As Edinburgh Art Festival celebrates its 20th birthday, it also marks the tenth anniversary of Platform, the initiative set up to showcase early-career artists in a festival environment. This year’s cohort features four artists working across a variety of mediums who have been beavering away as August approaches.

Where Alaya Ang works with durational performance, writing and other forms, Edward Gwyn Jones focuses mainly on moving image, text and printmaking. Tamara MacArthur uses intricate handcrafted installation activated by performance, while Kialy Tihngang works with sculpture, video, textiles, animation and photomontage.   

Selected by a panel led by EAF curator Eleanor Edmondson, this year’s Platform artists will respond to the 2024 festival’s themes of intimacy, material memory, protest and persecution. The results will be seen on the fourth floor of City Art Centre, which this year becomes EAF’s home: this puts Platform at the centre of the festival programme more than ever before. ‘The number of applications we received this year was incredible,’ says Edmondson. ‘I think that’s probably a sign that there aren’t enough opportunities for early-career artists, or it could be a sign that a lot of artists are moving to Scotland and making it their home, which I hope is the case.’ Edmondson says the successful artists were selected based on how they approached the festival’s themes and the ways in which they might connect.

‘I think all four artists are pivoting on emotion and that need for coming back together,’ she says. ‘In different ways, they’re all resisting that kind of new capitalist busy-ness and overstimulation that we’re constantly facing, and they’re all asking people to slow down a little and connect to intimacy, emotion and rest. I think that grounds them all together quite nicely.’ 

In terms of life beyond the Platform programme, alumni over the last decade include Renèe Helèna Browne, who came through the scheme in 2018 and has her own EAF solo show; Emelia Kerr Beale and Jonny Walker (2022) who exhibited as part of Glasgow International this year; while Saoirse Amira Anis (2022) has presented a solo show at Dundee Contemporary Arts.

As Edmondson explains, however, Platform is about more than just the work.

‘I think the act of artists meeting at a similar point in their career is crucial,’ she explains. ‘An important part of Platform is that you’re growing a network and a support base. What’s really lovely is that the network just carries on building. It feels like there’s been a lot of peer support down the generations of Platform. That’s created a cohort of artists who speak to each other and support each other.’

This sense of empathy has enabled the artists to tackle some deeply challenging subjects. ‘The artists have shown huge skill in being able to broach the topics that they’re talking about with such care,’ says Edmondson. ‘There’s a willingness to be open in a way that is constantly evolving, and the way in which people check themselves against each other is strong this year.’ 

The artists are also embracing different forms of display, she says, and this year’s cohort will be performing at a number of events, including a closing night do on Friday 23 August. ‘The way the artists are gelling and the interlacing of themes feels really exciting. That’s something we definitely want to take forward in the future. It’s pushed the artists to think more as a collective group rather than single entities and I think the exhibition will benefit from it.’

Platform24, City Art Centre, 9–25 August.