Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

03/10/2026

Pictured: Studio of Alexandra Zawada. 📸 Roberto Ricciuti.

▪️Studios at ESW▪️

Applications are invited for solo and shared studios at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop with availability from 1 July 2027, from artists working within contemporary sculpture practice.

Visit the link in bio for more information and to apply. 🔗

Photographs from our Open Studios visit as part of the BIG SPELL event in August 2026. 🌀

Pictured: Studio of Becky Brewis. 📸 Roberto Ricciuti.

▪️Studios at ESW▪️

Applications are invited for solo and shared studios at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop with availability from 1 July 2027, from artists working within contemporary sculpture practice.

Visit the link in bio for more information and to apply. 🔗

Photographs from our Open Studios visit as part of the BIG SPELL event in August 2026.

Pictured: Studio of Jill Boualaxai. 📸 Roberto Ricciuti.

▪️Studios at ESW▪️

Applications are invited for solo and shared studios at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop with availability from 1 July 2027, from artists working within contemporary sculpture practice.

Visit the link in bio for more information and to apply. 🔗

Photographs from our Open Studios visit as part of the BIG SPELL event in August 2026.

Pictured: Studio of Chris Coatham. 📸 Roberto Ricciuti.

▪️Studios at ESW▪️

Applications are invited for solo and shared studios at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop with availability from 1 July 2027, from artists working within contemporary sculpture practice.

Visit the link in bio for more information and to apply. 🔗

Photographs from our Open Studios visit as part of the BIG SPELL event in August 2026.

Pictured: Studio of Oana Stanciu. 📸 Roberto Ricciuti.

▪️Studios at ESW▪️

Applications are invited for solo and shared studios at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop with availability from 1 July 2027, from artists working within contemporary sculpture practice.

Visit the link in bio for more information and to apply. 🔗

Photographs from our Open Studios visit as part of the BIG SPELL event in August 2026.

Pictured: Studio of Sequoia Danielle Barnes. 📸 Roberto Ricciuti.

▪️Studios at ESW▪️

Applications are invited for solo and shared stud

02/10/2026

DIYAR MAYIL: DARLING NEW HAVEN RESIDENT 2026

Diyar Mayil will be in residences at ESW for three months from October until December 2026.

Mayil is the final artist in residence within the three-cycle residency exchange Darling Newhaven which has run since 2023. This programme between Quebec and Scotland, has involved four organisations – Fonderie Darling, Gare de Matapédia, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and Hospitalfield.

At Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Mayil would like to explore different possibilities for sculptures that portray a kind of rupture in everyday existence, as if the status quo of containment and control had been broken. Thematically and materially, Mayil plans to pursue the idea of containment and possible strategies for making work with and about different types of containers. They are especially drawn to the possibilities of utopic or dysfunctional containers that speak to the temporary nature of containment through their leaking, their failure, their impossibility.
 

Join us at ESW on the 13 October for our members lunch and to meet Diyar Mayil. Book in bio

This programme has been generously funded by the Conseil des arts de Montréal, Creative Scotland,  British Council Scotland, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec, St Andrews Society of Montréal. We have also received support from the Quebec Government Office in London.

23/09/2026

Final few days to see 🌱🌱🌱Esther Castle: Abundant Parts

Exhibition ends 27 September 2026.

Hawthornvale Space.
Viewable from the street every day between 8am and 8pm.

Free, no booking required.

Final few days to view Abundant Parts, an installation by Esther Castle in our Hawthornvale Space. Abundant Parts is an other-worldly garden where Castle draws a symbolic connection between the non-normative body and weeds, often considered an undesirable presence and removed by gardeners.

16/09/2026

Camara Taylor Reach Scotland Residency at Edinburgh Sculpture workshop.

We are delighted to welcome Camara Taylor for two weeks in September and two weeks in December 2027 as a Reach Scotland Resident.

About: Camara Taylor is an artist and – – – based in Glasgow. They tend to create still and moving images, texts, installations, events and discursive programmes that act as moments of stasis amidst sprawling research. Recurrent in the practice are: ambivalence; low frequency objection; mad methodologies; onto kinetics; spatial relations; ocean rumour; land/scape construction; and a playing with images/objects/happenings/utterances situated amidst black life in and out with Scotland. They have exhibited their work across the U.K.

Image:
Camara Taylor, untitled (towards turba), 2026.
Thermal print, found images, blackstrap molasses, water, dimensions variable.
Sequencing for unrealised film on Glasgow’s 1919 race riot, dredging cyclical timelines of racialised violence on the River Clyde.

Installation view, River Is/As, 16 Collective, Glasgow, 2026

Photo: Eoin Carey

09/09/2026

09/09/2026

Join us for lunch at ESW and meet other members and visitors on Thursday 17 September at 12.30pm – 1.30pm in the research space.

Open to Members and Prospective Members. Book a free place - link in bio

This will also be a chance to meet our current artists in residence Camara Taylor

There will be gluten free and vegan options. We look forward to sharing a meal with you.

LOOP Talks

We will also be running a 45 minute LOOP Talks session after the lunch. Anyone can join and there is no preparation needed.

The LOOP Talks were developed with Members in advance of BIG SPELL and lots of people took part on the day.

Free, no need to book, just come along or stay on after lunch.

29/08/2026

FAIR PLAY 🎢
LAST WEEKEND of FAIR PLAY open 11am - 4pm until Sunday 30 August 2026
Made by 124 pupils from Trinity and Victoria Primary Schools, Fair Play brings together 23 extraordinary imagined parks and attractions.
Expect pickle portals, axolotl rides, astro dogs, football worlds, floating islands, gift shops staffed by carrots and a meteor crashing into Marge Simpson.
14–30 August 2026
Friday–Sunday, 11am–4pm
Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop
Free
Opening Friday 14 August, 5–7pm
Part of Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop’s Summer Programme and Edinburgh Art Festival.
Edinburgh Art Festival Creative Scotland Culture Edinburgh Photography by Shannon Tofts.

28/08/2026

🎪 FAIR PLAY 🎢

Last few days to catch our Edinburgh Art Festival show, Fair Play!
FAIR PLAY is an exhibition made by 124 pupils from Trinity and Victoria Primary Schools and brings together 23 extraordinary imagined parks and attractions.

Friday - Sunday, 11am-4pm
Free, at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, North Lab.

📣 Don’t miss our last SCULPTURE SATURDAY of the season too! 🗓️

SCULPTURE SATURDAYS are free, drop-in workshops where families are invited to explore, imagine and make together. The workshops will take creative prompts and a wide range of everyday materials as the basis for making artworks. Participants are encouraged to work alone or collaboratively.

Saturday 29th, 11am-3pm
Courtyard and Outdoor Learning Studio, in Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop.

19/08/2026

BIG SPELL open day, Sunday 23 August 2026, 12 - 8pm. Free.

You are warmly invited to our whole building open day with exhibitions, talks, screenings, open studios and performances.
Whole building event with contribution from over 60 members at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop.
Sunday 23 August 2026, 12 – 8pm
Schedule*
12 – 6pm Exhibitions open in courtyard and inside the building
12 – 1.30pm Loop Talks
2 – 4pm Open Studios
2 – 6pm The REEL screening programme
6 – 8pm Courtyard performances, readings, celebration
*These times are subject to small changes.
There will also be SPELL Incantations happening during the event at 12pm, 2pm and 6pm.

About the Event
BIG SPELL is a day of sharing centred on ESW members, celebrating the infinite possibilities, the circular community and commitment to practice.
https://edinburghsculpture.org/events-featured/save-the-date-big-spell-sunday-23-august-2026-12-8pm/
The event takes inspiration from the regenerative nature of working at ESW where each person’s ideas, efforts and skills feed in to create the ongoing momentum for the whole community of practice. This has brought to mind imagery of the ouroboros – the snake eating itself – an icon with meanings across multiple cultures and within disciplines from alchemy to psychology, all understanding the power of self-reflexivity, and the idea that matter and energy are never lost, but perpetually change form. These ideas reflect the chance for a certain form of stability within uncertainty – a confidence in the ability we have together to create and support each other, as sure as the cycles of the sun.

Casting the Spell
The word spell holds several meanings at once: a time, an incantation, a meeting, a charm. The event takes its name and its structure from this multiplicity.
Join us in the melting pot of ideas, of conversation, skill sharing and creation — a bubbling witch’s brew.
Become part of the assembly.¹
Build a cinema in a cave.²
Or a net woven of your own hair, put it in the holy place.³
There is the potential to spin off in a million different directions at once.⁴
¹ László Moholy-Nagy, Image Sequences; Series, 1946 ² Robert Smithson, A Cinematic Atopia, 1971 ³ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, 1988 ⁴ Adam Chodzko in conversation with Dave Barrett, Art Monthly, 2001

BIG SPELL is part of ESW's Summer Programme and Edinburgh Art Festival. You can view all our summer exhibitions during the event, including solo presentations by Kate Power, Esther Castle and Etchingroom1 and an exhibition made by children in our Schools Programme called Fair Play. Edinburgh Art Festival exhibitions and events run until the end of August.

Free, all welcome.
Anyone can come along, if you book in advance it helps us to plan.
Booking link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/big-spell-open-day-sunday-23-august-2026-12-8pm-free-tickets-1998456912422?
Full info about the event: https://edinburghsculpture.org/events-featured/save-the-date-big-spell-sunday-23-august-2026-12-8pm/