, Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF), returns from 7–24 August 2025, bringing a rich programme of exhibitions, performances, and commissions to the city. Now in its 21st edition, this year’s festival features 82 exhibitions across 45 partner venues, making it the most expansive EAF yet.
Highlights include new city-wide commissions and globally renowned artists. Notable projects:
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Linder’s outdoor performance A Kind of Glamour About Me debuts at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh as part of a co-commission with Mount Stuart Trust and the Art Fund.
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Voiceless Mass, the UK premiere of a Pulitzer Prize-winning composition by Indigenous Diné/Navajo artist Raven Chacon, will be staged in St Giles’ Cathedral, featuring conversation and performance with vocalist Elaine Mitchener and supported by the Scottish Ensemble.
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At Jupiter Artland, the third annual JUPITER RISING x EAF returns for a one-night festival within the festival (16 August), headlined by TAAHLIAH and featuring Jonathan Baldock, Sacha Coward, Florence Peake, and Roxanne Tataei.
Other major exhibitions include:
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A retrospective of Andy Goldsworthy’s land art, featuring over 200 works across the National Galleries of Scotland.
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Wael Shawky’s Drama 1882, a filmed lecture-performance exploring colonial Africa, shown at Talbot Rice Gallery.
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Site-specific public art by Alice Rekab, Brandon Logan, and others across Edinburgh, including large-scale billboards, gallery installations, and performances in Leith and the Old Town.
For 2025, EAF presents its first shared festival hub, the EAF Pavilion at Outer Spaces (45 Leith St.), hosting new commissions, artist residencies, public discussions, and screenings. Highlights include:
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“Here/Were Remembered”, a multilingual film by Lewis Hetherington and CJ Mahony, amplifying Scottish queer histories using English, Scots, Gaelic, and BSL.
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Memory is a Museum, an ongoing project by Ellis Jackson Kroese investigating gender diversity in Scotland.
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A screening of My Blood Runs Purple by Ria Andrews and Jj Fadaka, addressing healthcare inequality for Black gendered bodies.
EAF’s Early Career Artist-in-Residence Award was awarded to textile and video artist Hamish Halley, whose intimate film installation will be shown at The People’s Story Museum. The festival also debuts a new residency programme, HOST, through which local artists hold open studios in the Pavilion throughout August.
Throughout the city, partner venues host distinct exhibitions:
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City Art Centre showcases John Bellany: A Life in Self‑Portraiture and Out of Chaos: Post-War Scottish Art 1945–2000 featuring giants such as Joan Eardley and Eduardo Paolozzi.
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Dovecot Studios presents IKEA: Magical Patterns, exploring 60 years of feminist and experimental textile design.
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Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and Printmakers present work by Louise Gibson, Robert Powell, and Aqsa Arif, addressing contemporary consumer culture and Pakistani folklore.
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Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh stages Fungi Sessions, an immersive audiovisual experience by Hannah Read featuring her album installations.
This year’s EAF also touches on critical themes like climate, identity, folklore, and queer histories. Festival Director Kim McAleese notes: “We invite audiences to explore how ancestral knowledge and imagination can guide us toward resilience and a renewed relationship with the natural world.”
Tickets and visitor information are available now. Whether you’re a lifetime garden walker, curious museum‑goer, or first‑time festival visitor, this edition promises plenty of moments to surprise, inspire, and ignite new conversations.
