Programme 2023

Edinburgh Art Festival announces plans for the 2023 festival, the first under the Direction of Kim McAleese and a programme that connects the people and city of Edinburgh with a global dialogue through a range of exhibitions, commissions, performances and events. The new format festival will foreground reasons to come together, and see collaborations with many gallery partners in the city for parties, performances, and one-off events. The 2023 festival, from August 11–27, is set to be one of the largest yet, with 55 ambitious projects and exhibitions across more than 35 venues, with the most innovative and renowned partners working in visual art in this city all set to take part, including many who will work with EAF for the first time. Commissions, exhibitions and events invite you to explore the city for the first time or look again a-new through the lens of visual art. 

The festival’s 19th edition features artists including: Sean Burns, Maria Fusco, Margaret Salmon, Annea Lockwood, Rabiya Choudhry, Alberta Whittle, Bonjour, Haven for Artists, Markéta Luskačová, Array Collective, Jesse Jones, Tarek Lakhrissi, Lindsey Mendick, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Leonor Antunes, Keg D’Souza, Peter Howson, Andrew Cranston, Adam Lewis Jacob and Grayson Perry. 

From queer histories in brutalist tower blocks; to tracing peace lines and borders through sound, moving image and music; and the festival’s continuing commitment to support structures, the 2023 festival-led programme features artists, thinkers, writers, and performers who move through this world deeply connected to feminist and queer practice. This may take various forms: an opera; a poem; the sound of a ricochet along a peace wall; a newspaper excerpt; a bodily gesture; a warming meal.

Edinburgh Art Festival 2023 commissions that take place across the festival include:
Sean Burns’ Dorothy Towers is the story of the legendary Clydesdale and Cleveland Towers, two residential blocks in the centre of Birmingham, UK. Completed in 1971 as a social housing development and located adjacent to the city’s Gay Village, the towers’ proximity to the community means they have long been a haven for LGBTQ+ people. The 16mm film and installation opens a space to reflect on the complex relationship between architecture, community and memory. 

History of the Present, will see Northern Irish writer Maria Fusco collaborate with Scottish artist film-maker Margaret Salmon and composer Annea Lockwood, on a hybrid opera on stage and screen that will be performed live. It is a new experimental opera-film forefronting working-class women’s voices to ask: who has the right to speak and in what way? 

Alberta Whittle: The Last Born—making room for ancestral transmissions is a newly-commissioned performance, presented by EAF,  National Galleries of Scotland and Forma, which takes Alberta Whittle’s most recent moving image work, Lagareh—The Last Born as inspiration. 

JUPITER RISING joins forces with EAF to throw one of the biggest one-night only parties in Edinburgh curated by artist Lindsey Mendick and collective Bonjour, a queer workers’ coop based in Glasgow. JUPITER RISING is Scotland’s artist-led art, music and performance festival championing queer and underrepresented communities hosted in the iconic landscape of Jupiter Artland.

Haven for Artists is a cultural feminist organisation based in Beirut, Lebanon, a community of many people, working together to organise, support, campaign, nurture and create in a country in a multi-dimensional crisis, through cultural programming. EAF have invited Haven for Artists to spend time in-residence during the festival with a programme of activities, connecting with local organisations and initiatives, as well as launching the festival with an ‘Opening Provocation’, in conversation with Turner Prize winners Array Collective. 

Now in its 9th edition, Platform celebrates early-career artists working in Scotland, with the opportunity to make and exhibit new work. This year’s artists selected from an open call are Aqsa Arif, Crystal Bennes, Rudy Kanhye, and Richard Maguire. The artists have come together to address a diverse set of concerns spanning race, climate change, food justice, and cultural identity in Scotland.  

EAF and Collective present BEAST! a performance work by the French artist and poet Tarek Lakhrissi, exploring bestiality as a philosophical and political concept by drawing on the stigma that historically frames queer people and people who belong to the global majority as monstrous.

Edinburgh-based poet Nat Raha presents the first iteration of a performance work commissioned with TULCA Festival of Visual Arts (Galway), addressing the history and development of island prisons across the globe through the colonial project of the British Empire.

Initiated by The Common Guild, EAF will co-present an illuminated artwork by Rabiya Choudhry. Taking shape as illuminated signs, they repurpose Andrew Carnegie’s flaming torch motif; a feature found on many Carnegie library buildings. 

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Edinburgh Art Festival is the UK’s largest annual festival of visual art. Founded in 2004, we work with local and international partners to present an ambitious and meaningful programme of exhibitions, events and projects across the city.

Since its beginnings, the festival has featured exhibitions including international and UK artists at a pivotal point in their career alongside the best emerging talent, major survey exhibitions of historic figures, and a programme of newly commissioned artworks that respond to historic sites in the city.

The festival’s year-round community engagement programme has long-term relationships and partnerships across the city, creating relevant and memorable experiences with artists. We invite local people to explore culture, community, the city and self-expression, and value, with many festival projects reflecting this unique creative relationship.

Our public funders are: Creative Scotland, the public body that supports the arts, screen and creative industries across all parts of Scotland distributing funding provided by the Scottish Government and The National Lottery. Further information at creativescotland.com. We are also supported by City of Edinburgh Council.

Our major programme supporters are: the PLACE Programme, a partnership between Edinburgh Festivals, Scottish Government, City of Edinburgh Council and Creative Scotland; and Event Scotland.

EAF is delighted to partner with Edinburgh World Heritage, British Council, Arts Council England & Horizon Showcase, Cruden Foundation, Forma, GCAS, National Galleries of Scotland, National Lottery Awards for All Scotland, and Bloomberg Connects for the 2023 programme.