Curatorial Statement

Take Me Somewhere is an international, biennial festival and year-round sector support organisation that exists to position Scotland as the place to create and experience radical performance.

Where We Came From

Take Me Somewhere was born from the demise of The Arches venue in Glasgow (1991 - 2015).  The Arches supported artists from very early in their career to some of the most established names in Scotland. After a period of sector consultation led by Jackie Wylie (Beyond The Arches, 2016), it became clear that no single organisation could take on the full breadth of The Arches’ activity. Therefore, Take Me Somewhere’s focus was to bring exceptional international work to the city, and support Scotland-based artists working in performance and to present ambitious works alongside them. 

Programming Ethos

Take Me Somewhere was created to act as a connector and portal for the international gaze on the innovative work being created within Scotland. In our Festival, we programme world-leading international artists, continuing Glasgow’s legacy as a home for radical practice, and situate Take Me Somewhere within a global touring circuit. Alongside this, we support established Scotland-based artists, strategically programming them in dialogue with international peers and introducing their practice to global audiences. International works are essential to contributing to Scotland’s cultural landscape. We select international works that “speak to” conversations and practices of local artists, whether through shared aesthetics and forms, or because they challenge dominant understandings and provide new perspectives.

Take Me Somewhere presents and supports work that we broadly define as radical performance: practices that defy neat categorisation within Theatre, Dance, Circus or Visual Art, and that reimagine what performance can look and feel like.

We prioritise work that centres change-making; work that affects how we think about our relationship to ourselves, to each other and to the world around us - from the delicate and meditative to the loud and rambunctious. 

We do not tend to programme new writing or adaptations of plays, however we have programmed interdisciplinary theatrical spectacles which challenge deep-rooted theatrical traditions of form. We also present contemporary performance which uses theatrical elements to share embodied perspectives about the world around us, or to construct a unique audience experience. Some Theatre-inspired artists we have programmed include: Cade and MacAskill, Dead Centre, Nima Séne, Jaha Koo, Tania El Khoury, 600 Highwaymen, Split Britches and Lucy McCormick.

Whilst we do not present formal dance works, we often work with artists from a dance background presenting ‘Expanded Choreography’; work that centres the body, movement and choreographic practices which  is not necessarily rooted in questions of craft and training (but can be). Examples include: Louise Ahl, Jamila Johnson Small, Jaamil Kosoko and Florentina Holzinger. 

We are also interested in the intersection between Visual Art and Participatory and Performative practice, and have presented participatory and performative exhibitions. 

Much of what we present can be defined as ‘Live Art’ (our favourite definition can be viewed here)

We are deeply invested in supporting artists who have historically been marginalised and underrepresented on the basis of class, gender, race, sexuality and disability due to structural and institutional bias, racism, ableism and misogyny. We are engaged in ongoing learning and conversations surrounding embedding care practice, accessibility and anti-racism, to ensure that Take Me Somewhere is an equitable working environment and a considered context to show work.

Curatorial decision-making is first and foremost based on the individual work itself, and whether it meets our organisational values, particularly in relation to equity and representation. Alongside this, we try to get a more general overview of practice through conversations with the artist. If there are wider elements of an artist’s current practice that contravene our values, this may also affect our decision making.

Most of the work we present is shown live, in-person, across Glasgow. We are interested in the many ways we can assemble to experience live performance; from intimate experiences for one person at a time, to public outdoor interventions, to large scale club spectacles. We are interested in sited work that encourages us to explore our city and is in dialogue with the every day. We have presented work in churches, disused post offices and public gardens. While most work is presented for public audiences, we also support projects developed specifically for particular communities.

In response to pandemic conditions, the climate crisis and ongoing questions of access, we have explored hybrid and digital approaches to presenting performance. In 2021, we presented 35 performance works, conversations and experiences streamed and screened live and online. In 2025, we worked with Glasgow University Immersive Experiences Lab to explore digital approaches within immersive experiences. This is a burgeoning field of interest for us and we will continue to explore how we can maintain this in our future programming. 

Studio Somewhere is our year-round sector support responding to artist need, providing space and helping performance makers experiment, connect with local and international peers and develop their projects and skills. The programme has developed to include skills development and workshop activity through Embedded Creations, Take a Breath and Studio Somewhere Invites. It’s a year-round programme of artist support beyond the festival. We remain open to developing relationships with artists and provide clear contact routes to our team via our website.

Curation Process

Existing / Touring Work

Take Me Somewhere is a curated festival for artists with a performance track record. For the most part, there is no open call to present work. We research work, visit festivals and events, build relationships over time and keep in touch about projects in development. Artistic Director LJ Findlay-Walsh leads the curation process.

The festival is not curated with a theme in mind, it is led by current practice and dialogue taking place locally and internationally; themes unfold during a long-form process over 1 to 2 years. This means that some projects come in at the start of the process and other projects are brought in much later, depending on how they speak to the festival as a whole.

Newly Commissioned work

Each festival cycle, we offer approximately four seed commissions to Scotland-based artists. While we do not act as producers, we provide advocacy, advice and fundraising support to enable projects to reach their full ambition. Making a substantial shift in the scale of practice can take longer than a single festival cycle, and so we will often strategically programme artists across several festivals to support them to create the work they want, at the pace they need. We are interested in both working with a breadth of artists and, where possible, exploring a depth of relationship to enable individual step-change. 

We are committed to working with Scotland-based artists new to TMS every year (61% in 2021, 71% in 2023, 80% in 2025). However, a single Festival can never showcase all the innovative and essential work being made in Scotland, and there are many artists we would like to work with that we haven’t had capacity to yet. Each festival should be seen as a snapshot shaped by artistic timelines, partner capacity, venue availability and funding contexts.

We aim to offer one co-commission for an international project each festival cycle, often in partnership with peer venues and festivals. We look for artists making era-defining performances which speak to current conversations in Scotland, whose practice has the potential to inspire new thinking and aesthetics. In the past we have co-commissioned Florentina Holzinger’s Apollon, Ontroerend Goed’s Handle with Care and worked with partners on the New Dimension Award which aims to commission and support ambitious, innovative, interdisciplinary art. Recipients include Dan Daw and Malik Nashad Sharpe.

As a predominantly white, non-disabled team, we are conscious of curatorial bias and of whose work we are most frequently exposed to. Therefore, wherever possible, we share curatorial decision making with respected organisations, artists and community leaders outside of our experience. We also speak about the programme as it takes shape with a variety of artists and organisers, and between our team. We have worked with The Artist Constellation where a cohort of artists closely associated with the Festival visited international festivals and fed back perspectives on relevant projects. Sometimes an outside decision-making panel is created (Previous examples include: Adrian Howells Award 2017 - 2021, Presence In The Absence 2021, Performance Now 2021, Take Me Somewhere Sticky 2023). 

We work in alignment with the aims and ambitions of a variety of venue and arts partners, co-presenting and commissioning with organisations such as Dance Umbrella (London), Transform (Leeds), Kampnagel (Hamburg) Fierce Festival (Birmingham), Marlborough Productions (Brighton), Something To Aim For (London), Platform, Tramway, The Tron (Glasgow) and Scottish Sculpture Studios (Aberdeen).

Whilst Take Me Somewhere’s focus is about showcasing established Scotland artists on an international platform, we remain attentive to less-experienced artists who are currently developing work, with an eye to work with them in future. We try to nurture these relationships through our Studio Somewhere sector support initiatives such as Somewhere to Talk and Emerging Artist Attendance Bursaries. We also work in partnership with Buzzcut Emerging Artist Initiative and host Graduate Residencies with Tramway.