🪩 Edinburgh Culture Minute: 3 - 9 July 2024
Book festivals' united appeal, Lost Map x Good Vibes, new open-air gallery, The List Festival Awards + this week's super-exciting new local creative jobs
Welcome to the 51st edition of the Culture Minute, a weekly round-up of Edinburgh’s local creative news, events, jobs and opportunities.
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🆕 News & happenings this week
🎨 The Talbot Rice building at the uni’s Old College quad (pictured above) became an open-air gallery this week with the opening of Ghanaian artist El Anatsui’s exhibition ‘Scottish Mission Book Depot Keta’.
⮑ Inside, the exhibition spans five decades of work, including a selection of Anatsui’s iconic large-scale sculptural wall hangings made with reclaimed metal from the bottling industry in Ghana and Nigeria. - Free and open until 29 September.
⮑ If you swing by, here’s an audio guide to explain what you’re seeing, voiced by Talbot Rice Gallery director Tessa Giblin.
🗳️ Perhaps as a more cultural alternative to election evening TV news, Fruitmarket is hosting TFEH's Polling Day experimental music special on Thursday evening.
🎸 Lost Map, the Isle Of Eigg-based record label owned by musician Johnny Lynch, has announced a permanent base of operations at Leith’s Good Vibes record store and studio. - Kevin Fullerton, The List. The partnership will kick off with a special launch night at Good Vibes on Saturday 13 July, featuring the Lost Map-signed artists Susan Bear and Both Hands, alongside a handful of live DJs.
📚 Edinburgh-based publisher Canongate has donated £5,000 to nine UK literature festivals who have lost funding from Baillie Gifford. - Exclusive by Heloise Wood, The Bookseller.
⮑ On Monday nine festivals previously funded by Baillie Gifford - including the Edinburgh International Book Festival - launched a joint appeal for support.
⮑ Here is their collective statement in full:
Book festivals improve our world.
Collectively over the past year, our nine book festivals in the UK have issued 464,000 tickets, sold over £1.5m-worth of books, engaged 64,000 school pupils in free activities, offered 99,000 free or subsidised event tickets, and reached audiences in all 121 postcode areas.
We are an essential part of an open society – civic spaces where writers and readers, old and new, come together to be inspired, provoked and entertained, with nuance and depth.
Amidst intense discussion around arts funding and challenges to our continued flourishing, we have joined forces to share a message on our mission and purpose, and a call for increased support:
We improve public discourse. Festivals are unique spaces where multiple perspectives are brought to bear on complex issues. We advance empathy, expertise and understanding.
We support writers. We promote writers’ works, sell books, and encourage discoverability, blending new and emerging talent with established stars, expanding the reach of publishing.
We develop new readers. By introducing new audiences to a love of reading for pleasure through our programmes, work in schools and outreach, we improve wellbeing and develop empathy.
We break barriers. In embracing diversity and multiplicity, we are unique multi-generational spaces that promote cohesion and engagement over division and alienation.
We spark positive change. Forging connections on stage and off, festivals are platforms where new ideas are exchanged, partnerships formed, and seeds of future projects planted.
We democratise culture. Across the UK, communities are enhanced by festivals bringing culture to their doorstep, while boosting local economies with visitor spend.
We are growing. Year on year, our platforms grow and evolve. Recent editions for all of our events have shown increased audience engagement, demonstrating a resilient demand.
We need your support. As charities and non-profit organisations, all our festivals operate mixed-funding models that rely on public funding, corporate sponsorship and individual giving. Without this, festivals cannot continue to thrive and engage new audiences.
In supporting our work, you are helping to build a better world. Join us.
Signed by: Borders Book Festival, Registered Charity SC037347; Cambridge Literary Festival, Registered Charity 1153944; Cheltenham Festivals, Registered Charity 251765; Edinburgh International Book Festival, Registered Charity SC010120; Hay Festival Global, Registered Charity 1070073; Henley Literary Festival, Registered Company 07540702; Stratford Literary Festival, Registered Charity 1164662; Wigtown Book Festival, Registered Charity SCO37984; Wimbledon BookFest, Registered Charity 1120297.
🟨 Edinburgh International Festival director Nicola Benedetti is warning of a crisis in the arts sector which would amount to a ‘major identity shift’ without more funding. - Ryan McDougall, The Scotsman.
🏆 The team behind The List magazine have launched a new set of awards with thousands of pounds of prizes up for grabs. The List Festival Awards on 23 August at the Johnnie Walker venue on Princes Street will aim to ‘celebrate the superlative performers, writers and directors who make August a landmark in the arts and culture calendar’.
⮑ The Sit-Up Awards winner will receive £5,000 and a slot on the 24/25 Fringe Encore series. The Fringe Encore Award will receive a run at the SoHo Playhouse in New York including accommodation and travel + financial support All other award winners will each receive £500. - More details are here.
“Ever since we relaunched The List in March 2022, creating a new awards event at the Edinburgh Festival was one of our long-term goals. We might be here sooner than we thought but myself and our reviewing team will dive headlong into the challenge of producing shortlists and eventual winners that we can be excited about.” - Brian Donaldson, Editor of The List.
🎨 Broadcaster and writer Gemma Cairney has opened a new micro-space in Marchmont. Describing ‘number 22’ as a ‘new neighbourhood hub with a revolving door of holistic workshops, art and other activity’, Gemma is hosting a range of creative exhibitions, workshops and events. - Find out more here.
💰 Theatre director Dylan Emery looks at how the cost of living crisis is impacting the Fringe in Chortle.
“We live in a capitalist system and that means owning things is far more richly rewarded than doing things and there are few parts of society that do more and own less than those in the creative arts. If you want a world filled with crazy creative people creating crazy creative things, the economy is not designed to help that happen by itself - it requires political will. The value systems of a society are both represented and reinforced by its leadership: make sure you vote for an MP who represents yours.”
🎤 Carol Vorderman will deliver this year’s Alternative MacTaggart speech at the Edinburgh TV Festival next month. - Max Goldbart, Deadline.
🎷 The Jazz Bar’s reopening week of events continues. Here’s the line-up.
📰 July’s edition of The Skinny is out now. - Here’s where to get a copy.
⮑ Here’s the magazine’s music editor Tallah Brash with July’s Scottish Live Music Highlights.
🎬 Edinburgh International Film Festival has selected the world premiere of Carla J. Easton and Blair Young’s music documentary ‘Since Yesterday: The Untold Story Of Scotland’s Girl Bands’ as its closing night film, on 21 August. - Ben Dalton, Screen Daily.
🎭 What’s on Edinburgh’s stages this week?
Here’s Thom Dibdin of All Edinburgh Theatre:
Not much on Edinburgh's stages, but a big call out to the theatre community:
The summer slump of theatre is upon us with just the two shows on offer this week. At the Festival Theatre, Strictly favourites Anton and Giovanni are Together (Sun 7: tickets) and at the Storytelling Centre, Maria MacDonell (Miss Lindsay’s Secret) and Mark Coleman are staging a work-in-progress performance of their show LIFE (Sun 7: tickets) ahead of an appearance at the Fringe.
At All Edinburgh Theatre we are very busy, however, compiling big lists of shows at this year's Fringe that are Made in Edinburgh, which we hope to share in next week's Culture Minute.
We are also on the hunt for more people to join our talented - but volunteer - reviewing team.
If you are an Edinburgh-based writer who would like to join the team, or in an Edinburgh-based company which would like to be on our listings, there are more details here: EdFringe 2024 Call Out for Writers and Shows.
📌 Culture Minute news from the Community Noticeboard
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📌 Leith School of Art has now launched its new campus at Albion Road and places are now available on its Foundation Course:
“If you are thinking of full-time study in the visual arts, then Leith School of Art’s Foundation Course is an exceptional starting point. Unique in Scotland, the course is diagnostic, helping each student find their own direction. Guided by our artist tutors, students build up a specialised portfolio for application to degree courses in the UK and internationally.”
⮑ Take a look inside the new campus and meet some of the students via The Edinburgh Reporter.
📌 “Edinburgh photographer Juliette Lichman has taken on the ambitious task of setting up an online museum to preserve Ukranian artistic and cultural history. She is doing an incredible job but needs support. Juliette is of Ukranian descent, and lives and works in Edinburgh as collections photographer for Edinburgh Uni.” - Thanks to a loyal reader for sending this in. You can find out more here.
📌 “'Mad trad' folk singer and performance artist Joanie Bones is doing a work-in-progress performance of her show The Great Big Women's Song Sanctuary on Mon July 8th. Bringing connection, joy and celebration to issues of womanhood that too often go unsung, Joanie will literally have you singing (and laughing, and probably crying) about issues that women too often face alone. All genders are welcome.” - Thanks to Joanie Bones for sharing this.
📌 “Hame-ish is an evening of music and poetry in-the-round where we invite audiences to a night out that feels like a night in. For this Hame-ish Campfire special you’ll be taken on a journey through nature via deep sea diving, sleepless nights, outer space adventures, and the occasional encounter with a witch. Featuring performances from Rachel Amey, Caro Bridges, Nuala Watt, Mairi-Claire Traynor, and A New International (trio)!” - More details here via Hame-ish Arts CIC.
🤝 Networking, jobs and funding opportunities
⮑ If you got a job thanks to these listings, please let me know! I love hearing what’s useful to you. Here are this week’s new creative opportunities:
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