A giant dragon and an urban wildlife reserve are to be part of this year's Edinburgh Art Festival.
The festival (EAF) is to stage eight new projects by Scottish and international artists at six sites in and around Edinburgh’s Old Town as a homage to the Scottish thinker, sociologist and town planner Patrick Geddes.
The shows have been commissioned with two anniversaries in mind - the foundation of the first Edinburgh Festival in 1947, and the publication in 1917 of Geddes’ pamphlet The Making of the Future: A Manifesto and a Project.
The Making of the Future laid out his vision for a society driven not by ‘a machine and money economy’, but ‘a life economy’, with an important role for art in society.
The giant dragon will be placed within the kirk of Trinity Apse, by artists Walker & Bromwich, its installation "accompanied by a series of lively performative rituals" and a pageant which will "invite audiences to consider alternatives to the dominant capitalist model."
The Edinburgh based artist Bobby Niven will create a new garden studio at the Johnston Terrace Wildlife Garden.
There will be a new video work by Shannon Te Ao in Gladstone Court, a former Magdalene Asylum for ‘young girls or fallen women who have deviated from the path of virtue and peace'.
Toby Paterson will create a sculpture in Chessels Court, another site in the Old Town closely associated with Patrick Geddes.
A showcase for emerging talent, Platform: 2017; selected by Graham Fagen and Jacqueline Donachie, features four artists, in the new venue for the festival, a former Victorian Fire Station on Lauriston Place.
A Summer Meeting (11-14 August) will take place as part of EAF’s Events Programme, presenting a weekend of events focused on the central ideas proposed by Geddes and the relevance of these today, including a workshop devised in partnership with North Edinburgh Arts, in Muirhouse, and an event taking place in the original home of Geddes in Ramsay Gardens.
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