our values
our vision, mission + purpose
our vision
Participating in culture is a fundamental human right. GSS believes that democratising and collectivising access to creative practice is essential to ensuring and safeguarding this right. We believe that artistic excellence is not an individualistic pursuit, but a collectivised endeavour made possible through thinking, making, and doing together. Artistic innovation and excellence is produced through the open exchange of ideas, methods, and approaches between a diverse community with a variety of lived experiences and perspectives.
We believe that these are the conditions in which ambition can flourish. We recognise that ambition means different things to different people. It is through nurturing ambition in all its multiplicity that GSS will unlock our full potential as an organisation.
our mission
GSS’ mission is to hold space for the plurality of answers to the question: what is sculptural practice?
A champion and advocate for sculptural practice, we work with artists and our communities of interest to foster creative innovation, artistic excellence, and equity of opportunity within the discipline, foregrounding the transformational power of culture in achieving a wide range of social, cultural, and economic outcomes.
GSS is the largest visual arts production centre in Scotland supporting sculptural and material practice in its widest sense. Established in 1988, we continue to support artistic excellence across a wide range and variety of creative practices. The form this support takes is always evolving and in constant dialogue with our understanding of visual arts production, the changing needs of artists, and barriers to accessing creativity. We provide affordable production facilities and workspaces, technical expertise, and a range of personal and professional development opportunities for artists, cultural workers, facilitators, and community workers at various career stages.
our purpose
our values
Partnership
Promoting joined-up thinking through collaboration, consultation, co-production
Our commitment to communal production extends from our workshops throughout all aspects of GSS—working collaboratively with our membership, communities, clients, and partners to combine our respective skills and expertise to amplify the impact of our work.
Community
Connecting communities of place, interest, and practice
GSS is the meeting point of the diverse communities we work with and support. It is in this meeting point where new ideas, approaches, and relationships can flourish.
Learning
Pursuing and sharing skills, knowledge, and best practice
By supporting learning, GSS is an organisation that is also always learning. We learn by doing; reflecting and adapting our response to the changing needs of our communities, encouraging their participation in the development of what we do and how we do it.
Access
Cultivating equity of access to creative facilities, resources, and knowledge
GSS was established in response to a need for accessible spaces for communal thinking and making. Understanding and addressing the barriers (structural, cultural, economic) to accessing and sustaining a creative practice is in GSS’ constitutional DNA.
Creativity
Fostering innovation, ambition, and artistic excellence
Safeguarding traditional disciplinary skills and processes, while developing new approaches to material practice. GSS supports creativity creatively—pushing and challenging the discipline in new ways and in new directions.