LeithLate returns to the Walk this summer with a jam-packed programme of mostly free exhibitions and events involving over 50 artists. The Out of the Blue Drill Hall will be this year’s festival hub with a host of activities taking place in and around the building over the four-day period from 23rd-26th June.
In a new collaboration with Edinburgh City of Literature, the LeithLate Public Poetry Project sees poems about Edinburgh by top contemporary poets including Rachel McCrum, Michael Pedersen and Harry Giles displayed on advertising sites around Leith throughout the month of June.
Over 20+ spaces around the Walk will be involved on the opening evening of Thursday 23rd including a new commission by Dennis and Debbie Club The Improvement of Invalid Youth , a multi-projection audio-visual installation revisiting the history of the Gayfield Creative Spaces site that is supported by a new partnership between LeithLate and the Goethe Institut.
Leith artist Rabiya Choudhry’s has designed a LeithLate banknote as her new commission on currency which will be mass produced and given away throughout the festival. Choudhry is also working with local young people from Out Of The Blue’s #artcore group to design their own forms of currency and young people aged 13-25 from the group will provide a night of live art music at McDonald Road Library.
LeithLate and Deptford X, London's longest running contemporary arts festival, are in the initial stage of a new partnership/twinning and to chime with this Deptford digital artist Ian Gouldstone, whose work incorporates games, animation and new media, creates a new work Nearest Neighbours: Leith for LeithLate16. Another LeithLate partner the Goethe Institut sees the installation of Kosmischer Läufer ephemera that has a special music link to the secret cosmic music of the East German Olympic Programme 1972-83 in the window of Leith Athletics.
Examples of innovative use of community spaces are evident in artist Sara Sinclair’s curated outdoor art event in a local back garden in the heart of the community, The Back Garden Biennale. There is a poster exhibition and zine giveaway in Settlement Projects from the Poor Art Collective and pavement art installations on the theme of luck from Juliana Capes.
Photography collective Eye Am Camera’s Wish You Were Where will be in the Leith Walk Police Box and will also be distributing their new collection of work to the public for free throughout LeithLate16.
Dancing and music comes courtesy of the Soul Deep vinyl dance party at Brass Monkey and live music from Scottish/Spanish / German 6-piece band, The Rhumba Radges at Victoria.
Friday 24 June sees a series of panel talks on global issues of local importance to Leith including Gentrification in Leith; The Politics of Public Art and The Value of Art and Artists and on Saturday 25 there is a Leith Mural Tour, with contributions from some of the artists involved in creating them. Things round off in fine style on Sunday 26 with the Art Bar Boot that is somewhere between a cabinet of curiosities and an art show, it features The Department of Lost and Found, The Thermos Museum and the Penniless & Obscure zine. This will be followed by the LeithLate16 closing party at Pilrig Church hosted by The Grind Journal, including spoken word and live music performances, with profits going to Amnesty International. The LeithLate16 After party with a headline set from Carbs kicks off at Hibs Supporters Club from 9pm.
LeithLate16 is dedicated to accessibility, offering something for all members of Leith’s richly diverse community and is supported by Creative Scotland, The Goethe Institut-Glasgow, Edinburgh City of Literature and Settlement Projects.
All events free apart from opening night After party and Closing Party 23rd - 26th June 2016