Edinburgh Art Festival 2026

29 August, 7 – 8 pm (book tickets)

Leith Theatre
28-30 Ferry Road
Edinburgh EH6 4AE

More information

Programmed as part of Edinburgh Art Festival in collaboration with Falastin Film Festival, Lawrence Abu Hamdan presents a sound performance scored by Busher Kanj Abu Saleh, who will perform live together with saxophonist Amr Mdah and Earshot audio investigator Renate Lurdesa Baumane.

The Guardian, The ear witness: Turner-winner Lawrence Abu Hamdan and his ‘sound evidence’ exposés of human rights abuses, Charlotte Higgins, 25 August 2026

image: Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Zifafa, a live audio essay, 2024
© Lawrence Abu Hamdan. Photo: Kristina Sergeeva

20 August – 17 October 2026

Artist talk: Wednesday 26 August, 6 – 7 pm
(tickets free, booking required)
Exhibition preview: Wednesday 26 August, 7– 8:30 pm

The Common Guild
5 Florence Street
Glasgow G5 0YX

More information

Through his practice of forensic listening, artist, sound investigator and founder of Earshot, Lawrence Abu Hamdan creates performance, sound and video works that explore the political force of sonic experience. Shown for the first time in the UK at The Common Guild, Zifzafa (2025) is Abu Hamdan’s recent body of work comprising of a multichannel audiovisual installation, performance and video game, expanding on an audio investigation conducted with fellow researchers at Earshot.

The Guardian, The ear witness: Turner-winner Lawrence Abu Hamdan and his ‘sound evidence’ exposés of human rights abuses, Charlotte Higgins, 25 August 2026

image: Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Zifzafa, installation view, Munchmuseet, Oslo, 2025. Photo: Ove Kvavik

Friday 3 July 2026, 6.30 - 7.15 pm

Room 54, Level 2
The National Gallery
Trafalgar Square
London WC2N 5DN

More information

Unexpected views is a series of conversations between our curators and some of the most important artists living and working today.

Discussions focus on selected paintings from our collection, exploring their relevance to the artist’s work, or more broadly to current social and cultural issues.

Join curator Annabel Bai Jackson and Kaye Donachie at the National Gallery for the latest Unexpected View event on Friday 3 July 2026. They will be discussing Catharina van Hemessen's 'Portrait of a Woman', 1551.

Tickets are free. Book online on the National Gallery website.

image left: Kaye Donachie, drawing of Catharina van Hemessen's Portrait of a Woman (1551); right; Catharina van Hemessen, Portrait of a Woman (1551).

Opening: Friday 26 June 2026, 6 – 8 pm

27 June – 27 September 2026

Talbot Rice Gallery, 
The University of Edinburgh, 
Old College, South Bridge, 
Edinburgh, EH8 9YL

More information

Anne Hardy has transformed Talbot Rice Gallery’s iconic Georgian Gallery into a new installation. Known for her pioneering approach to exhibition-making, Hardy treats the gallery as a found object, extending the influence of sculpture into the fabric of the gallery through light, sound, data and scenography, creating an active environment for a series of sculptural "beings".

Curated by Talbot Rice Gallery Director, Prof Tessa Giblin and presented in association with Edinburgh International Festival.

Supported by Edinburgh College of Art, Creative Scotland and Henry Moore Foundation, and part of Edinburgh Art Festival.

The Guardian, the week in art, 26 June 2026

image: Anne Hardy, exhibition view, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh
© Anne Hardy, photography: Angus Mill

Stand J12

18 – 21 June 2026

Messe Basel
Messeplatz 10
4058


Open by invitation:
Tuesday 16 – Wednesday 17 June

Open to the public:
Thursday 18 – Sunday 21 June

Participating in Kabinett with Reverend Joyce McDonald

More information

Request a preview


image: Wolfgang Tillmans, paper drop (May), 2011, inkjet print on paper mounted on Dibond aluminium in artist’s frame 145 x 210 cm - 57 1/8 x 78 3/4 inches, edition of 1 + 1 AP

12 June - 20 September 2026

Avilés, Asturias
Spain

More information

Lawrence Abu Hamdan and Chioma Ebinama are both included in the 1st Climate Biennial. Held across 11 venues in Avilés, Spain, the Biennial is conceived as a meeting space open to the public that invites reflection on the ecological, social and territorial challenges of our time.

The programme brings together more than forty artists and collectives. Many of the works have been acquired or produced specifically for this edition. Some pieces are part of the State Collection of Art and Climate of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, a growing collection that will accompany future editions of the Biennale. Others are the result of artistic residencies developed at the Spanish State Meteorological Agency (AEMET), the Energy City Foundation, and the Factoría Cultural of Avilés.

The Biennale also presents projects in progress that will continue evolving beyond this edition, as well as interventions in public facilities — such as libraries — through participatory architecture projects.

12 June 2026 - 3 January 2027

CAPC Musée d'art Contemporain de Bordeaux
7 Rue Ferrere
33000 Bordeaux, France

More information

Alexandra Bircken opens SomaSemaSoma today at CAPC Musée d'art Contemporain de Bordeaux, marking the third iteration of an exhibition tour that included Biel and Lisbon.

Alexandra Bircken has developed a sculptural practice that examines the relationships between the body, technology, and social structures. She creates works both cyborg-like and androgynous that question human behaviors and desires, as well as the vulnerability of bodies in their relationship with technology. The hybrid forms she imagines can be read as metaphors for bodies subjected to conditions -whether aesthetic, productive, or gendered—or bodies traversed by flows of information and power.

She questions the relationships between the body, technology and social structures. She began a fashion career in the mid-1990s, founding her own brand and settled in London and then Paris for over a decade. In the early 2000s, she eventually turned her back on fashion. She then began to develop an artistic practice that questions the relationships between bodies, technology and social structures. Its formal vocabulary borrows a great deal from anatomy and engineering, industrial design and textile craftsmanship.

Alexandra Bircken shapes states of tension: attraction and repulsion, protection and exposure, desire and at times violence in her radical works.

This exhibition is co-produced with Culturgest, Lisbon, Portugal; KBCB, Bienne Art Centre, Switzerland and Marta Herford Museum, Germany.

image: Portrait of Alexandra Bircken. Photo: Dan Ipp

We join in congratulating Wolfgang Tillmans on receiving the 2026 Roswitha Haftmann Prize.

The prize is presented by the Roswitha Haftmann Foundation Board in acknowledgement of a more than four decade body of work that has combined artistic innovation with social responsibility. Previous winners have included Walter De Maria, VALIE EXPORT, Maria Lassnig, Cildo Meireles, Sigmar Polke, Robert Ryman, Cindy Sherman, Rosemarie Trockel, Cecilia Vicuña and Jett Wall.

The official award ceremony will take place on Thursday 17, September 2026 at the Kunsthaus Zürich.

This will be delivered by Prof. Bernhart Schwenk, a member of the Board and Chief Curator and Head of the Contemporary Art Collection at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. He says: "Wolfgang Tillmans is unquestionably one of the trailblazing artists of his generation in the field of photography internationally.”

image: Georg Petermich / MUMOK, Vienna.