We’re incredibly happy to announce that we’ll be back on the streets of Aberdeen this Summer with a series of projects we hope can give everyone a lift – by reconnecting with those spaces and places that have become a part of us. It would be normal at this point to present a curatorial statement, a theme or a series of platitudes extolling the virtues of what it is we do. I have a half written text called ‘memory and the city’ but to be honest, the more I read it, the less connected I feel. I don’t think we need to be writing post-corona manifestos just yet, nor be monopolising the meaning behind an event or artwork that we stand behind. This work we do isn’t important because there’s a curator and an artist behind it, but because there’s a viewer in front of it.

Those crown-like corona protrusions that are the perpetrators of this whole recent ordeal have proved uncannily versatile and stubborn, but I like to think we’re more than capable of adapting to it. However uncertain things may be, with vaccination campaigns well underway there seems to be a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, and hopefully Nuart can contribute to getting us a little closer to it.

Until we get there, we can take some solace in the knowledge that it’s been street artists the world over who have been at the forefront of keeping art in the public domain, and they’ve achieved this without cherry pickers, production companies, ‘life is beautiful’ promo videos and the like. As they keep finding novel ways to engage an audience and express themselves in the cities we inhabit, so we remain committed to tracking them down and hopefully making their lives a little easier by amplifying their voices and work with the resources we manage to raise.

And so we just leave it there. All of the artists we work with have their own reasons for doing what they do, and for the most they do it with images. The reason we do what we do, is to propose and promote new and different ways of using public space.

Anything beyond this is just words and even those I’ve written are no doubt full of contradictions. So now we leave it to the art and the viewer and hope you see something positive in what we’re trying to do.

— Martyn Reed, Nuart