Creative Edinburgh Awards: The 2022 shortlist

The Creative Edinburgh Awards are back for 2022. For the first time in three years, the celebration of the city’s artists and creatives is back in-person! This year’s Awards take place at Summerhall on Friday 18 November – tickets available here.

Ahead of this year’s Awards, here’s a first look at this year’s shortlist. There are 37 nominees in total across ten categories, celebrating innovative ideas, community engagement, new creative projects and collaborations bringing groups together across the city.

The Community Award is for “projects which create change, and engage communities”. The shortlist features the Aye Festival of spoken word and performance from consent and mental health charity Spit It Out; Black, African and Caribbean creative platform BE United; Community Wellbeing Collective, the Wester Hailes-based arts and events space; and Art Buds in Muirhouse, a free programme of outdoor creative learning for early years and school-age children in Muirhouse, North Edinburgh.

The Edinburgh City Award is between a trio of festival-adjacent projects. Push the Boat Out – Edinburgh’s new poetry and spoken word festival – is nominated alongside the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival’s Edinburgh Festival Carnival, and Edinburgh International Festival’s work with Leith Academy.

The Collaboration Award celebrates projects where two or more creative groups come together. This year’s nominees are Theiya Arts Dance Collective, Tinderbox Collective and Pianodrome for their Edinburgh Fringe run at the Old Royal High School, Figurenotes – a music software project which teaches music through colour and shape – and The Earthing Project. The Innovation Award is contested by software company Continuum Industries, multimedia and virtual reality production company Neon8, and The Portobello Beach Campfire – a new product designed to make beach fires safe and sustainable.

The Freelance Award nominees are Move To Feel, Ailsa Lochhead’s project ​​that uses the silent disco headset to host mindful movement practice; theatre director and playwright Kolbrún Björt Sigfúsdóttir; and Camila Ospina Gaitan for the 24-hour exhibition Thorn in the flesh. The Inclusion Award sees a second nomination for the Aye Festival, as well as nods for design house Liminal Studios, live storytelling series Queer Folks' Tales, and the AMPLIFI series of gigs at The Queen’s Hall showcasing Black and POC Scottish musicians, programmed by Halina Rifai and Arusa Qureshi.

Move To Feel is also nominated for the Creative Startup Award, along with production company Stories Untold, comic book publisher Quindrie Press, and creative collective/arts magazine Little living room. The Student Award nominees are illustrator Levi J. Richards, poet and artist Tanatsei Gambura, curator and activist Ally Zlatar, and Nathaniel Cartier and Fraser Macdonald of creative network The Edinburgh Collective.

In the Leadership Award category, there are nominations for Claire Carpenter of The Melting Pot co-working space; Persephone Nichol-Bose (Hands Up for Trad) and Ally Zlatar (The Starving Artist). Finally, the nominees for the Sustainable Creativity Award are The Earthing Project, a year-long collaboration between a group of artists and filmmakers; sustainable fashion brand byJenByrne; Art Buds Collective, who provide sustainable, nature-based outdoor arts education for children across Edinburgh; and Alice Mary Cooper and Co.'s The Bush carbon light theatre tour.

More details on this year’s nominees, as well as the full rundown on this year’s Creative Edinburgh Awards ceremony, can be found at creative-edinburgh.com