Dear #Illuminate Highlands Supporters,

It's been a while since we were in touch and a lot has been happening at Inverness Creative Academy. Thanks to the hard work of the Art Fund team you should now all be enjoying your stunning supporter rewards, and we wanted to get in touch with some news of what your support has helped Wasps achieve, and a HUGE THANK YOU for your help in making it happen.

On Thurs 5 May we were honoured to have a visit from HRH The Princess Royal, who formally opened the building and the ‘Home and Away' Exhibition. This exhibition linked both phases of the building together for the first time and featured work from artists based at Inverness Creative Academy as well as Wasps tenants with connections to the Highlands who now work elsewhere in Scotland.

The opening of the building and exhibition was featured in the STV news bulletin on the day, and covered in The Press and Journal, Ross-Shire Journal, Royal Central and The Inverness Courier. There's also a video on Wasps' Facebook, Twitter and Instagram channels, and we hope you will enjoy catching up on those stories if you haven't yet seen them.

A fantastic opening was followed by a fantastic reception to the ‘Home and Away' Exhibition, which welcomed 476 visitors, and resulted in the sale of 14 pieces of artwork. The exhibition closed with Open Studios which welcomed 600 visitors to see behind the scenes in our talented artist tenant spaces. Since Feb, we've welcomed over 8,500 visitors to 5 exhibitions and our cafe, Cafe de Paulo at Midmills in the beautifully restored Assembly Hall, all of which have resulted in fantastic engagement (and sale of artworks) for the creative community here.

The creative community the building supports is thriving. Artists' studios continue to be fully let, with 36 artist tenants, Inverness Darkroom, University of the Highlands and Islands, and Inverness Framers calling Inverness Creative Academy home. Since opening the Creative Industries building in Feb, over 40% of spaces are already let to 14 organisations with over 20 creative staff, as well as a growing community of co-working space members.

If you've not yet been able to visit please do come and see the transformation for yourself. You can see the upcoming Wasps events and exhibitions in Inverness here. Next up is a fabulous exhibition The Art Room by artists Fiona Matheson, Dot Walker, Clare Blois and Ian Whyte, who have been working together in the former Inverness Royal Academy Art Room since 2019. This exhibition runs from 2 August - 30 August, with a preview event at 6.30 pm on Tues 2 August. We will also be holding a Summer Market on Sat 6 and Sun 7 August, so please come along if you are in the area.

We can't thank you enough for your help in realising this wonderful project for Inverness and the Highlands, and we hope to see you here soon!

The Wasps Team