Holding Space is a mentoring programme for artists and freelancers working in the young audiences sector in Scotland. Each selected mentee is offered up to five paid sessions with an artistic mentor to explore a specific area of practice between October 2021 and October 2022.
As this is artistic mentoring, the project focuses on freelancers with an artistic practice within theatre and dance and who have a specific area or question they would like to explore with a mentor. This encompasses those who create performances, playwrights or those involved in any aspect of the creative process such as sound designers or costume designers. Some mentees have chosen to have all sessions with one mentor while others are having a series of one-off sessions with people they want to talk to.
We are currently working with sixteen mentees who were selected through two call outs and nominations from Birds of Paradise Theatre, Solar Bear and Bijli Productions. Mentors on the project include Caroline Bowditch, Ellie Griffiths, Linzie Mitchell, Robert Softely Gale, Douglas Maxwell, Ivor MacAskill, Rosie Heafford, Debbie Hannon, Gill Robertson, Shilpa T-Hyland, Justin Audibert, Oliver Emanuel, Hendrik Labon, Luke Pell, Greg Sinclair, Ásrún Magnúsdóttir, Niroshini Thambar and Rob Evans.
Holding Space is supported by the PLACE programme, a partnership between the Scottish Government - through Creative Scotland - the City of Edinburgh Council and the Edinburgh Festivals.