University venues and partnerships are centre stage as the Edinburgh Art Festival, and International Film and Book Festivals begin.
As Edinburgh’s festival season gathers pace, University places, people and partnerships continue to play a leading role across the city.
The Edinburgh’s International Book, Art and film festivals open across the second weekend of August, with the city’s six major festivals all in full swing.
With hundreds of events taking place across campus, the University continues to be at the heart of festival action, with staff and students centre stage in many events.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival returns to its home at the University’s Edinburgh Futures Institute for a third year. The festival's ‘The Front List’ series also see 15 events held at the University’s historic McEwan Hall.
Taking place between 15 and 30 August, this year’s festival includes more than 600 events exploring its 2026 theme, ‘Changing Your Mind', inviting audiences to stay open, curious and willing to embrace new perspectives.
As well hosting the festival site, the University continues to be a major sponsor. The Edinburgh Futures Institute is supporting a series of events that connect with its work on digital skills, data and AI literacy.
Journalist Gabriel Gatehouse chairs a conversation with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and technology activist Cory Doctorow exploring the online forces shaping our lives, as part of The Front List on Monday 17 August.
On Friday 21 August, Financial Times journalist Sarah O’Connor and social innovator Hilary Cottam will also explore the impact of technology, considering how new ways of working and AI will affect employment.
Looking ahead to the future of publishing, the ideas behind 'Future Library', a public art project in Oslo collecting one original manuscript every year from 2014 to 2114, are explored on Saturday 29 August.
Writers Elif Shafak and Valeria Luiselli will join the project’s Anne Beate Hovind and its creator, Scottish artist Katie Paterson, in a conversation that will also reveal the author selected to contribute the next new work to the library.
The University’s College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences will also support two events in the festival programme.
Scots poet Len Pennie and journalist Sophia Smith Galer come together to consider what a society risks losing when a language disappears, in a discussion exploring bilingual identity and the erosion of culture on Saturday 15 August.
The art of literary translation is examined by writers and translators Polly Barton, Daniel Hahn and Anton Hur, in a discussion exploring how a book survives a journey between languages on Wednesday 19 August.
The University’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities supports an event in The Front List, featuring Scottish crime writer Val McDermid and Geographer Royal for Scotland Jo Sharp.
Val and Jo will join journalist Allan Little in conversation about their fictional retelling of a surprising story from Scottish history, 'This Door of the Seas'.
The University’s Edinburgh Medical 300 programme, marking 300 years since the establishment of its Faculty of Medicine, presents a festival edition of its 'The Compassion Salon'.
Featuring healthcare academic Marti Balaam, GP Gavin Francis, poet Hollie McNish and Edinburgh Makar Michael Pedersen, the event will explore literature, empathy and wellbeing on Sunday 23 August.
The Edinburgh Art Festival will also feature a number of University-led exhibitions and events that bring together art, research and technology.
British artist Anne Hardy’s solo show creates an immersive experience at the University's Talbot Rice Gallery, building an imagined world where boundaries between the biology and technology are increasingly blurred.
The Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) will also host several free exhibitions and events as part of the Art Festival.
The 'Marks Left Behind', an algorithmic artwork by Dave Bowes, will use data inspired by the traces created as people move through the building, to create an evolving digital artwork that changes each day.
The Book Festival and Art Festival also come together at EFI through 'Where We Are'.
A multimedia installation celebrating participants in festival’s year-round Communities Programme, the exhibition features artwork created by Edinburgh College of Art Illustration students.
Festivalgoers can also visit The Edinburgh Seven Tapestry, a triptych designed by acclaimed Scottish artist Christine Borland.
This permanent exhibit celebrates the Edinburgh Seven, the first women to matriculate at a British university, who began studying medicine at Edinburgh in 1869.
Edinburgh College of Art will present 'Morphological Murmurations', a multisensory installation led by artist Theodore Koterwas at Inspace, from 26 to 30 August.
Bringing together art, technology and research, the exhibition explores communication and AI, placing visitors in the imagined space of a Large Language Model.
University academics, alumni and community projects are also contributing to this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Academics and alumni will take part in panel discussions, sharing expertise and helping audiences explore the ideas and issues raised by this year’s programme.
University staff are also supporting the next generation of film-making talent, with Jamie Chambers, Senior Lecturer in Film at Edinburgh College of Art, working with young people as part of the festival’s education programme Our Cinema ’26.
Pupils from Edinburgh’s Broughton High School worked with Jamie, professional filmmakers and experts from Queen Margaret University, to create their own short films through a series of hands-on workshops in storytelling, filming and editing.
The films will premiere at the Film festival on Monday 17 August as part of 'Our Cinema 26 Shorts: What is felt but not spoken’ with Scottish film director and writer Scott Graham.
This article was published on
