Edinburgh Art Festival has launched its extensive city-wide programme for 2026, running across numerous venues until August 30th.
Recently relocated to its new long-term headquarters on Leith’s Constitution Street, the Festival, first held in 2004, brings together visual art of all kinds from local, national and international artists. It works closely with many of Edinburgh’s art organisations and venues, including City Art Centre, the National Galleries, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh College of Art, Fruitmarket and a host of others. So writes Lindsay McMurdo for the QR.co.uk…
It is tricky, if not actually invidious, to pick out highlights from such a wide-ranging and eclectic programme, but several shows are sure to garner the immediate attention of many festival-goers:
The largest presentation to date of work by community-based photographer Sandra George has been assembled at City Art Centre. George developed and documented numerous social-action projects in Edinburgh for over 30 years from the 1980s.
EAF’s building at 92 Constitution Street hosts an archive show by pioneering queer photographer and filmmaker Del La Grace Volcano. Many of these images, mostly dating from 1982 to 1995 and some taken during the artist’s time living in Edinburgh, have never been exhibited before.
Back in Leith, Custom Lane gallery presents Carnal Desires, a rare chance to experience the largely unseen work of Sadao Hasegawa, one of post-war Japan’s most influential gay fetish artists.
EAF 2026 Highlights Across the City
Archive photographic work reflecting on 20 years of childhood and the digital world by Scots art-world stalwart Wendy McMurdo at the National Portrait Gallery, alongside the first major exhibition in Scotland of the work of Catherine Opie at the RSA—featuring nearly 80 portraits exploring community and identity—are also likely to draw the crowds.
“Choose quote to highlight”It is tricky, if not actually invidious, to pick out highlights from such a wide-ranging and eclectic programme…”
Out to the West of the city, Jupiter Artland is presenting a solo exhibition of new work by Glasgow-based Irish artist and performer Sgàire Wood, whose work draws on drag, fashion photography and multi-artform nightlife scenes.
That’s simply a flavour of a much wider programme detailed in full on the Festival’s website. The vast majority of these shows are free to walk straight in and sample, providing some much-needed respite from the madding crowds on the Mile and other Festival hotspots!
Featured Image: Sgàire Wood, JUPITER RISING x EAF25, Jupiter Artland. Photo by Charlotte Cullen.
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