Scotland’s major cities each enjoy a healthy do-it-yourself arts scene, with many collectively run spaces holding exhibitions and providing working studio environments. Among the current key spaces in that hotbed of Turner-prize winning talent, Glasgow, are the Glue Factory, an industrial space that runs exhibitions and events and hosts print and recording studios; the Pipe Factory, a new studio space that also produces publications; and SWG3, an exhibition and performance-based warehouse venue that sponsors four graduates per year with studio space. Ironbbratz is also a popular studio provider.

Some of the more well-known grassroots galleries in the city, meanwhile, include the committee-run Transmission, the Duchy and the Telfer, while the Mutual is an artists’ collective responsible for a number of creative ‘interventions’ during the 2012 edition of the Glasgow International biennial. Many similar organisations abound in Edinburgh, particularly amid the lower-rent industrial areas of Leith, including studio galleries Superclub and Rhubaba, and DIY galleries the Old Ambulance Depot and Whitespace.

Elsewhere in the city, the Embassy is an annually-renewed collective of Edinburgh College of Art’s most promising graduates that also stages regular exhibitions, and the Collective Gallery is a long-established and centrally located gallery with a particular interest in supporting new visual artists. The Glasgow Sculpture Studios, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and Scottish Sculpture Workshop (ssw.org.uk) near Huntly all offer exhibitions, studio space and technical support.

As the third of Scotland’s cities with a major art school, Dundee is served by long-running exhibition and project space Generator Projects and recently established collective Tin Roof, while similar organisations further north include Aberdeen collective Limousine Bull and Inverness arts space IG:LU. Finally, an indispensable country-wide resource is WASPS Studios, which offers artists working spaces in the major cities and in locations as diverse as Kirkcudbright and Nairn.