Manipulate Arts is excited to unveil a new era for Scotland’s visual theatre and animation landscape, announcing a suite of initiatives designed to champion experimentation, nurture artists and expand year‑round opportunities across the sector.
A New Annual Platform: Undercurrents
Undercurrents is a brand‑new annual platform dedicated to raw ideas, bold experiments and fresh, untested work. It will showcase pieces emerging from Manipulate Arts’ talent development programmes, sector‑wide open calls and new voices from across Scotland. At Undercurrents, audiences will encounter new Scottish visual theatre, puppetry and animation at every development stage, offering a rare window into the ideas shaping the future of Scotland’s stages and screens. Manipulate Arts is currently seeking proposals for the platform.
As part of this shift, our much-loved international festival Manipulate Festival will now take place biennially, while Undercurrents will run annually, offering artists spaces to both experiment and excel. Undercurrents will exist both as a strand within the biennial Manipulate Festival and as a standalone event in alternate years. Offering artists spaces to both experiment and excel. The first edition of Undercurrents arrives in February 2027, followed by Manipulate Festival’s 20th anniversary edition in February 2028.
These programme changes form part of our commitment to excellence, sustainability and accessibility. We want to ensure that Scotland’s artists are supported to both experiment and excel, with opportunities to develop and present extraordinary work, reaching audiences in Scotland and beyond.
International Visual Theatre Residency
The first major project in this new chapter is an International Visual Theatre Residency, delivered in partnership with international Argyll-based residency centre Cove Park and three international festivals. This residency will support mid‑stage development for six artists or companies — three from Scotland and three from abroad. This exciting new programme centres quality and ambition in visual theatre practice, —offering space, creative development time and opportunities for international exchange. Artists can read more and apply for the residency through our opportunities page.
New Visual Theatre Commission
For the first time, Manipulate Arts is launching a Visual Theatre Commission for Scotland‑based professional artists working in puppetry or visual theatre, with a view to presenting the work as part of Manipulate Festival in 2028. The opportunity is offered in in association with Capital Theatres, and will include a cash budget, creative mentorship, marketing, production support, rehearsal space, a residency at Cove Park and training opportunities. Artists can submit an expression of interest for this opportunity through our opportunities page.
Both the residency and the commission are supported by Creative Scotland’s Expanded Festivals Fund.
Supporting Artists Through Longer Development
With Undercurrents, our commission and residency, Manipulate Arts aims to foster longer creative timelines, invest in the quality of Scottish visual theatre and build a more resilient performance ecology in Scotland. The initiative is designed to create more touchpoints throughout the year for artists to develop, test and share work.
Autumn Animation Season
Rounding out this ambitious expansion, Manipulate Arts will present an Autumn Animation Season across Scotland. The season will bring independent animated films — including programmes curated for Manipulate Festival over the past three years, such as the celebrated Scottish Animated Shorts — to major venues, community arts centres and festivals.We are excited to reach audiences beyond the central belt with award-winning films which can shift perceptions of what animation can be and who it is for. Full details will be announced this summer.
This season is supported by the Film Exhibition Fund 2026/27 through Film Hub Scotland.
Join us on this next chapter
We have sought to build a structure which nurtures some spaces for artists and audiences to meet in the spirit of experimentation and risk-taking in art, and other spaces which showcase the very heights of what Scottish and international visually-led work are capable of. We look forward to sharing this next chapter in our story with all of our audiences, artists, partners and friends, join us for the ride!