🪩 Edinburgh Culture Minute: 13-19 Dec 2023

Welcome to the 24th edition of the Culture Minute, a weekly round-up of Edinburgh’s local creative news, events, jobs and opportunities. It’s for paying subscribers only, so thank you for supporting this. Thanks to everyone who contributed this week! 

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💰  Arts agency Creative Scotland has ‘ramped up the pressure’ on the Scottish Government to deliver its pledge to ‘more than double’ arts funding. - Brian Ferguson has the latest on this saga in The Scotsman.

⮑  Francesca Hegyi, executive director of the Edinburgh International Festival, claimed ministers have 18 months before “we lose a global asset that we will never get back”. She also criticised the attitude that appears to view the arts as “nice to have”. - Rachel Amery, The Scotsman.

⮑  More locally, Leith-based Cutting Edge Theatre, founded in 1995 by Suzanne Lofthus, said this week they were ‘devastated’ to have missed out on funding that would keep the organisation’s award-winning work going.

⮑  Similarly, the Edinburgh Deaf Festival said it too had Creative Scotland funding applications rejected this week. Philip Gerrard, CEO of Deaf Action, said: ‘we now face a funding crisis due to this decision’: 

“Given that the festival is unique in Scotland, and so completely meets the aspirations of the Scottish Government and Creative Scotland, we are at a loss to understand how the needs of the deaf community will be met, if not by us. Is it now considered enough to provide access to the arts solely through the use of interpreters? Access without representation cannot meet the aims of the National Plan. No other cultural and linguistic minority is expected to settle for access alone.”

  ⮑  The festival has launched a campaign, with more details here.

🎧  I was honoured to be invited on to the EFHM Culture Show for a chat with hosts Katie and Katie. As a big fan of what they do, it was true highlight to meet them at the famous EHFM studio at Summerhall and get a glimpse behind the scenes. Also on this month’s show: their own 2023 cultural highlights (music, books, shows) and some festive hits.

🖼  Among the EHFM Culture Show’s 2023 highlights is Alberta Whittle’s exhibition at Modern One. Without even going to the gallery, you will likely see some of the Scottish Barbadian artist’s work in town at the moment, as twelve ‘tender and inspiring messages’ are appearing on billboards across Edinburgh this week. (I spotted some going up this morning, pictured above.) They’re extra-large versions of watercolours reminding people ‘to bring love into the everyday’.
  ⮑  The ‘Create Dangerously’ exhibition runs until 7 January at NGS Modern One, and the billboards will be up at these locations until 17 December: 143 London Road, 20 Market Street, North Bridge, Portobello High Street, Slateford Road, Brunswick Road/Easter Road, Fountainbridge, Lindsay Road/Portland Street, Seafield Road, Tolbooth Wynd/Henderson Street, the Shore and 17/23 Calton Road.

🖼  It’s a big weekend at the Edinburgh Printmakers studio in Fountainbridge’s Castle Mills building. The third annual members’ show at the Printmakers galleries begins on Saturday 16  December, hosting the work of 78 artists across a broad spectrum of print mediums. A lot of it is brimming with local references to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas. Edinburgh College of Art head Susan Mowatt, a guest selector for ‘Journey’, said: