🪩 Edinburgh Culture Minute: 29 May - 4 June 2024
Edinburgh Art Festival programme announced, Spit it Out fest cancelled, Filmhouse landmark, will.i.am coming to town + ECA grad show, Meadows Festival & Cymera this weekend
Welcome to the 47th 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
🎭 This year’s Spit it Out project festival has been cancelled. Allegations made by artists were published on Instagram last week. Organisers have now responded, saying: “We are a very small team and don’t have the capacity or resources to respond to these allegations, maintain good governance of the organisation, and run the festival at the same time.”
🎭 Edinburgh Zine Festival has ended its partnership with Fruitmarket, citing the venue’s connections with investment firm Baillie Gifford. - The event organisers published this statement, while BG previously said: “When it comes to subjective ethical situations relating to particular sectors (such as fossil fuels) or countries (such as Israel), our clients set the parameters and determine what to exclude or divest.”
“As a DIY organisation, we refuse this vision of an Edinburgh where our arts and cultural spaces and organisations are beholden to funders who profit indiscriminately from genocide and fossil fuels.” - Edinburgh Zine Festival.
🎉 Edinburgh Art Festival has announced its 2024 programme, with 200+ artists taking part for its 20th anniversary celebrations. - Jamie Dunn of The Skinny has gone through the programme and picks out highlights here.
⮑ All the partner venues and events are listed in the caption of this Instagram post.
⮑ EAF Director, Kim McAleese says:
“We have invited artists from across Scotland, the UK, Europe, Latin America, and the SWANA region, who refuse inequity, isolation, destruction, and despair (in large ways and in quiet ways). We want to connect to our context and the city – to the people and movements who inspire change, who enable solidarity, and bring people together to work towards collective futures.”
🎷 The 2024 Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival programme has also been published. - Dive in here.
🪐 One of Edinburgh’s most-loved live events returns this weekend. Shoreline of Infinity’s Event Horizon is part of Cymera festival this weekend. With more than 50 events and 70+ authors, Cymera is the UK’s biggest celebration of genre literature this side of WorldCon. It’s based at various venues within the Pleasance from Thursday to Sunday. Shoreline’s Event Horizon is on Saturday evening - more details here.
🎨 The annual Edinburgh College of Art Graduate Show opens on Friday. Students will display their work across programmes in art, design, music, history of art, architecture and landscape architecture. - All the tickets can be found here.
📺 The Edinburgh TV Festival has unveiled will.i.am and producer Warren Littlefield (The Handmaid’s Tale, Fargo, Dopesick) as the first big-name speakers for its 2024 edition this August. - The festival published this press release with more details.
⮑ Musician and entrepreneur will.i.am will take part in the festival’s Frontiers strand, in conversation with a professor of media and AI, Dr Alex Connock, an academic in media and artificial intelligence at Oxford University. They will “discuss the future of creativity and what role AI will play in it.”
📝 More than 12,600 people have now signed the petition calling for Summerhall to continue as an independent arts venue.
🎞️ The crowdfunding effort to reopen the Filmhouse on Lothian road has passed £300,000.
⮑ Plans for the cinema building’s refurbishment have now been lodged on the council planning portal.
🎧 Thursday will be the final day of the ‘LUNCH’ show on EHFM, after six years of weekly broadcasting. They said: “Host Nikki will ride one last time on Thursday live from Alby’s in Leith. Tune in or pop down to celebrate this triumph of a show one last time.”
🎭 What’s on Edinburgh’s stages this week?
Here’s Thom Dibdin of All Edinburgh Theatre:
It's a big week for children's theatre with the Edinburgh International Theatre Festival (full details here) in town, featuring no less than four Scottish productions among the 14 shows in venues across the city.
Elsewhere, plenty of kids - young and old - will no doubt be delighting at the arrival of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Playhouse (ends Sat: tickets) with Elaine C Smith getting all villainous as the Childcatcher.
The Lyceum's co-production with Dundee Rep of Sunset Song has arrived (ends Sat 8 June: tickets). The production's ensemble and music have already been nominated in this year's Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland - so expecting good things here then.
Alan Bissett's acclaimed Moira Trilogy is at the Scottish Storytelling Centre (Sat: tickets). This is a rare chance to catch all three of Bissett's hilarious one-man plays about Falkirk’s Hardest Woman in one go.
CYMERA - Scotland’s Festival of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Writing, is at the Pleasance over the weekend and offers a trio of theatrical opportunities. Top of those is Strawmoddie Theatre doing another Terry Pratchett - Men at Arms (Thurs - Sun: tickets).
Also at Cymera, Dan Collins is doing his comedic Dune! The Musical (Sat/Sun: tickets) and the always watchable Dave Robb is giving a work-in-progress performances of a new script: A Rose Appears (Sat/Sun: tickets).
Opening next week before the Culture Minute drops, the Strange Town touring company bring Storm Lantern to the Traverse (Tue 4 - Thurs 6 June: tickets).
Full details of all these and the Festival Theatre's week of one-offs are in Æ's Preview & Listings: Mon 27 May Sun 2 June.
📌 Culture Minute news from the Community Noticeboard
⮑ Share yours using this form.
📌 “WHALE Arts is celebrating the completion of a Community Asset Transfer. We have purchased the land the WHALE Arts Centre stands on with support from City of Edinburgh Council and the Scottsh Land Fund, securing the future of our creative community arts hub in Wester Hailes. We'll be working with our community of members, participants and partners to develop the centre and garden space.” - Thanks to the WHALE Arts team for sharing this news.
📌 “Cymera: Scotland's Festival of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Writing is back at the Pleasance, Edinburgh for its sixth instalment. Meet over 60 authors including Joanne Harris, Natasha Pulley, Nigel Planer and Mark Lawrence, get your theatre fix with Terry Pratchett's Men at Arms or Dune! The Musical and discover local publishers and comic creators in our Creators Hall. Friday 31st May to Sunday 2nd June 2024.” - Thanks to Ann Landmann, Festival Director, for sharing this.
📌 “One of the UK’s biggest outdoor cinema events, the annual Square Cinema takes place next month in St Andrew Square Garden – and you can enjoy totally free entry! The three-day event is funded by Essential Edinburgh with LNER continuing their headline support. It all kicks off this year on Friday June 14th with a packed line-up. Family audiences are in for a treat with daytime screenings including Kung Fu Panda, Trolls Band Together, The Little Mermaid, and Wonka. Then through the afternoon and into the evening, older audiences can enjoy Hollywood blockbusters, cult and anniversary cinema screenings including Barbie, Harry Potter & The Order of the Pheonix, William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, Pretty Woman and the anniversary screenings of The Matrix (25th anniversary), and Four Weddings and a Funeral (30th anniversary) and more, all in a relaxed picnic-style environment.” - More details here. Thanks to a kind reader for sharing this.
📌 “You, your friends and family are all invited to this year’s Meadows Festival, an entirely volunteer-run and free annual community festival! Saturday 1st June and Sunday 2nd June, 10am – 6pm, The Meadows, Edinburgh. 🎼What is the Meadows Festival? A two-day volunteer-run community gala and free festival with the biggest outdoor market in Edinburgh. There’s something for all ages… From the Children and Families’ Area, to the Dog Show, Performance Area, a local youth music stage, Main Stage with local music artists, stalls, a range of food vans and outdoor bars.” - Thanks to Kasia, Volunteer Coordinator, for sharing this.
🤝 Networking, jobs and funding opportunities
Here are the new opportunities, followed by the ‘still open’ list:
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