Latest news with #LewisWalker
The Herald Scotland
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Dept Q studio to become Edinburgh Festival pop-up venue
Lewis Walker's show - which will explore 'the human search for authenticity in a world based on repetition' – will close the Edinburgh Art Festival programme this August. Read more: Other art festival art festival will be staged at the Royal Botanic Garden, the sculpture garden attraction Jupiter Artland, St Giles' Cathedral and The Grange cricket club. Walker's hour-long performance at the Leith warehouse complex will offer a rare public opportunity to see inside the warehouse complex which has been used by screen industry giants Amaxon, Sony and Netflix for major productions since the official launch of the studios five years ago. Part of the FirstStage Studios complex in Leith will be opened for this year's Edinburgh Art Festival. (Image: Supplied) Previous productions include two seasons of supernatural thriller The Rig, which were set in the and the Arctic Circle, the feature film The Outrun, for scenes set in London's nightclub scene and the time travel fantasy saga Outlander, for a final series set during the American Revolution. Most recently, FirstStage was used for extensive filming on the Dept Q, the Edinburgh-set crime thriller, which has been a global ratings winner for Netflix. The studios complex was the base for the production for most of last year and was used the filming of key scenes, including those set inside a fictional Edinburgh police headquarters. Walker's show has been jointly commissioned by the art festival and the Serpentine Galleries in London, will be staged in the former industrial building in Leith months after it was performed in a 19th century chapel in London. The art festival's programme states: 'Bornsick reflects the idea that we inherit illness, born into a system that shapes us before we can define ourselves. The gymnastics and dance performance sees a body built, piece by piece: a character assembled through learned movements, imposed behaviors, and artificial layers. 'Through conditioning, we create a machine. Through unlearning, we return to the animal. The cycle continues, revealing that there is no final, fixed truth, only endless adaptation. Bornsick suggests that humanhood is a paradox; we search for something real, yet everything we are is borrowed.' Art festival curator Eleanor Edmondson said: 'Lewis Walker will close the festival with Bornsick, transforming the cavernous warehouse space of FirstStage Studios in Leith into a site of emotion and collective resonance. 'Rather than offering a fixed narrative, Walker channels what feels urgent and relevant in through movement — allowing meaning to unfold through the audience's own experience. Their practice is grounded in deep care, holding collaborators and participants with attentiveness and generosity.' Walker said: 'Bornsick reflects the idea that we inherit illness born into a system that shapes us before we can define ourselves. 'The gymnastics and dance performance explores identity as a compulsive act of referencing, an endless cycle of borrowing and reshaping of what came before.'
Scotsman
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Edinburgh Art Festival: The former Team GB gymnast leading festival line-up
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Performance art by a former Team GB gymnast and a film drawing connections between members of the queer community across history in four different languages of Scotland are included in specially-commissioned works for the 21st anniversary of the Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF). Ex-gymnast Lewis Walker will headline EAF, which runs from August 7 to 24, as the festival hosts its own pavilion for the first time. A shared hub on Edinburgh's Leith Street, the space will host many of the new commissions and projects, resident artists and discussion, as well as exhibited artworks. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The festival spans from Leith to West Lothian, and from Haymarket to the Old and New Town, with works both indoors and outdoors. Bornsick, by Walker, a former Team GB gymnast and a recent graduate of London Contemporary Dance School, reflects the idea that people inherit illness — born into a system that shapes them before they can define themselves. Co-commissioned with Serpentine, the autobiographical narrative by Walker will be performed on August 23. Meanwhile, Lewis Hetherington and CJ Mahony's film, Who Will Be Remembered Here, is a fieldwork performance project with Historic Environment Scotland and the organisation's team of historians and researchers. Four writers have been commissioned to each create a piece of text for performance, each responding to one of four sites which spans the whole of human history in Scotland. Each responds in a different language: Robert Softley Gale in English, Harry Josephine Giles in Scots, Robbie MacLeòid in Gaelic, and Bea Webster in BSL. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Edinburgh Art Festival has unveiled its programme. | EAF Kim McAleese, director of EAF, said: 'We're so excited to be announcing our EAF25 programme. At the heart of this year's programming is the call to reflect on how ancestral knowledge can guide us in addressing contemporary challenges. 'We are inviting audiences to reflect on our collective relationship with the natural world, drawing inspiration from the wisdom of those who came before us — those who foster cycles of care, sustenance and resilience. There are also recurring motifs of classical myths, folklore, modern feminist empowerment, queerness through the lens of Scottish history as well as thoughts on what it is to be human - exploring concepts of the body as a temporary vessel that is often shaped by societal expectations.' JUPITER RISING x EAF will return for a one-night-only festival within a festival at Jupiter Artland on the outskirts of the city, with a line-up including TAAHLIAH and Ponyboy. Lewis Walker will perform Bornsick. | EAF A major retrospective by land artist Andy Goldsworthy and the queer ceramic and textile animals of Jonathan Baldock will be held at the Royal Scottish Academy and will continue beyond the festival into November. A performance art piece by pioneering feminist artist Linder has already been announced. First presented at Mount Stuart on the Isle of Bute, the retrospective will then open EAF. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad
