Creativity in Crisis: Edinburgh Art Festival 2024

EAF’s programme this year seeks to tackle the many urgent political, ecological and moral crises facing humanity. The festival will face these issues head-on in their opening event, a roundtable discussion at Edinburgh College of Art on 11 August which will take the shape of a proposition of how to nurture creativity and use art as a force for good in an increasingly fragile and polarised world. Holding space at the roundtable will be Cooper Gallery (DJCAD, University of Dundee), a distinctive platform in Scotland for challenging practices and critical discourse in contemporary art and culture; Falastin Film Festival, a volunteer-run collective bringing Palestinian art to Scotland through cinema, music and cuisine; Haven for Artists, a Beirut-based cultural feminist organisation rooted in intersectional feminism, racial justice, and decolonial practices; and Lighthouse Books, Edinburgh’s activist, queer-owned bookshop and community space. 

The Colombian collective Más Arte Más Acción (MAMA) will also join the roundtable, alongside the presentation of an exciting new installation at Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Garden (RBGE). MAMA, who are based in Chocó on Colombia’s Pacific Coast, was formed in 2011 in collaboration with the Dutch artist Joep van Lieshout, with the aim of using art and ecology "to facilitate conversations about the climate emergency," the collective tell us. Their physical space was crafted from a fallen tree and is nestled in the rainforest, primarily acting as a residency space for artists from the global south. 

The collective speak to us from Rwanda, where they are attending the 60^th Association of Tropical Diversity and Conservation conference. While in the country, they will be making recordings and co-designing a circular table with students from the University of Rwanda. This, alongside their exhibition for EAF, builds upon their collective’s interest in tables as previously exhibited in the 2022 edition of documenta, where the collective built a table around a magnolia tree, inspired by the negotiating tables in the United Nations building in New York City. The table comes to symbolise not only a space at which "to negotiate and make decisions," but also exists at the "convergence of nature, community and future decision making." For the original installation, the collective fashioned the table and stools from spruce trees that had been killed by bark beetle infestations, which are killing vast tracts of forests across Europe – a phenomemon which is being accelerated by climate change. 

For their EAF exhibition, the collective have created a table which circles a tree in the Botanic Garden. The table is set around a young Portuguese Oak tree planted six years ago near Inverleith House. The table is built from a tree that had been planted in 1859, the collective tell us, upon the suggestion of the RBGE – the tree had been killed by a fungal infection, which also "opened up questions about tree-health." The installation will be accompanied by a soundscape titled Around a Tree, created as a result of an invitation by botanical scientists to formulate and disseminate an oral archive and creative response to climate change conferences. The soundscape will be shared at events taking place in tandem with the COP16 Convention on Biological Biodiversity in Colombia this year and at the COP30 Climate Conference in Brazil in 2025.

Meanwhile, at Edinburgh Printmakers, Tayo Adekunle returns to Edinburgh with her exhibition Stories of the Unseen. Featuring works from 2020 onwards, the exhibition also includes exciting new digital photographs, photogravures and textile works created this year. In advance of the exhibition opening, Adekunle tells us that Stories of the Unseen explores older concerns in her practice, such as "decolonising history and providing alternative narratives," while newer works explore aspects of Yoruba spiritual practices which "explore the power that storytelling holds in preserving and celebrating cultural history, in spite of misrepresentation." This exploration takes the form primarily of photographic works, but also in a textile work "inspired by the map of Africa and how borders were created and changed over time – the most dramatic division occurring during the Scramble for Africa." 

The human figure remains central to her practice – evident in works such as Acceptance of Duality, where the artist also takes a deep dive into Yoruba spiritual practices. Particularly poignant is the exploration of the Orisha Èṣù, who Adekunle describes as "the divine messenger between the human and the gods… known to be playful and often play tricks on both the gods and humans." However, when European missionaries arrived in what is now known as Nigeria and translated the Bible into Yoruba, Èṣù’s name became the translation for the devil. This stigmatisation of Èṣù, to Adekunle, "is representative of how Yoruba spiritual tradition is negatively regarded as a result of repetitive misrepresentation." In response this, the artist started creating works in order to "share stories of Èṣù to provide more insight into a complicated and misunderstood figure."

Over at the City Art Centre, Renèe Helèna Browne will present new film installation Sanctus!, commissioned for EAF in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh Art Collection. The title, derived from the Latin word for ‘holy’, references the Christian hymn recited during the Eucharist or Holy Communion in Catholic Mass, where the priest offers a glass of red wine to God in the form of blood atonement. The hymn is about remembrance, consecration, praise and sacrifice – themes that are heavily embedded in the film. 

Browne has long been fascinated by origin stories of European languages, particularly Latin, as well as the act of translation that accompanies it. This is tied in with their interest in portraiture, a gesture that is imbued with the passage of time, and a representation that is inherently imperfect and incomplete in its approach to understanding someone, even when sharing the same space. The film thereby reflects on both the translator and the artist – exploring the acts of translation through portraiture and the limitations that come with it. Through this, Browne seeks to comprehend relationships with people around them. 

This narrative primarily focuses on their relationship with their mother. Browne delves into new territory in the history of their relationship through occasions of shared activities – such as visiting newspaper archives in Donegal in search of newspapers printed on the day their mother was born; or watching the short video Little Works by Andrea Büttner, which explores care and community among nuns. Consequently, through the sharing of space, acts of care, and fragile moments of mother-child bonding, the film elaborates on notions of grief, devotion, faith, love and martyrdom in the process of world-building. Browne assumes the role of the interviewer, and through conversation, delicately unravels their mother’s memories through stories. This process draws a particular portrait of a woman born in 1960s Ireland, and revisits instances such as her upbringing within a Roman Catholic family and community; the significant influence of religion in shaping her reality; and memories of her brother, Browne’s uncle John, a renowned rally car racer in Donegal.

Interwoven through this are moments of reality, imagination, fiction, memory, and speculations on what might have been before one’s birth, and what may be in the afterlife – ideas that Browne and their mother don’t necessarily agree upon. A significant motif in the narrative is the circle – the idea that you end from where you begin, in a way as to orbit around someone through a sense of curiosity; in a way as to learn how to share that space with someone; to then pull away from the source and reflect upon it, yet to return to get a deeper understanding of it. This process is quite obscure in the film and constitutes what Browne calls “a full methodology of the project.” As part of the development of the project, Browne collaborated with Poh Linn Lee, a Narrative Therapy Consultant based in Canada to establish an ethical framework for the project. 

The 28-minute film, shot across Donegal and Wexford in Ireland, will be projected in a purpose-built space within the gallery. The soundtrack features Browne’s deconstructed version of Hotel California by The Eagles, a song their mother is very fond of. The room will further consist of walls upholstered in red pleather, reminiscent of their uncle’s red car and leather seats, accompanied by three drawings depicting religious figures. These drawings are viewed behind red acrylic sheets, imbuing a sense of memory, remembrance and grief in the viewer; and serve as a means of storytelling, presenting biblical figures both as they are portrayed in the Bible and as they are fictionalised in films.

---

Edinburgh Art Festival Opening Provocation, Edinburgh College of Art, 11 Aug, 11am-3pm, £12
Tayo Adekunle: Stories of the Unseen, Edinburgh Printmakers, 27 Jul-10 Nov
Renèe Helèna Browne: Sanctus!, City Art Centre, 9-25 Aug