2018

26 July – 26 August

Our fifteenth edition brought together over 50 exhibitions across more than 40 venues throughout the city, curated by Edinburgh’s leading galleries, museums and artist-run spaces, featuring major historic surveys alongside leading Scottish, UK and international contemporary artists and 13 projects from across Scotland selected for our Pop Up Exhibitions and Events feature, alongside over 200 events throughout the month. 

The work of 412 artists and 103 writers and poets formed the festival programme, alongside performances by 60 musicians and 8 magicians across 47 magic performances.

“Year in and year out it gives me some of the most satisfying cultural experiences of the summer.” 
Kenny Farquharson, The Times

View the Festival Guide:

View the Festival Map:

Commissions Programme

Our 2018 programme featured new work by Shilpa Gupta, Ross Birrell & David Harding, Ruth Ewan and Adam Lewis Jacob. Collectively through music, poetry, conversation and magic the artists invite us to reflect on urgent political issues. Strategies of collaboration, orchestration and the act of close listening inform a number of the works; and freedom of expression and a questioning of our consumer culture feature prominently as themes within the programme.

Our Commissions Programme is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Scottish Government’s Festivals Expo Fund and EventScotland. 


Participating Artists:

Shilpa Gupta: For, in your tongue I cannot hide

Ruth Ewan, Sympathetic Magick 

Ross Birrell & David Harding, Triptych

Adam Lewis Jacob, No Easy Answers 

View the Commissioned Artist Interpretation Leaflets:

Platform: 2018

The 2018 edition of our dedicated showcase for artists at the beginning of their careers was selected from an open call by artists Jonathan Owen and Hanna Tuulikki, and included:

Renèe Helèna Browne

Annie Crabtree

Isobel Lutz-Smith

Rae-Yen Song

View the Platform: 2018 Booklet:

Partner Exhibitions

In Focus: Scottish Photography, Edwin G. Lucas: An Individual Eye and Travelling Gallery at 40 at City Art Centre

LIBERTY Art Fabrics & Fashion and Lucy Wayman at Dovecot Gallery

The Common Sense, DEAD IMAGES, Biodiversity, Data Pipe Dreams: Glimpses of a Near Future and ECA Festival Exhibition at Edinburgh College of Art

Nàdar / Prakriti at Edinburgh Printmakers

Hemispheric Phases at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

Robert Powell: Between The Lost Places at The Fine Art Society in Edinburgh

Tacita Dean: Woman with a Red Hat at The Fruitmarket Gallery

Jacob’s Ladder at Ingleby

Art of Glass at National Museum of Scotland 

Ollie Dook: Of Landscape Immersion, Jupiter Campout: ROMANTI-CRASH!, Phyllida Barlow: quarry and Joana Vasconcelos: Gateway at Jupiter Artland  

DOZEN at The Number Shop

John Bellany (1942—2013): The Wild Days at Open Eye Gallery

Canaletto & the Art of Venice at The Queen’s Gallery

Standard Bearers #1 and All in a Days Work at Rhubaba Gallery and Studios

Victoria Crowe: A Certain Light at The Scottish Gallery

Rembrandt: Britain’s Discovery of the Master at Scottish National Gallery

Raqib Shaw: Reinventing the Old Masters, Emil Nolde: Colour is Life and NOW: Jenny Saville, Sara Barker, Christine Borland, Robin Rhode, Markus Schinwald, Catherine Street at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

Victoria Crowe: Beyond Likeness and Planes, Trains and Automobiles: Transportation Photographs from the National Galleries of Scotland at Scottish National Portrait Gallery

The days never seem the same: Gunnie Moberg and Margaret Tait at Stills: Centre for Photography

Lucy Skaer: The Green Man at Talbot Rice Gallery

Pop Up Exhibitions

The ERRAID RESIDENCY, 6°WEST

Muir is Tìr/Land and Sea, An Lanntair

Adam Linklater: Mythopoeia, Andy Cumming

The Past is Singing in our Teeth, Kate McMillan

Arts, Borders and Migration, Deveron Projects

Anatomy of Fleeting Moments, Hans K Clausen & Kjersti Sletteland 

Consensus, Invisible Women

Temporary Land, 5595 Gallery

MEANWHILE, Yolanda McKean, Emma Drye & Michael Coombes 

Hito’s Forest, “A Thing Like You and Me”, Salli Yule-Tsingas

Bill Viola: Three Women, The Parish Church of St Cuthbert

Gordon Douglas: Black Box Take Stock, Travelling Gallery

Warmed Air, The Anatomical Museum