A FOCUS on Palestine as well as artists who have been historically marginalised will be part of the Edinburgh Arts Festival (EAF) this year.
Stretching across all four corners of the city and with a major hub in Leith, the festival will feature over 250 artists with some of them being shown in Scotland for the first time.
Speaking to the Sunday National, director Kim McAleese said highlights will include a show featuring the work of late Japanese artist Sadao Hasegawa, revealing the work of one of post-war Japan’s most influential gay fetish artists.
Celebrated for his depiction of hypermasculine forms, Hasegawa’s paintings blend eroticism with pan-Asian folklore, science fiction and popular culture, imagining a universe where chiselled men encounter mythic creatures, hybrid animals and divine bodies unbound by earthly limits. Although his illustrations were originally published in gay magazines across the US, UK and Australia, much of his work has remained virtually inaccessible outside Japan until now.
“Their work has never really been properly shown in the UK before,” said McAleese. “It’s very much about Japanese culture, as well as being quite erotic and very queer in terms of its subject matter.
“There’s a lot of historical and cultural references and the work itself is aesthetically quite Japanese. It’s really exciting to be able to show that.”
Another unusual show will be a body of work from the time that artist Del LaGrace Volcano spent in Edinburgh. The title Love Bites Back nods to Volcano’s first monograph, Love Bites, published by Gay Men’s Press in 1991 to considerable controversy.
On August 15, Volcano will be in conversation with Catherine Opie, with the National Galleries of Scotland hosting the first major museum exhibition of her work in Scotland. Taking place at the Royal Scottish Academy, Catherine Opie: To Be Seen, will showcase nearly 80 photographic portraits by Opie alongside a selection of portraits from Scotland’s national art collection.
After working together for a number of years, EAF has partnered more officially with Falastin Film Festival for their final weekend (August 27-30), bringing a dedicated focus on Palestinian and Lebanese artists and filmmakers.
There will be four days of screenings at the Filmhouse, plus in-conversations and events.
Majazz Project/Palestinian Sound Archive, led by artist Mo’min Swaitat, will also bring its celebration of music, spoken word and album artwork from historic Palestine to a festival-long installation at the Palestine Museum. This will give audiences a chance to experience Swaitat’s extensive archive of records from Palestine and beyond, spanning everything from field recordings of Bedouin weddings to revolutionary albums from the First and Second Intifadas, instrumental tracks, poetry, soul, folk songs and jazz.
In addition, Lebanese artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan will be performing with Syrian musicians at Leith Theatre.
“Zifzafa is speaking about the Golan Heights, an occupied space in Syria and it is about the weaponisation of sound from occupiers in that particular region,” said McAleese. “Sound can be used as an oppressive force, whether that’s drones overhead or sonic booms.
“Zifzafa is an Arabic word used to describe wind moving sand and the performance refers to the wind turbines in the Golan Heights, which are less like a green initiative and more to have a constant oppression through sound for the people who are living there. It is as a constant reminder that you are being occupied.”
Other highlights include a newly installed commission on Calton Hill by sculptor Emii Alrai, whose colossal, fragmented relics explore the cultural power and contested political histories of archaeological ruins.
More sculptures by leading artists such as Anne Hardy and Eva Rothschild will be on display at the Talbot Rice Gallery and Fruitmarket respectively. In her large-scale installation, Hardy will explore landscapes that are both human and post-human by animating the gallery with light, sound, data and scenography. The Void Presses The Wall by London-based, Irish artist Rothschild will inhabit all Fruitmarket’s spaces.
Meanwhile, an ambitious new commission by Katie Paterson, co-commissioned with Folkestone Triennial, will be at the Collective studio. It will comprise nearly 200 amulets, each created with materials sourced from endangered landscapes and fragile ecosystems, exploring themes of deep time, geology, and the environment.
Memorials to Sausage Politics by Jamie Fitzpatrick will be at Edinburgh Printmakers exploring the divisive debate around post-colonial public statuary.
Esther Castle’s Abundant Parts at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop (ESW) is a newly commissioned installation and other-worldly garden where Castle draws a symbolic connection between the non-normative body and weeds which are often considered an undesirable presence and removed by gardeners.
Also at ESW, Ukrainian duo Kristina Yarosh and Anna Khodkova, will present a mural, What a Wonderful Day in a Wonderful World, that gives a message of hope against the background of terrible events.
The festival runs from August 14-30 https://edinburghartfestival.com/
