7 highlights at the Edinburgh Art Festival 2026
This year's exhibitions explore themes including Palestinian culture, queer identity, and environmental consciousness
Jillian Edelstein
South Africa-born photographer Edelstein has collected up four decades of imagery for Among People, featuring icons such as Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Vanessa Redgrave, as well as regular folk sitting on trucks or imitating swans.
Stills, 31 July–24 October.
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Jamie Fitzpatrick
The splendidly named Memorials To Sausage Politics exhibition has Southport-born Fitzpatrick holding a funfair mirror up to reality while heavily critiquing authority, power and history through his ‘comic monstrosities’.
Edinburgh Printmakers, 24 July–25 October.
Palestinian Sound Archive
Actor, filmmaker and archivist Mo’min Swaitat of Majazz Project and Palestinian Sound Archive hosts a collective listening session, exploring rare audio from across Palestine and the wider region, all of which was captured from the 1960s on.
Palestine Museum, 30 August.
Katie Paterson
With Afterlife, Paterson reimagines ancient amulets (carved by the likes of Vikings, Egyptians and Celts) using materials from endangered environments and fragile ecosystems. For the artist, these newer objects serve as a bridge between the past and the present.
Collective, until 6 September.
Gwen John
This Welsh painter (who died in 1939) was among the first generation of British women to be formally educated in art. She relocated to Paris and made a name for her herself, and Strange Beauties is a long-awaited retrospective.
National Galleries Of Scotland: Modern Two, 1 August–4 January.
Del LaGrace Volcano
Displaying some photography from Volcano’s time in Edinburgh, this exhibition challenges traditional notions of sexuality and gender in an era (1980s/90s) when being out and proud was even more treacherous than it is in today’s depressingly regressive environment.
EAF 92, 14–30 August.
Emii Alrai
British-Irai artist Alrai has created a colossal relic inspired by icons of ancient civilisations and seemingly ruptured into spectral fragments. Guardian should make the viewer think of preservation and decay in a piece that engages with excavation and empire.
Calton Hill, 14–30 August.
Edinburgh Art Festival, various venues, Edinburgh, 14–30 August.