The Live Art Scotland: Research Resources guide exists to help navigate researchers through a range of archives, collections and other materials that might support research into live art, performance art and interdisciplinary performance in Scotland.
The guide begins with a short essay about the nature, potential and limits of the collections included here. On the following pages, each entry offers information about the scope of individual resources along with brief suggestions of where to start, often by highlighting the presence of materials relating to specific Scotland-based artists, organisations or events – but also sometimes by calling attention to discoveries we’ve made in our own research in the hope they might be useful or interesting to you as well. It’s the first edition of a resource that we plan to develop further in response to feedback from its audiences, and especially in response to how its curatorial/critical frame might be taken forward to support research across and between different communities of practice.
In compiling this guide, we’ve emphasised free resources and where public funding has enabled cataloguing or the digitisation of material so it can be accessed online. Every effort has been made to ensure access information is accurate at time of compilation but please contact the relevant archive or organisation before planning a trip in person, as provisions can sometimes change at short notice. Several collections are held by volunteer-led organisations who may need a little more time to respond to your request than organisations with full-time or employed staff.
The first version of this guide was published in summer 2022. If you have suggestions about a resource that could be included in a future edition, please contact the Live Art in Scotland project’s lead at the University of Glasgow: stephen.greer@glasgow.ac.uk