists to live and work in our town, to meet with local people and exchange ideas. We use spaces in the town and its surrounding, rather then a gallery or arts centre.

As artists came to the area it became apparent that the most successful projects engaged directly with the place and its residents. Gradually the town itself became not just the arts centre but the content of investigation as well. Hence, the town is the venue.
We try to be at the heart of the community through regular communication with the local paper, attending community meetings and participating in local boards. We depict environmental, intergenerational, heritage and identity issues; all of the topics are of both local and universal concern.
We invited the artists Dalziel and Scullion, who made a billboard which was placed in nearby Cabrach (where a wind farm is planned) as well as 11 cities across the UK. Another example of our work is ARTCUP, where Roderick Buchanan invited two teams made up of artists who are also footballers to represent countries who failed to qualify for the World Cup (Scotland and Denmark). Together with the local community he established a mini World Cup. South African artist Senzeni Marasela has developed a project called JONGA, where she worked with local girls and women on the issue of self-esteem. Our current project is ‘Money Crunch’. Gemuce, an artist from Mozambique, is looking at debt and credit, giving and exchange, through Calabash Bank – a new bank that swaps African gourds for good ideas.
The artists’ works form Deveron Arts’ evolving town collection, which is placed in spaces around the town including a local garage, an estate agent, a pig-farming co-op, the local library and museum, a hotel, the business centre, the swimming pool. We have over 45 pieces located around the town. Our success lies in a stringent 50/50 approach, where the community and working locally have equal weighting with global vision and artistic criticality. This approach is present in all facets of operation: reflecting an ‘artocratic’ way of life, imagined through the idea of the world ruled by art. At least in a very microcosmic way.