The Collective team stand in solidarity with anti-racist movements and calls to end police violence.We are listening, watching, reading and gathering our thoughts and plans for action. We welcome the renewed discussion around historical monuments and statues in Edinburgh and support the call for change.

Our mission is to bring people together around contemporary art to look, think and produce in a different kind of City Observatory. We aim to be a platform for non-dominant narratives, listening, amplifying and questioning given ways to understand the world around us. Artists’ voices have enabled us to engage with the complexity of the history of our own site, including its colonial heritage.

We are now reaffirming our commitment to ensuring that black voices are represented and heard at Collective. Through our programming, interpretation, recruitment, and audience development, we will demonstrate our commitment to a way forward. We will measure our progress against our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion plan, publish our outcomes, and aim to lead by example.

Image: Fraunhofer-Repsold transit telescope (1831), City Observatory. A key function of the Observatory was to provide accurate timekeeping for Edinburgh and Port of Leith. In turn this allowed for accurate navigation at sea, which helped enable Scotland's colonial expansion across the globe.