: a short documentary, beautifully shot on 16mm film, about a pair of residential tower blocks that have since the 1970s served as a hub for queer people in Birmingham. Glimpses of the lives of residents are interspersed with footage of the city captured from the back of a Mini – fitting for a place often called a 'car city'. Other moving-image works appear as part of larger exhibitions, such as Lindsey Mendick's SH*TFACED at Jupiter Artland. Shame Spiral (2023), an account of Mendick's tendency towards binge-drinking, is narrated by both the artist and her partner, Guy. The film is by turns funny and painfully vulnerable; at one point, we hear the story of the couple's first hook-up, when Mendick got so drunk she blacked out and wet the bed. The influence of Tracey Emin – close friend, creative mentor, and confessional artist par excellence – is palpable. Also on view are Mendick's handmade ceramics, which are just as witty yet raw. Here they are arranged in densely detailed tableaux of hedonistic excess, from a banquet table to a nightclub toilet. Over the course of the festival is a series of one-off ticketed events (all free or pay-what-you-can, a){kind=link}
The UK’s largest annual celebration of visual art has replaced the simple pleasures of gallery-going with performances, music and film. Why?
Most people in Edinburgh have no idea about the Art Festival, which overlaps each summer with the wildly popular Fringe – and the book festival, and the film festival, and of course the original Edinburgh International Festival. One taxi driver expressed bafflement that I wasn’t seeing any shows, except for those in museums and galleries. But for the last 19 years, venues across the Scottish capital have teamed up to present a programme of exhibitions and events billed as the “UK’s largest annual festival of visual art”.
Except this year there seems little point distinguishing between the art festival and its peers. Under the new direction of Kim McAleese, the programme is packed with performances, music, poetry and film. My visit kicked off with a screening at the French Institute of Sean Burns’s Dorothy Towers (2022): a short documentary, beautifully shot on 16mm film, about a pair of residential tower blocks that have since the 1970s served as a hub for queer people in Birmingham. Glimpses of the lives of residents are interspersed with footage of the city captured from the back of a Mini – fitting for a place often called a “car city”.
Other moving-image works appear as part of larger exhibitions, such as Lindsey Mendick’s SH*TFACED at Jupiter Artland. Shame Spiral (2023), an account of Mendick’s tendency towards binge-drinking, is narrated by both the artist and her partner, Guy. The film is by turns funny and painfully vulnerable; at one point, we hear the story of the couple’s first hook-up, when Mendick got so drunk she blacked out and wet the bed.
The influence of Tracey Emin – close friend, creative mentor, and confessional artist par excellence – is palpable. Also on view are Mendick’s handmade ceramics, which are just as witty yet raw. Here they are arranged in densely detailed tableaux of hedonistic excess, from a banquet table to a nightclub toilet.