Edinburgh Art Festival reveals its 2025 programme

Edinburgh Art Festival has revealed its busy programme for its 2025 edition, which takes place 7 to 24 August and will feature 82 exhibitions spread across 45 galleries and venues. And one of these venues is the festival’s new EAF Pavilion, which will be in the vast Outer Spaces exhibition space on Leith Street. The festival describes the EAF Pavilion as “a shared hub” and it will be a hive of activity, hosting many of the festival's new commissions, exhibitions and discussions.

One installation to be hosted in this space is who will be remembered here, a collaboration between playwright Lewis Hetherington and visual artist CJ Mahony, which EAF describes as “a tender film drawing intimate connections between Scottish queer people across the span of Scottish history”. The piece features four writers who’ve been commissioned to respond to four sites that speak to the history of Scotland, with each writer using a different language from these shores: Robert Softley Gale in English, Harry Josephine Giles in Scots, Robbie MacLeòid in Gaelic, and Bea Webster in BSL. 

Linder Sterling. Photo courtesy the artist and EAF

Another highlight is a visit from legendary punk artist Linder with her new piece A kind of glamour about me. It’s a performance in two parts. The first takes place at Mount Stuart in Bute in June, and then the second part will take place at the Royal Botanic Gardens on 7 August to mark the opening of EAF. In the May issue of The Skinny, Linder explained how the performance was inspired by a rather less punky figure, Walter Scott, who is believed to be the first person to use the word ‘glamour’ in English literature, using the word in the magical and spell-like sense.

“I look forward to seeking inspiration from each location and weaving together a textural journey of performance, sound, and textile,” said Linder, who we’re told has recruited a group of bears from Scotland’s queer communities who'll take part in a 'teddy bears picnic' as part of the performance. Colour us intrigued. EAF also hosts Linder: Danger Came Smiling, a retrospective celebrating the 71-year-old trailblazer's career, taking in her famous photomontages, performance videos and sculpture from across five decades. Read more about Linder and A kind of glamour about me in our interview with Linder from the May issue. 

Another highlight is, of course, JUPITER RISING x EAF, the one-night-only festival taking place at Jupiter Artland on 16 August. Pioneering Glasgow producer and DJ TAAHLIAH headlines the event while the inimitable queer party Ponyboy takes over the late-night stage. On the night, party-goers can also explore Jupiter Artland’s summer exhibitions by Guy Oliver and Jonathan Baldock after dark, and catch Baldock in conversation with Queer as Folklore author Sacha Coward. 

Lewis Walker performing Bornsick. Photo: YISKID

EAF should come to a spectacular close on 23 August with Bornsick, a new performance from London-born queer movement artist Lewis Walker. Walker is an ex-Team GB gymnast and puts their extraordinary physicality and skill to use in this gravity-defying show blending music and dance. We’re told Bornsick sees Walker “reflect on the idea that we inherit illness, born into a system that shapes us before we can define ourselves.” The following day, Walker invites new and experienced movers alike to Dance Base to take part in the intimate and playful movement workshop MOVE HYPNO, led by Walker and hypnotherapist Michele Occelli.

There’s plenty more to explore in the programme, from Alice Rekab’s Let Me Show You Who I Am, which will be shown on billboards throughout the city, to Orcadian artist Brandon Logan's exhibitions of painting curated for the domestic spaces of Bard in Leith. There’s also exhibitions at the usual major galleries around town, like Talbot Rice Gallery (Wael Shawky), Fruitmarket (Mike Nelson), City Art Centre (John Bellany), Collective (Mercedes Azpilicueta) and more. 

For the full lineup of what’s on at EAF, head to edinburghartfestival.com