Local Heroes is a curatorial studio that connects audiences with contemporary Scottish design and craft.
Known for being design obsessives, we pioneer new formats for exhibitions and events and develop projects with partners in the cultural and commercial sectors. We use unconventional and inventive sites and spaces to bring the work of designers and makers to a wider public.
By creating new design-centered experiences, showcases and exhibitions, Scottish design and craft can be enjoyed by people at home in the UK, and internationally through design fairs, festivals and biennales.
Our mission has always been to sustain and catalyse opportunities for designers and put design from Scotland on an international stage.
We look after people, pay on time, deliver on our promises and we care about everyone’s contribution being acknowledged and fairly compensated. We don’t use volunteers. We don’t have interns. If we can’t afford to deliver a project without free labour we change the plan, not our principles.
We don’t receive regular public funding to run Local Heroes. Instead, we apply on a project by project basis for funding and we are supported and sustained by project partners who commission us to deliver targeted components of their own programmes or projects.
Local Heroes is led by Dr Stacey Hunter, a design curator and exhibition maker.
“Design is one of the most accessible expressions of 21st-century creativity and I founded Local Heroes to support Scotland’s exciting contemporary design culture at home and internationally. I’m committed to the development of our design culture and to enlivening design and craft discourses.”
We take an agency approach to put together highly efficient collaborative project teams from our central Edinburgh studio.
