In 2024 we will celebrate our 40th anniversary, and we are very proud of our 40 years as Scotland’s home for animation, puppetry and visual theatre. As we prepare to celebrate this anniversary year, we have encompassed all the work that Puppet Animation Scotland does under a new identity.
From November 2023 we will adopt the new organisational name Manipulate Arts. Play and manipulation are at the heart of all the work that we champion and support – whether of puppets, objects, digital imagery, or of the human body. All our work is focused around art forms which breathe life into the inanimate or tell stories using primarily images rather than text. We believe that the common thread between these art forms lies in the opportunities they create to discover the latent magic in the everyday, to find common visual languages beyond the reach of words, and to enable play at all stages of our lives.
Throughout our history we have continued to evolve and adapt to the needs of the sectors we serve and support, and to the wider needs of a changing society. We were originally founded as the Puppet Animation Festival in 1984, with performances, workshops and screenings for families taking place in every corner of the country for 3 weeks each year. In 2007 we took on a more sector and support-based role as we became Puppet Animation Scotland, and launched a year-round programme of support for independent artists in Scotland. In 2008 we launched a second annual festival for adults, Manipulate Festival, which will see its 17th edition in 2024. And, in 2022, we celebrated our final edition of the Puppet Animation Festival, which now takes
shape as our year-round creative engagement programme, Captivate, engaging families and communities across Scotland through performance, film and creativity.
Those changes reflect and have continuously shaped our main aims:
- To establish Scotland’s reputation, locally, nationally and internationally, as a place where puppetry, visual theatre and animated film are thriving.
- To ensure that people all across Scotland have the opportunity to enrich their lives through visually-led performance, film and creativity.
- To support a vibrant and empowered artistic community in Scotland, enabling independent artists to thrive in their practice.
Today we achieve these aims through the continued delivery of: Captivate, our nationwide engagement programme which brings people of all ages together through participation in visual creativity; Manipulate Festival, our critically-acclaimed annual international celebration of visual theatre, puppetry and animated film; and our Artist Development programme with opportunities to make, develop, network, train and exchange for professional artists all across Scotland.
Looking forward to the next 40 years, we are today announcing this new identity to continue to reflect our work, based on extensive consultation across the communities that we exist to serve. Animated film, puppetry and visual theatre represent three equal artform pillars which we exist to nurture and support. Yet, the common refrain throughout our consultation with audiences, artists, participants, arts and non-arts organisations was that our work is not always equally understood across these areas.
Our new identity will better reflect the full scope of our work, ensuring that the widest range of people can engage with, benefit from and find joy in visual theatre, puppetry and animated film. Manipulate Arts offers creative experiences for audiences of all ages, whether in an urban arts centre or rural community centre, on a windswept hillside, in your local library, in a town square, at home, in your school or at an international festival. Manipulate Arts is a home for any artist working with objects, puppets, animated forms and the human body, whatever career stage you are at and whoever you aim to reach with your work. Manipulate Arts is a place where anyone, regardless of background, can discover the range and magic of these highly visual art forms, with their power to bring people together through creativity.
We are proud of the long history which brought us to where we are today, and of the incredible staff, board members, artists, audiences, partners, participants, stakeholders and loyal supporters who have been part of that story so far. Here’s to the next 40 years of Manipulate Arts!
In the introductory video on our homepage you can see work presented or developed through Manipulate Arts – as part of our Captivate programme, at our annual Festival and in our artist development programme. The work we feature here includes: The Dab Hands by Fergus Dunnet and Ronan McMahon; The Chosen Haram by Sadiq Ali; Birdie by Agrupación Senor Serrano; Nigel by Natasza Cetner; Europe, Meine Leibe, Mon Amour by Bruno Gallagher; Ferguson & Barton by Shotput, Song Sparrow by Farzaneh Omidvarnia; Dinosaur Detectives by Clydebuilt Puppet Theatre; Seven Ravens by Tragic Carpet Theatre; Les Liaisons Foireuses by Chloé Alliez & Violette Delvoye; Before Thumbelina by Anna Nekrassova; The Debutante by Elizabeth Hobbs; Poor Thing by Vox Muziektheather; The Lonely Sailor Weather Report by The Lonely Sailors; A Rock and a Hard Place by Gavin Glover; Today I Bake by Sarah Cosgrove/Lotus Stone Productions; Guaxuma by Nara Normande; Acqua Alta by Adrien M & Claire B; My Favourite War by Ilze Burkovska Jacobsen; Hibernate by Tortoise in a Nutshell; Step into the River by Weija Ma; The Fabric of You by Josephine Lohar Self; The End of TV by Manual Cinema and Cosmic Fling by Jonathan Langager.
