Art, Agency and Creative Action

Taking the perception-changing power of art beyond Jupiter Artland and into the high streets, towns and communities across Scotland.

Jupiter+Nation is Jupiter Artland Foundation’s national offsite programme, bringing ambitious contemporary art, free artist-led learning and youth-led creative action directly into towns and communities across Scotland.

We believe serious contemporary art should not only sit inside galleries and museums. It should turn up in everyday places, on high streets and in town centres, where young people can meet it directly.

Built in response to growing barriers to cultural participation, Jupiter+Nation works where access to art, creative confidence and future pathways is unevenly distributed. Through exhibitions, artist commissions, residencies, youth collectives, creative learning and public programmes, it creates opportunities for young people to encounter extraordinary artists, make work, build confidence and take creative action.

Since launching in Perth in 2022, Jupiter+ has reached 20,562 exhibition visitors and directly engaged 2,536 learners aged 15-25 across Perth, Ayr, Paisley and Dundee.

Now, as Jupiter+Nation, the programme enters a new national phase.

Beginning in Dumfries and growing across Scotland, Jupiter+Nation is building a national artist-led network for creative capability: a way for young people to access serious contemporary art, develop agency and discover pathways into culture and the creative industries.

National in ambition, Local in delivery. Creativity should not be determined by postcode.

Every young person deserves the opportunity to experience the perception-changing power of art. Jupiter+ Nation is building that future.

National Context

Jupiter+Nation sits within Scotland’s wider commitment to young people, access and opportunity.

Since 2014, Developing the Young Workforce has recognised the need for stronger pathways between school, learning, training and work. In 2016, Scotland’s Commission on Widening Access set out the urgent challenge of fair access to higher education, making clear that postcode and deprivation continue to shape young people’s futures.

Across the UK, recent research (The Milburn Report) into young people and work has reached the same conclusion: the barriers facing young people are structural, not a lack of ambition.

Jupiter+Nation responds to this challenge through culture.It is not an employment programme and it does not claim to solve national inequality. It is an artist-led model for creative capability, working with learners aged 15-25 at a critical transition point in their lives.

Through ambitious contemporary art, free artist-led learning, youth collectives and civic participation, Jupiter+Nation gives young people the confidence, agency and pathways to see themselves as active participants in culture, society and future creative industries.

This is where Jupiter+Nation has real policy relevance: it turns cultural access into creative capability.

What Jupiter+Nation offers

Jupiter Nation offers Scotland a tested cultural model for:

• Putting ambitious contemporary art on high streets and in everyday public places
• Supporting young people aged 15-18 at a critical transition point
• Building confidence, agency and the capability to make
• Opening routes into culture and the creative industries that young people can see and follow
• Supporting civic participation through ORBIT in a strictly apolitical way
• Bringing serious contemporary art into towns and communities often left out of national cultural life

“We have always believed that a single encounter with art can change how a person sees themselves and the world around them. Jupiter+ Nation exists to create those moments for young people and communities across Scotland.”

Nicky Wilson
Director, Jupiter Artland Foundation

Bring Jupiter+Nation to your community. Schools and teachers can book a visit. Councils and partners can work with us. Funders can help build it across Scotland.