THE pro-independence cultural movement, the National Collective, has decided to wind down.
A week before the Scottish National Party is expected to make unprecedented gains in the General Election, National Collective has said its "moment has passed".
The collective, which involved a national series of events, concerts, Fringe shows, campaigning and a nationwide festival called Yestival, became a voice for performers, writers, poets, spoken word artists and others who were campaigning for an independent Scotland.
As well as its 'We are National Collective' campaign, it energised a primarily younger electorate and helped organise an open letter signed by hundreds of artists who supported independence.
However, it was not wholly without its critics.
In 2013, the Scottish composer James MacMillan caused controversy when he Tweeted: "I don't understand artists who suck up to Government politicians, or those who want to huddle in 'collectives' like Mussolini's cheerleaders."
Yesterday he added: "It will always be seen as a pro-government organisation - fatal for artists."
In recent weeks there has been public and private discussions over the future of the National Collective, and what its role should be post-referendum.
One of its founders, Ross Colquhoun, now works as a strategist for the SNP.
A statement from the organising group of the body, said: "National Collective brought together supporters, organisers, performers, participants, writers, artists and speakers to play their part in building a colourful creative non-party movement whilst campaigning tirelessly for Scottish independence.
"To be a part of it was exciting, energising, inspiring and beautiful.
"National Collective belongs to a time and a place, and that moment has passed.
"Instead, we need to take the massive significance of that transformative journey and learn from our campaign experiences.
"It is now time to embed what was learnt into the life of our country; to normalise creative participation in public life and to find new ways of doing things to make Scotland better."
It said the work of the collective now "represents a huge shift in how we think about our cultural and political life in Scotland".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article