N V A

General information

NVA’s mission is to make powerful public art that reconnects people to their built and natural heritage.

Established in Glasgow in 1992, the organisation has produced many unusual and dynamic interventions in extraordinary landscapes – light, sound and collective movement have been incorporated into the mountains of Skye, city lighting festivals and signature international events for the Olympics and the Tour de France. Our practice uses creative learning and environmental innovation, involving audiences in physically redefining urban and rural landscapes, revealing how places shape and are shaped by their inhabitants. Permanent works, often regenerating broken landscapes, include the resuscitation of St Peter’s seminary as the world’s first intentional modernist ruin, which will deliver a new model for rural arts and heritage development. The Hidden Gardens, Scotland’s first sanctuary garden dedicated to peace, was founded in 2002 and has become a much valued part of Glasgow’s cultural life.

Speed of Light and Ghost Peloton are large-scale collaborative productions that create film, photography and live choreography of endurance runners and cyclists in programmable light suits, bringing chosen environments to life. A continuing world tour has responded to hillsides in Scotland, docklands in Japan; reformed urban sites in England and the vast industrial landscapes of the Ruhr in Germany.

NVA, an acronym of nacionale vita activa, expresses the Ancient Greek ideal of a lively participatory democracy, where actions and words shared among a community of equal citizens bring new thinking into the world.

NVA (EUROPE) LTD trading as NVA VAT Registration No. 724 2264 56 Company No. SC183523 Registered Scottish Charity No. SC027613 Registered Office: 15 North Claremont Street, Glasgow, G3 7NR