Edinburgh Art Festival and Lavender Menace – Cat Gordon 

Lavender Menace, Scotland’s first queer bookshop, created a safe space for the city’s LGBTQ+ community between 1987 and 1997 as well as selling and supporting queer authors and queer-led publishing houses. Founders Bob Orr and Sigrid Nielsen reopened Lavender Menace as a popup shop in 2019 with a mission to create a queer books archive; preserving copies of out-of-print books and setting up a database of queer publishing, recording readers’ views and stories about them. 

Collaborating with Edinburgh Art Festival the UK’s largest annual festival of visual art, as part of their work with artist Sean Burns this year, Lavender Menace hosted an event to reflect upon personal and political experiences of HIV in Edinburgh during the 80s and 90s.  

Illustrator Cat Gordon created their work around Lavender Menace founder Sigrid Nielsen’s quote: 

‘When you put the books together in the same room they start talking to each other.’  

Interested in narrative and image-making, illustrator Liu loves reading and making picture books, and wanted to express the diversity and pastoral care Mark McManus mentions in his blog post when creating her illustration. 

Edinburgh Science Festival – Donger Liu 

Alongside the celebrated Edinburgh Science Festival, which takes place in venues across the city every April, Edinburgh Science Foundation is one of Scotland’s largest outreach charities and presents a year-round programme of learning and community activities for all ages.  

The programme includes projects such as Generation Science, which brings immersive shows and workshops to primary school classrooms all over Scotland, and Careers Hive at the National Museum of Scotland, a reimagined interactive careers event for 11–15 year olds that encourages young people to consider careers in science and technology.  

Illustrator Donger Liu created their artwork around a quote from an Edinburgh Science Festival participant that reflects the foundation’s mission to inspire, encourage and challenge people to explore and understand the world around them: 

‘Today I learned that atoms are really small but also really important.’ 

She said:  

“With this project, I wanted to highlight the importance of arts-based learning and the ways in which creative programmes have such a huge impact on increasing children’s confidence and creativity. The poster depicts an energetic classroom scene where a group of children cheer on their performing classmates, to convey the togetherness and support that arts-based learning tends to foster. It was really important to me to emphasise fantastical elements here, to reflect the magic, wonder and power of children’s imagination. As the performers tell their story, the imaginary star-filled world they are building only grows and immerses the class further. The scene celebrates the joy of encouraging children to develop their sense of self-expression and voice: even from another universe, they shine.” 

Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival – Sara Hassan 

One of the largest festivals of its kind in Europe, the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival brings world-class international musicians to the city every July as well as championing local talent. The festival team also produces the free Edinburgh Festival Carnival which takes place in Princes Street Gardens and brings together local and international artists in an awe-inspiring display of costumes, dance and music – presenting the world in one city. 

Illustrator Sara Hassan created their artwork around a quote from first-time carnival visitor Helen, who was taken along to Princes Street by her neighbour Farida in 2022 and captivated by the live performances she saw there: 

‘I feel alive… The world is here today.’ 

She said: 

“I was inspired by the vibrant costumes of the Edinbugh Carnival. Pairing that with the imagery from the Jazz & Blues Festival, I aimed to capture the energic atmosphere of both events through my poster design. I used gouache to create texture and movement, combining this with hand-lettering for the quote to add to the dynamic quality. I also felt that hand-lettering would allude to the personal nature of the experience the quote describes.” 

Edinburgh International Festival – Zoë Brown

Founded in 1947, the Edinburgh International Festival was the brainchild of cultural pioneer and refugee of the Nazi regime Rudolf Bing. He joined together with civic and artistic leaders to create a cultural event for the city that would transcend political boundaries through a global celebration of performing arts. The International Festival welcomes the world to Edinburgh each year with a hand-picked programme of the finest in dance, opera, music and theatre. 

As part of the London Symphony Orchestra’s residency at the 2023 edition of the festival, players were invited to perform in four hospitals in the region, for over 1,000 patients, NHS staff and visitors. The project was the festival’s Learning and Engagement team’s most ambitious work with hospitals to date and designed to reflect the festival’s mission of creating the deepest level of experience through the highest quality of art, for the broadest possible audience.

Illustrator and printmaker Zoë Brown was inspired to create her poster design whilst reading audience feedback from the LSO performances, one read: 

‘I was moved to tears by the first song.’ 

She said: 

“I wanted to highlight the positive impact of the Festival’s project with the London Symphony Orchestra in hospitals. I was inspired by the incredibly enthusiastic feedback from the first concerts; the power the performances had in providing respite and distraction, as well as making both patients and staff feel valued, really spoke to me. I chose a minimal blue palette, both to represent the NHS and to evoke the calming atmosphere created by the LSO musicians. The interlocking and gestural images reflect the healing connections that can be made through the experience of live music.”