Edinburgh Student Arts Festival (ESAF): 12-19 February 2016
Summerhall, City Art Centre, the Scottish Storytelling Centre, Gayfield Creative Spaces, The Biscuit Factory and Assembly Roxy
Following on from a stellar inaugural year, the award-winning Edinburgh Student Arts Festival (ESAF) is back. ESAF 2016 will be bigger, better and more vibrant than before. This year’s festival features over 400 emerging creatives, celebrating art in the widest form, from performance art to visual art to talks and creative workshops.
ESAF Founder and Director Briana Pegado says:
“This year ESAF’s focus is on making the arts and creative sector accessible to all. We provide a platform for emerging artists and creatives, encouraging them to develop a voice in the creative sector, develop their practice, collaborate with other creatives to pursue their careers, and share their creativity with the wider community.”
This year ESAF is working with a number of creative partners including Creative Edinburgh, Lyon & Turbull, the Scottish Poetry Library, the Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh Printmakers and the Saltire Society to run a series of events on topics such as the art market, creativity and storytelling, and improved access to the arts.
Following a Launch Party at the Biscuit Factory on Thursday 11 February for our creatives, partners, supporters and a select number of general public, the Festival will officially open on Friday 12 February 2016. The performance programme will take place from Friday 12 February 2016- Sunday 14 February 2016 across three venues: the Assembly Roxy, Scottish Storytelling Centre and Summerhall. Ticket prices for the performance programme will be £3 for students and £5 for members of the public. Various shows in the programme will be free.
Our free visual arts exhibition runs the entirety of the festival from Friday 12 February - Friday 19 February 2016 at The Biscuit Factory, City Art Centre, Gayfield Creative Spaces and the Scottish Storytelling Centre. Information on private views for each exhibition venue will be provided nearer the time.
Our returning visual artists include Pablo Valcarce and Anya Gleizer with an interactive installation featuring the work of Japanese painter Okuno KuroKawa; Fionnuala Mottishaw exploring how museums sculpt our understanding of the culture to which we belong; Edward Twaddle using photography to examine the relationship between the subject of his images (domestic objects) and its context; and Softbox Collective, a 4th year photography collective based in ECA, whose works span an eclectic field of photography vision, from traditional documentary photography, to contemporary abstraction.
Talks and Workshops will take place Monday 15th - Friday 19th at Scottish Storytelling Centre Library on a wide range of topics including bookmaking, coldpress writing workshops, storytelling sessions, creative networking skills and poetry readings.
On Sunday 14 February 2016 we will be hosting a special Valentine’s Day treat in collaboration with ASCUS called ‘For the Love of Art and Science’ at Summerhall. In the morning from 11-4pm we will feature over 17 creatives selling their work at our stall market ranging from jewellery, textiles, food and prints. We have also invited residents from Summerhall to take part. From noon onwards ASCUS will be hosting a series of science workshops and demonstrations which focus around the theme of love and crashing worlds of art and science. From 4pm to 7pm we will showcase some of our best performance artists for an evening of musical theatre, dance and devised theatre. Then from 7pm onwards enjoy a musical showcase of our 4 unique musical acts including Bizarre Silk, SPLOCO, and Pastoral Dystopia.
Get ready for the Edinburgh Student Arts Festival and experience the new, the fresh, the emerging and the talented world of art from our perspective.
Notes to Editor
For more information or images please contact Emilie Borisaite, Marketing Coordinator at ESAF at press@edinburghstudentartsfestival.co.uk or 078 7615 6310
Edinburgh Student Arts Festival, company limited by guarantee in Scotland, company number SC521605, is the city’s first ever student-run arts festival, showcasing and celebrating emerging creatives from all five of Edinburgh’s higher education and further education institutions: the University of Edinburgh including Edinburgh College of Art, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh College, Edinburgh Napier University and Heriot-Watt University, including Edinburgh School of Lighting and Sound. Thanks to the dynamic leadership of ESAF founder Briana Pegado and her creative committee of thirty-plus students and graduates from across the Edinburgh colleges and universities, ESAF promises to be a superb week of stimulating and unique events. ESAF forms a fantastic opportunity for students from across the Edinburgh colleges and universities to work side-by-side.
For enquiries: info@edinburghstudentartsfestival.co.uk
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For further media information please contact Jonathan Perkins, Press and PR Officer, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, tel: 0131 474 0000, Email: jperkins@qmu.ac.uk
