Scottish Art Events & Exhibitions: February 2025

At The Hunterian in Glasgow, Digging in Another Time: Derek Jarman's Modern Nature (until 4 May) finds inspiration in the multidisciplinary artist’s diary entries from the last five years of his life. The diaries divulge details on his performance-installation at Glasgow’s Third Eye Centre and the planting of his garden at Prospect Cottage. Commissioned responses by five contemporary artists explore Jarman’s mammoth contribution to queer art history.

Printmaking as a tool for political activism and propaganda is explored in Soft Impressions (until 23 Mar), a Dundee Contemporary Arts exhibition that platforms intergenerational works by Helen Cammock, Ingrid Pollard and Camara Taylor. Also in Dundee, at Cooper Gallery, the pioneering American artist Suzanne Lacy – whose practice is rooted in social justice – gets her first solo exhibition in Scotland. Between the Door and the Street (28 Feb-12 Apr) exhibits Lacy’s video work, alongside archival material and texts illuminating the urgency of women’s bodily autonomy. 

Say No!, an exhibition about the feminist act of refusal, continues throughout the month at the Wardlaw Museum in St Andrews until 11 May. Stories of activism and societal change are explored through the work of artists Alberta Whittle, Josie KO, Frankie Raffles and Petra Bauer. Archival material of feminist refusal from the 1960s and 1970s interrogates how far women’s equality has come and how far it still has to come.

Over to Edinburgh, where the practice of Swedish artist and filmmaker Bauer can be relished again. Fruitmarket screens Sisters! on a loop until 23 March, a film which follows the vital work of Southall Black Sisters, a feminist activist charity that advocates for the rights of Black and minority women in the UK.