Scottish Art Highlights: August 2025

Edinburgh Art Festival (7-24 Aug) returns for its 21st edition, reaffirming its commitment to community, queer and feminist expression, and a good party. As usual, EAF have curated a daring series of performances, talks, drop-in exhibitions and nights-out, complimenting a plethora of exhibitions on display at partner galleries across the capital.

We begin with a new performance by feminist-punk artist Linder Sterling at the Royal Botantic Garden Edinburgh on 7 August. A kind of glamour about me is an improvised, collaborative performance that coincides with Linder’s solo exhibition at Inverleith House. This (sold out) ticketed, evening performance is followed by the EAF25 Launch Party at the Grange Club, featuring music by feminist nightlife collective Femmergy.

In the EAF Pavillion (Leith Street), Trans Masc Studies: Memory Is A Museum presents an emerging, interactive archive devoted to trans masculine narratives throughout EAF. On 10 August, Ellis Jackson Kroese, the artist behind Memory Is a Museum, leads a talk focused on the future of trans masc archiving. Adam Kashmiry also presents an experimental performance. Tickets available on a sliding scale.

who will be remembered here, a contemplative film that focuses on four queer writers’ connection with Scotland through performance, screens every 45 minutes in the EAF Pavillion. At the invitation of Lewis Hetherington and CJ Mahony, writers Robert Softley Gale, Harry Josephine Giles, Robbie MacLeòid and Bea Webster responded to sites that span Scotland’s human history. In Hetherington’s words, the film “is a cry against the erasure of cultures, languages and identities which has defined our past, and threaten to define our futures.”

It’s Leith Day on 9 August, which offers a free half-day itinerary of exhibitions towards the north of the city. Stops include SEEDLINGS: DIASPORIC hosted by the Travelling Gallery (a contemporary art gallery in a bus), and FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS at Sett Studios.

On 16 August, JUPITER RISING X EAF25 is set to be another whirlwind night of music, poetry and performance. Hosted at sculpture park Jupiter Artland, the line-up includes a solo set by TAAHLIAH, performance by Florence Peake and a late-night stage curated by Ponyboy. Tickets include an opportunity to see exhibitions Guy Oliver: Millennial Prayer and Jonathan Baldock: WYRD.

Highlights at partner galleries include Aqsa Arif: Raindrops of Rani at Edinburgh Printmakers. The Scottish-Pakistani artist subverts the famous Sony Bravia ‘Paint’ advert that was filmed at her childhood council flat in Glasgow. Drawing on Punjabi folklore and Bollywood, Aqsa offers a fantastical critique of a regeneration project that saw the displacement of migrants and working-class communities from their homes.  Open throughout EAF – drop in for free.

In the city centre, Siân Davey exhibits The Garden, a photographic documentation of the transformation of her and her son’s wildflower sanctuary. At Stills Centre for Photography, their garden is posed as a 'referential offering to humanity', one that welcomes a spectrum of emotions – from heartache to euphoria.  

At National Museum of Scotland, the Scottish-Nigerian artist and printmaker Nkem Okwechime presents Okolo. Featuring hand-printed wallpaper and ceramic tiles, the installation is informed by the intersection of European and West African cultural influences, as well as Nkem’s research with the museum’s African collection. Co-created with community groups, Nkem Okwechime: Okolo opens 13 August and closes on the 22nd.

Queer movement artist Lewis Walker closes EAF25 with Bornsick, on 23 August. Through gymnastics and dance, the performance interrogates the tension between conformity and freedom within a system that shapes our identities. The following afternoon, the festival hosts a Closing Conversation that queries 'Where Do We Stand?' Promising communal conversation, film screenings and food, participants will be guided to reflect on cultural memory to come together in times of crisis.

Beyond Edinburgh, Thread Memory: Embroidery from Palestine continues in Dundee, a twinned city with Nablus, Palestine. The free exhibition focuses on the ancient practice of tatreez, a form of hand-embroidery with socio-political depth, with each region of Palestine holding its own distinct style. Drawing on material from Dundee collections and Palestinian archives, Thread Memory at V&A Dundee centres the Nabulsi dress, works by contemporary artists who engage in tatreez, in addition to interviews with Palestinian makers. Continues until spring 2026.

Over in Glasgow, Sarah Rose questions 'What might a feminist energy system look like?' through kinetic sculpture. Her Tramway exhibition, Torpor, finds inspiration in the phenomenon of summer torpor – a state of decreased activity in animals to conserve energy. The artist uses glass, heat and light to transform materials and explore themes of power, connection and environmental instability. Closes on 7 September.