Work has begun on our refurbishment and extension
Wed 20 Nov, 6.30–8pm. Free. Book via Eventbrite
@Bookmarket: a pop up bookshop and events space on top of Waverley Mall, access the space through Williams and Johnson Coffee Co.
In this year of change for the Fruitmarket, a five-a-side team of poets is tracking our movements. Tonight for Book Week Scotland, we’re sharing their new writing as it curves through the past, present and future life of The Fruitmarket Gallery.
About Writers’ Shift
Writers’ Shift starts from the image of The Fruitmarket Gallery poised at the point of launching off out of our existing, built situation into the free association that moments of redevelopment and reorganisation bring. With nearly forty years of archived past recently gathered and made more accessible, and with
a year’s breathing space available before we re-enter the future programme at Market Street, there is the opportunity to invite a written engagement with the organisation at a juncture.
We have invited poets Janette Ayachi, Callie Gardner, Jane Goldman, Iain Morrison and Tom Pow, all of whom have a history of engagement with us, to work together and with Fruitmarket staff on a guided process of writing to record our year of change; reflect on our achievements to this point; and extrapolate directions that we might take in our renewed premises.
Image: Interior view of the former fruit warehouse and nightclub looking east. Photo: Chris Scott
Wed 6 Nov, 10.30am–12pm. Free. Book via Eventbrite
At Bookmarket, Waverley Mall
Read and discuss passages of fiction and poetry then try your hand at creative writing in response. These sessions will be led by the poet
JL Williams.
Wed 2 Oct, 10.30am–12 noon. Free. Book via Eventbrite
This event takes place at Bookmarket: a pop up bookshop and events space by The Fruitmarket Gallery. Bookmarket is on the top level of Waverley Mall, Princes Street accessed via Williams and Johnson Coffee Co. situated at the top of Waverley Steps.
Read and discuss passages of fiction and poetry then try your hand at creative writing in response. These sessions will be led by the poet JL Williams.
Sun 26 May, 7.30–9.30pm. Free. Book via Eventbrite.
Jamaican roots reggae singer Brina is one of Scotland’s undersung talents, whose music fuses elements of her cultural and musical heritage using Reggae, Nyabinghi and other musical styles from the global African Diaspora.
Tom Pow is one of Scotland’s most accomplished poets and tonight he offers Transfusion his extended poem in praise of Muhammad Ali and Nelson Mandela, which brings in elements of travel writing from visits to Africa separated by twenty years. Marty Hailey is an endlessly versatile composer and musician who has worked with Brina and Pow to bind both their talents together in a night of song and deep-rooted story.
Wed 1 May, 10.30am–12.30pm. Free. Book via Eventbrite
Read and discuss passages of fiction and poetry thematically linked to the gallery’s exhibitions and events, then try your hand at creative writing in response. These sessions will be led by the poet JL Williams.
Sun 9 Dec, 7–8.30pm. Free. Bar open. Book via Eventbrite
Join us as we launching Iain Morrison’s debut poetry collection I’m A Pretty Circler from Vagabond Voices, tonight readings by the author are met with responses from artist and movement researcher Claricia Parinussa and artist Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay.
Thu 30 Nov, 5.30–8pm. Free. Book via Eventbrite
For Book Week Scotland, a night spent with the social side of Jacqueline Donachie’s exhibition with politically engaged Irish poets Christodoulos Makris and Julie Morrissy, Scots author and NHS campaigner Rab Wilson as well as music from Edinburgh charity Upward Mobility’s band Sounds Rhythmic – an inclusive percussion band that play a range of instruments will perform fun, original rhythms both unaccompanied and to recorded music. This will be an evening of strong voices celebrating how we care for one another.
Photo: Chris Scott
The Fruitmarket Gallery programmes exhibitions with the best Scottish and International artists and enriches these with a new publication and a wide variety of cultural and educational events.
