Tag: Edinburgh College of Art

St James Quarter’s first ever fashion festival ‘Edinburgh Style’

Grab your heels, dress to impress and prepare to be inspired as St James Quarter presents its very first ‘Edinburgh Style’ event from Thursday 14th – Sunday 17th October.

Scotland’s new fashion capital, St James Quarter will host an array of stylish events over the long weekend. The line-up includes fashion and beauty workshops hosted by world-renowned influencers, autumnal wreath demonstrations to live music with Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival and an unmissable fashion show in partnership Edinburgh College of Art.

Kicking off from 11am each day, St James Quarter will have a variety of pop-up locations for fashionistas to explore including the ‘Style Dome’ on St James Square and the ‘Style Lounge’ in the galleria.

Attendees can drop into the ’Style Dome’ to watch a series of talks hosted by eight iconic influencers over the course of the weekend. The influential hosts include the beauty icon who boasts Kim Kardashian as one of their number one fans, Reuben de Maid, Scottish fashion guru and Dula fashion house founder, Jilly Isabella and food expert Just Jess.

John Lewis will also host an exclusive session with established model Chioma who will provide top tips on how to style your wardrobe this winter.

And it doesn’t stop there: Edinburgh College of Art graduates will be presenting their collections with models in the galleria and onto the car park for a one-off not to be missed boutique fashion show.

Attendees can also admire work created by Textiles and Jewellery & Silversmithing graduates displayed in the ‘Style Dome’, as well as hear from Edinburgh College of Art and Graduate Fashion Week 2019 Award Winner Rosie Baird, who will be discussing her own graduate collection and inspiration behind the St James Quarter Tartan that she designed.

Throughout the weekend shoppers will be entertained with pop-up bars, an art exhibition, selfie stations at the ‘Style Stories’ and so much more. A number of brands from The Quarter including Boots, Peloton, Ixia Flowers, Bodyshop, Keihl’s and IOLLA are also set to get involved throughout the weekend.

 Rochelle Weir, brand and marketing director at St James Quarter, said: “What an event we have lined up. Not only will this give people an opportunity to see all the amazing brands, including Keihl’s and IOLLA, we have here at St James Quarter but it’s also a chance to flaunt your own style and be inspired by others. The influencers attending to host our fashion and beauty workshops are some of the best in the business.

“Who better to give you glam tips than Reuben de Maid – the person who has worked one to one with Kim Kardashian!

“We are also extremely excited to be working with Edinburgh College of Art graduates to bring our very own fashion show to life. If you’re in Edinburgh from the 14th-17th October, make sure to come down and check out everything we have going on – it’s not to be missed!”

Mal Burkinshaw, Head of Design at Edinburgh College of Art, said: “We are delighted to be partnering with St James Quarter for this unique event. This opportunity gives our graduates a platform within a high-end retail context and will be an invaluable experience for them.”

Edinburgh Style events are free to attend and will be allocated on the day through a first come, first served basis. For more information on the events taking place from Thursday 14th – Sunday 17th October visit St James Quarter’s event page at: https://stjamesquarter.com/events/

To celebrate Edinburgh Style and other upcoming events, St James Quarter is offering all customers half price car parking from 5:30pm every night until Sunday 31st October.

Engaging Citizens: Edinburgh International Book Festival

With prison visits, cinema screenings, walking tours and communal meals, the Edinburgh International Book Festival engaged a wide audience in different communities this year. 

Citizen, the Book Festival’s ongoing programme of long-term partnerships with organisations and residents across the city and Musselburgh, presented a series of events and activities reflecting on Edinburgh, its residents and their sense of place and home, while StoryNation reached out to those further afield who were unable to visit the Book Festival in person. 

 Citizen is supported by the players of People’s Postcode Lottery through their Postcode Culture Fund and through the PLACE programme. 

Noëlle Cobden, Communities Programme Director at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, said “This August, through our Citizen programme, we celebrated a diverse range of voices, bringing local people from across the city to the Book Festival, in many cases for the first time. Whether eating together, taking part in events or joining the audience, a sense of community flourished that hasn’t been possible over the last 18months.  

“For those who weren’t able to visit our new site at Edinburgh College of Art, as part of our Story Nation, we took authors and streamed events to them. Our prison sessions were extremely popular and have already begun to yield positive results with attendees reading more widely and developing their own writing following our visits.

“Our work in communities in Edinburgh and beyond will continue over the coming year with projects in schools, community venues, hospitals, prisons and care homes, as well as online.” 

In partnership with Scran Academy, a social enterprise catering organisation working with vulnerable young people, Stories & Scran brought together 40 participants in the Citizen Collective, the North Edinburgh/Musselburgh Citizen Writers, pupils from the Alternative School @ Spartans and local people from Tollcross for a community meal at the Book Festival’s new home at Edinburgh College of Art followed by performances of their words and music created in writing workshops held online throughout the Covid pandemic.  

The work of other Citizen participants, including The Warblers, the Citizen Collective and the Citizen Saheliya Group, was also featured in R Words, a Scotland-wide game of poetry consequences. 

As part of StoryNation, Pat Nevin, Chris Brookmyre and Andrew O’Hagan participated in workshops and readings in HMP Edinburgh, Perth and Kilmarnock.  

Stellar Quines theatre company along with actors Genna Allan and Chloe Wyper from the Citizens Theatre’s WAC Ensemble – Scotland’s first professionally supported theatre company for performers and theatremakers with care experience – worked closely with novelist Jenni Fagan to create a masterful adaption of Jessie Kesson’s radio play You’ve Never Slept in Mine.  

This was performed twice in HMP Edinburgh following its premiere at the Book Festival.  The Book Festival donated three copies of the books from the authors who visited to each Prison Library, and HMP Edinburgh advises that there was immediately a waiting list to read Pat Nevin’s The Accidental Footballer. 

Andrew O’Hagan also visited the new Streetreads Library in Edinburgh to read from Mayflies.  Streetreads is a charity that takes books and stories to people affected by homelessness and the new library received 15 copies of Mayflies donated by the Book Festival. 

StoryNation also worked with The Birks Cinema, a community owned social enterprise in Aberfeldy – a rural area that suffers from a lack of reliable broadband – to screen a series of live conversations direct from the Book Festival.  

Perthshire audiences enjoyed events with Salman Rushdie and Pat Nevin, the launch of the Golden Treasury of Scottish Verse with the new Scottish Makar Kathleen Jamie who was joined by poets Don Paterson and Peter Mackay, the Summer Crime Wave event featuring Val McDermid, Ambrose Parry, Doug Johnston and Mary Paulson-Ellis and finally a conversation with Ian Rankin as he launched The Dark Remains, his completion of the late William Mcllvanney’s final manuscript.  

The Book Festival’s Citizen City Tour, developed by with photographer Alicia Bruce and Citizen Writer in Residence Eleanor Thom in collaboration with residents of Tollcross, is free, self-guided audio tour which encourages participants to explore the gap between Edinburgh’s postcard exterior and its inner heart.  

300 maps with QR codes were picked up from the Book Festival and to date some of the stories have already been listened to over 45 times. 

Edinburgh International Book Festival’s Citizen programme returns with the Citizen Winter Warmer – a weekend of events and activities at North Edinburgh Arts and Brunton Theatre Musselburgh from 18 to 20 November 2021.  

The programme will be announced in late October, and full details can be found at https://ontheroad.edbookfest.co.uk/ 

Citizen: A hearty helping of Stories and Scran at the Book Festival

I was delighted to be part of Edinburgh International Book Festival’s ‘Stories and Scran’ event on Tuesday evening.

The event was a celebration of the book festival’s Citizen programme.

Over the last 12 months, Citizen Writer in Residence Eleanor Thom and poet Leyla Josephine have been working with local groups to discuss and respond creatively to themes such as home, identity and belonging.

The evening – a lively mix of live readings, stories and short films – showcased impressive work by participants from Spartans Alternative School, the Citizen Collective (some brilliant young writers aged 16-18) (above), the Citizen adult writing group, the Saheliya Champions and more. And all in front of a live audience, too!

The event was preceded by a delicious community meal prepared and served up by by a team from North Edinburgh’s very own Scran Academy. 

Congratulations to the organisers – coronavirus restrictions must have made this a very difficult event to plan and stage, but it really couldn’t have gone better.

Stories and Scran was live streamed and you can view it here:

 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/stories-scran-1/player

Book Festival opens this morning

Today’s the day! The 2021 Edinburgh International Book Festival begins!

Join us in-person at Edinburgh College of Art at the University of Edinburgh or live online for the first day of our first ever hybrid Festival, from our brand new home!

See what’s on today at a glance below, and head to our website to book tickets to watch live in-person or online:

https://edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/events?

New chapter for Edinburgh International Book Festival

The Edinburgh International Book Festival, which takes place this year from Saturday 14 to Monday 30 August, will do so in the beautiful indoor and open, grassy outdoor spaces of the University of Edinburgh’s Edinburgh College of Art on Lauriston Place.

Full programme details will be announced in June, but Book Festival fans can expect a range of live online author talks, workshops and readings as well as, if circumstances permit, some events for live socially-distanced audiences. 

This new strategic partnership with the University of Edinburgh gives us use of the ECA’s buildings and grounds in August. The University will operate catering and bar provisions if permitted by the Government’s Covid19 guidelines during the Festival.

EIBF Director, Nick Barley, explains this important move: “While we are now experiencing a full lockdown in Scotland which is challenging for so many people on so many levels, we very much hope that the combination of this, together with the ongoing vaccination programme, will bring the virus under control by August.

“While 2020 proved extremely challenging for the Book Festival it also opened up some extraordinarily exciting opportunities.  Building on the success of our online Book Festival we can now announce that we will be entering into a new strategic partnership with the University of Edinburgh that will enable us to inhabit this innovative space in 2021 with facilities to create events for both digital and, if circumstances permit, physical audiences.

“Covid19 has created a huge tectonic shift in the way that live events, ourselves included, can reach their audiences. With in-person ticket sales impossible to forecast this August, we simply can’t justify incurring the costs of the tents and infrastructure we’d normally put into Charlotte Square Gardens. It is highly probable that most events will take place online, and the need for broadcast studios is more likely than large venues for an audience.   

“In the grassy courtyard of Edinburgh College of Art we will, if rules allow, recreate the elements of the Book Festival that our audiences love – bookshops, cafes and open spaces in which to come together safely offering the ‘oasis of calm’ for which the Book Festival is renowned. The College offers excellent studio and theatre facilities for both online broadcasting and potential events with a socially distanced audience.

“We intend that this strategic partnership with the University will be a long-term arrangement, and the Book Festival will continue to occupy their spaces when a Covid-free Festival, with audiences able to enjoy live events in person, can be staged.

“However digital events will continue to be a key part of future Book Festivals, enabling us to reach truly global audiences as well as those closer to home who face barriers to attending the event. We are excited that our hybrid festivals of the future will engage with authors and audiences around the world in a more environmentally responsible way.”

It’s a new chapter for the Book Festival. Look out for more announcements in the coming months, with full programme details to be revealed at the end of June.

From A to Z: Andy White & Zoee in the Wee Red Bar

Wee Red Bar, Edinburgh College of Art, Friday 6 December

Belfast singer-songwriter Andy White’s first single Religious Persuasion and 1986 debut album Rave On Andy White kick-started a career which includes twenty albums, two books of poetry and a novel. Continue reading From A to Z: Andy White & Zoee in the Wee Red Bar

Edinburgh student wins contest for new educational publishing project

Anna Chalcraft, a design student at Edinburgh College of Art, has been announced as the winner of a competition to illustrate the first book for newly launched publisher, LOVE Publications. Continue reading Edinburgh student wins contest for new educational publishing project

This is Scotland: STV to screen documentaries by upcoming Scottish filmmakers

STV will broadcast two brand new, 30-minute documentaries as part of This is Scotland, a documentary and new talent initiative run by the Scottish Documentary Institute (SDI) in association with Screen Scotland. Continue reading This is Scotland: STV to screen documentaries by upcoming Scottish filmmakers

ECA’s Degree Show opens today

ECA1Edinburgh University’s Edinburgh College of Art Degree Show opens this morning and runs until 9 June.

Extra-large kitchen utensils, woodland explorations and exorcisms are just some of the things to experience at this year’s early summer ECA Degree Show. The College of Art in Lauriston Place has been transformed into the capital’s biggest gallery space as it celebrates the work of more than 500 graduating artists, film makers, designers and architects.

This year’s graduates have assembled a wonderfully diverse and imaginative  exhibition which covers  the whole arts and design spectrum. Creative, challenging, entertaining and thought-provoking, there’s something here for everyone in an exhibition that’s not to be missed.

For opening times and further information visit www.ed.ac.uk/eca/degreeshow