A weekly Guide column in which we dissect the influences and interpretations of a different work of art
Royal flush …
The magician’s hands perform a card trick like no other in the Scottish artist Ruth Ewan’s Worker’s Song Story Deck. The story the pack dissembles is not one of kings and queens but, through the vintage photos, illustrations and text that replace the traditional suits, the struggles of rural and industrial labourers.
Singing the changes …
The deck is dealt to the stirring strains of folk singer Ed Pickford’s iconic protest ballad of workers who “for no more than your bread, have bled for your countries and counted your dead”.
Back again …
The film, created with Glasgow magician Billy Reid, was commissioned for the 2018 Edinburgh arts festival as part of a street magician project, Sympathetic Magick, devised by Ewan with the Marxist magician Ian Saville. It is currently part of an online version of this year’s cancelled festival, selected for its obvious relevance to the times.
A kind of magic …
Politicians are often associated with the magician’s tricks of distraction and illusion, but Ewan aims to reveal, not conceal. She suggests that an inspiring trick or protest song can create a magical transformation, laying bare inequalities and changing attitudes.
Edinburghartfestival.com, to 30 August
