This week sees the launch of the Edinburgh Art Festival. Being the 16th edition, this Festival brings together renowned and national institutions alongside more grassroot activities, artist-run initiatives and emerging talent. The Arts Festival is a platform which enables Edinburgh to showcase the diversity and passion for the arts within the city. Whilst continuing to support established and well known artists, the Festival also gives voice to new talent and those at the early stages of their artistic career. Featuring the work of over 300 artists from around the world, presented at various venues across the city; the Arts Festival explores Edinburgh’s convergence of cultural and creative fusion.
The Festival Commissions Programme this year brings together five artists working across a range of mediums to explore the precarity of the socio-political climate in which we currently find ourselves – or as the title encapsulates, Stories for an Uncertain World. Utilising narratives and storytelling as a means of conveying their ideas through multiple and contrasting mediums, the Commissions Programme artists collectively explore ideas of resilience in uncertain times.
Spanning several venues, Commissions Artists include Glasgow-based Nathan Coley who will be exhibiting work inspired by a French wallpaper in Parliament Hall. Alongside this, internationally acclaimed Alfredo Jaar will present a public intervention at The National Museum and Rosalind Nashashibi a two-part film at The National Gallery of Modern Art. Sriwhana Spong whose work explores language and body, as well as Corin Sworn who explores the technological entanglement with the human body, also feature at different venues as part of the Commissions Programme.
Alongside this, Fruitmarket are presenting Nightwalk for Edinburgh by renowned Canadian artists Janet Cardiff and Georges Bures Miller. Taking you through the streets of Edinburgh, across the Royal Mile and various backstreets, this narrated walk intrigues and compels the participant. Turner Prize winner Grayson Perry‘s beautifully decorated and colourful artworks will be on display at Dovecot Studios. An incredible audio and sonic work by James Richards features at Collective Gallery’s City Dome and Edinburgh Printmakers present multi-disciplinary artwork in their new Castle Mills location.
Artworks and events are scattered across various other locations including Jupiter Artland, The National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Edinburgh College of Art and several commercial galleries. It is a lively and jam packed arts programme – not to be missed in amongst the rest of the Edinburgh International Festival!