About Us
Established in 1992, NVA is a registered Scottish arts charity funded by Creative Scotland and a number of UK trusts and foundations. The organisation has produced award winning and dynamic projects in challenging landscapes – these have included temporary lighting animations on the mountains of Skye; permanent spaces such as the Hidden Gardens in Glasgow and major urban festivals.
NVA’s vision is to make powerful public art articulating the complex qualities of a location through collective action. Our practice engages participants physically and creatively in redefining urban and rural landscapes. We take the existing landscape as a starting point for uncovering complex underlying realities, revealing how places shape and are shaped by their inhabitants.
NVA champion an emerging form of collaborative art practice that aims to galvanise public partners and bridge the gap between political strategy and practical implementation through temporary and permanent works.
NVA is an acronym of nacionale vitae activa, a latin phrase describing ‘the right to influence public affairs’. We are interested in a non-gallery based democratisation of presentation. Generative models of exchange are created to stimulate people to use ideas and methodologies to support their own development and means of expression.
Our work creates an intense and long-lasting sense of ownership and memory in the people involved. The act of taking part can release strong emotional ties, with the landscape itself or with aspects of our individual histories, merging the private and public.