It was a group of artists who tried to radically expand the role of art into everyday life, but whose innovative work in the 1970s has sunk into obscurity.

The Artist Placement Group, who placed themselves in a variety of art forms within industry and workplaces in the 1960s and 1970s, including STV and the Scottish Office, are now to be celebrated in a major show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

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The group (APG) was a collective of artists who worked within industries and public institutions to perform research and create work inspired by their work environment.

Artists in the collective worked individually within places such as the British Steel Corporation and the old Department for Health and Social Security (DHSS).

Ulrike Jordan, co-curator of the 'Context is Half the Work' show at the Summerhall venue in Edinburgh, which runs from August 4, said the exhibition is designed to cast a new light on an "untold story."

The artists featured in the show include Ian Breakwell, Roger Coward, Garth Evans, David Hall, George Levantis, Barbara Stevani and John Latham.

Latham had a three month placement in the Scottish Office in 1976, and was particularly interested in the large spoil tips, or bings, around Edinburgh.

He wanted them to be celebrated as monuments to Scotland's industrial era and argued they should officially be declared as works of art.

Latham called some of the bings 'Niddrie Woman', linked its shape to references to Celtic mythology, and proposed sculptures on its summits.

Niddrie Woman was specifically four bings near the towns of Winchburgh and Broxburn which Latham suggested should be regarded as ‘process sculptures’.

The show also documents David Hall's TV Interruptions, where we worked with Scottish Television on a series of video pieces, including images such a burning television, which were aired during advert breaks several times a day.

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Seven of the ten videos, which he made with curator Alistair Mackintosh, have been preserved and will be displayed in the show.

The clips "stand exemplary for the APG's aim to identify new fields of action for artistic production" the show's programme says.

Ms Jordan, who has curated the show with Naomi Hennig, added: "Latham really saw the bings as ready-made works of art, rather than ugly remnants of the industrial age.

"But the authorities really didn't get his position on them, they didn't really understand his ideas even though he campaigned for years."

She added: "It really is an untold story, where a group of artists tried to overstep the boundaries of art as it was, to work outside the gallery, to extend their reach.

"Now these ideas seem very familiar, but at the time it was an idea that was quite new and it came from a sense to engage more with society outside the strict confines of the art world.

"We are calling the show a half documentary, half exhibition and focus on seven of the projects in particular."

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Other projects highlighted in the show include Evan's two year fellowship at the British Steel Corporation in 1969/70, Levantis' journeys on cargo ships of Ocean Fleets Ltd, and Coward's placement with the Department of Environment where he worked in a neighbourhood in Birmingham.