Edinburgh Art Festival 26 July – 26 August 2018
Edinburgh Art Festival, the only major annual festival dedicated to the visual arts within the UK, has announced details of its 2018 events programme. The programme includes a wide range of one-off performances, artist talks, tours and walks, musical events, family activities and workshops, as well as pop-up exhibitions and events in spaces and galleries across the city.
A highlight of the opening week’s programme, the keynote lecture for the Festival this year will be given by renowned Berlin-based artist duo, Elmgreen & Dragset. Special talks with artists, curators and directors will continue throughout Edinburgh Art Festival 2018, with highlights including Victoria Crowe in conversation at Golden Hare Books; Ben Harman, Director of Stills and curator of The days never seem the same; Grant Ritchie from Real Edinburgh at City Art Centre; artists Hans K Clausen & Kjersti Sletteland in conversation with Malcolm MacCallum at the Anatomical Museum; and a tour of Jupiter Artland by Director Nicky Wilson.
The Edinburgh Art Festival’s Commissions Programme includes a strong performative element this year, including Ruth Ewan’s new work, Sympathetic Magick, featuring magic performances from acclaimed socialist magician Ian Saville and other professional and amateur magicians at locations across the city (listed below). In the final weekend of the Festival, artists Birrell & Harding will present two live performances that form an integral part of their Festival commission, Fugue and Keep me like the echo, with Syrian composer and violinist Ali Moraly and other classical musicians. Each of the commissioned artists, including all four Platform: 2018 exhibitors, will present talks or give dedicated tours and introductions to their work at the Festival this year.
Each year, exhibitions and events conceived especially for Edinburgh Art Festival take place in pop up venues across the city, offering audiences a chance to discover new work in unusual spaces.
Visitors will have the rare chance to see work by one of the most renowned contemporary video artists working today, Bill Viola, at the Parish Church of St Cuthbert; his Three Women will be on display for the duration of the Festival. Specially conceived in celebration of the Travelling Gallery’s 40th anniversary, Gordon Douglas has created a new film installation for the bus, exploring the unique movement of the gallery and its archival histories.
An exploration of the further-flung resonances of Scotland’s landscape will continue throughout a number of other pop-up exhibitions. 6°WEST will be presenting postal art inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s connection to the Isle of Erraid at the Scottish Arts Club; An Lanntair will showcase work produced on a new residency at sea in the Outer Hebrides; and Andy Cumming will debut experimental sound work and film documenting occult and shamanic performances at stone circles across the country by elusive researcher Adam Linklater.
Visitors can also participate in a range of stimulating discussions and round-tables on socially prescient themes: Deveron Projects will facilitate a two-part discussion on issues surrounding borders and migration; DOK Artists Space will invite visitors to a round-table at on how artists can maintain a sustainable art practice; a workshop questioning how the gig economy shapes art production in Scotland will be held alongside Melanie Gilligan’s dystopian drama The Common Sense; and Gemma Lawrence from Creative Carbon Scotland will chair a discussion between Ravi Agarwal, Dr Norman Shaw and Don O’Driscoll, discussing the philosophical underpinnings of nature in our societies and potential responses to contemporary environmental problems.
Archive activists, ‘Invisible Women’, will present a special screening of Consensus, a fascinating selection of archive shorts exploring the dynamics of gender, time and memory, questioning why some films are embraced by the canon while others disappear from view.
Other opportunities to experience the broad programme on offer will include a variety of special events, openings and tours such as Jupiter Artland’s ROMANTI-CRASH! Camp-out and Summer Evening Gathering, a reel-to-reel double-bill film screening at Fruitmarket Gallery and the annual Art Late programme planned for each Thursday evening of the Festival, featuring tours of the partner exhibitions, artist performances and talks, workshops and live music. Open Eye Gallery, the Scottish Gallery and The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh will all open their doors for special Festival Breakfast Clubs each week, with short early morning talks planned from Helen Bellany, Duncan Macmillan and James Holloway.
The range of activities and events for children and families continues to be wide-reaching with weekend highlights including: Explorers Outdoors, Art Early and Explorers at the Library, the launch of Alastair Chisholm’s new book and creative workshops at Fruitmarket Gallery, as well as story-telling sessions with Salli Yule-Tsingas. Bobby Niven’s Palm House, an artist designed studio-workshop sited in Johnston Terrace Wildlife Garden commissioned for the Edinburgh Art Festival 2017, will be open to visitors again this year for a series of highly popular Mud Oven Afternoons.
Edinburgh Art Festival events have been listed on the following pages and full details are available in the Festival guide and on the website. A Festival map and events leaflet will be available from the Festival Kiosk at Institut Français d’Écosse, West Parliament Square, EH1 1RF and participating galleries throughout the Festival.
EDINBURGH ART FESTIVAL 2018 EVENTS PROGRAMME
For full details of all programmed pop-ups and events, visit edinburghartfestival.com.
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