Parley: an introduction

The context for this year's commissions programme

1 August – 1 September 2013

In 2013, we celebrate our tenth Edinburgh Art Festival with Parley, an ambitious programme of ten new publicly sited commissions by established and emerging artists from Scotland and beyond. Publicly sited art, by its very nature, often incites debate or polarises opinion, and can allow the framing of bigger questions through casting a spotlight on specific aspects of a city. Parley considers artists whose work generates dialogue, or indeed depends on dialogue for its realisation. 

True to the spirit of Parley, several of the works in the commissions programme stem directly from conversation and collaboration. Christine Borland has developed a major collaborative project with American artist, Brody Condon; Sarah Kenchington’s Wind Pipes for Edinburgh offers a gathering place for professional and amateur performers alike to come together and experiment.

In military terminology, Parley offers a means to resolve conflict, and inherent in that process is an invitation to ‘discuss terms’. Peter Liversidge’s Flags for Edinburgh extends an invitation to the city’s institutions to communicate directly with festival visitors. An Edinburgh edition of Finnish artists Tellervo and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen’s The Complaints Choir invites residents to participate in the making of a new work with the composers Daniel Padden and Peter Nicholson. 

Katri Walker's film An Equilibrium Not of This World presents us with a dialogue between man and his environment, and between interior and exterior landscapes, whilst the artist-poet Robert Montgomery will create a new site specific sculptural work that speaks directly to the city and its history. 

In August 2004, just as the first Edinburgh Art Festival launched, staff began to move into Scotland’s new parliament building (in advance of its official opening on 9 October 2004). Designed by the Barcelona based practice, Miralles and Tagliabue, the architects were clear that they sought to create ‘not a building in a park or garden but a form for gathering people’. This offers a resonant counterpoint for Parley which, like Miralles and Tagliabue’s Parliament, celebrates art which offers a form for gathering, a site for debate, discussion and exploration.

Visitors will also be able to experience major permanent co-commissions from previous editions of Edinburgh Art Festival, including works by Martin Creed, Richard Wright and Alison Watt.