Fruitmarket Segments

A conversation between Neal Ambrose-Smith and Dr. Maryam Ohadi-Hamadani about the artist, activist, educator and curator Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Fruitmarket’s new exhibition Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Wilding  Born January 15, 1940 Jaune Quick-to-See Smith was an enrolled Salish member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, Montana. Smith created complex abstract paintings and prints for over five decades. Known for her poetic, curious, and profound interpretations of America’s particular forms of bigotry toward Native peoples, the artist’s sharp humour pierced through the heavy topics of race, colonialism, pollution, genocide, and survival.   Wilding is showing at the Fruitmarket until February 2026. The exhibition was conceived in conversation with the artist before her sad and sudden death at the beginning of 2025 and will be the first time her work has been seen in Scotland. The exhibition’s title came from the artist, who from our earliest conversations wanted the exhibition to engage with the history and politics of land stewardship.  The exhibition includes paintings and a large canoe sculpture made by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith especially for Fruitmarket, together with a selection of paintings from throughout her career. The exhibition is an opportunity to get to know the compelling work of this artist attuned to the importance of paying attention and taking action. While the show is running pictures and video of the work are available on our website. In future this material will be available in our online archive. The book produced by Fruitmarket to accompany Wilding is available from our online bookshop.   Neal Ambrose-Smith, Jaune’s son, collaborated with his mother from the 1990s until her death, including on many of the works featured in Wilding. Neal is a descendent of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation. A renowned painter, sculptor, Ambrose-Smith formerly served as professor and department chair at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe.   A descendant of the Mvskoke (Creek) and Osage nations, Dr. Maryam Ohadi-Hamadani is an art historian and curator specialising in modern and contemporary art of the global diasporas, focusing on the postcolonial histories of African, Afro-Caribbean, Asian and Black British art in Britain and beyond.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.ukwhere you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on  Bluesky, Instagram or TikTok.

A conversation between Holly Davey and Ruth Bretherick, Fruitmarket’s Research and Public Engagement Curator, discussing Davey’s 2024 exhibition The Unforgetting. Holly Davey is a British artist who works with photography, collage, sculpture, text and performance. Since 2019 she has been making a body of work under the title A Script for an Archive, in which she focuses on ‘what is happening at the edges’ of archives and in the figures (often women) who have been marginalised in the historical record. In 2022 Fruitmarket invited Davey to work with its archive, a project which culminated in The Unforgetting, which mixed sculpture and performance to give voice to the ‘silent’ parts of Fruitmarket’s archive, finding creative potential in its gaps and omissions. Davey joined Ruth Bretherick in front of a live audience sitting within the Unforgetting installation, following a performance featuring Holly alongside Jill Smith, who was the first female artist to exhibit at Fruitmarket. You can find out more about The Unforgetting at Fruitmarket’s online archive, where there are images and video of the installation, along with downloadable excerpts of the limited edition newspaper produced as part of the exhibition.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on  Bluesky, Instagram or TikTok.

Mike Nelson in conversation with Fruitmarket Director Fiona Bradley about his exhibition Humpty Dumpty, a transient history of Mardin earthworks, low rise. The show uses Fruitmarket’s Warehouse as the machine room, or driving force, for a major new installation that extends across all three spaces of the gallery. Built around two sets of photographs taken in London and a city in Eastern Turkey between 2010 and 2014, the work captures cities in flux, guided by their politics and leaders of the time. Mike’s show is running at Fruitmarket until Sunday October 5th. Find out more at fruitmarket.co.uk (once the show closes, images and video will still be available, via our online archive). A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.

A conversation between artist Emma artist and novelist Ali Smith from 2018, including a reading by Ali Smith of a short story inspired by visits to Emma Hart's studio. Emma Hart is a British artist who makes sculpture, photography, film and installation. Her work is often badly-behaved and messy, challenging assumptions and stereotypes in her quest to make art to which everyone can relate. Her first exhibition in Scotland was BANGER at Fruitmarket in 2018. The show highlighted Hart’s work with ceramics, a material she turned to in order to find the ‘real’ in art, alongside Mamma Mia (2017), the beguiling immersive installation she made as a result of winning the Max Mara Art Prize for Women in 2016. Details of BANGER, including images and video, can be found at Fruitmarket’s online archive. There are also details of Poor Things, the 2023 group show Emma co-curated with Dean Kenning.   The book produced to accompany BANGER, titled Emma Hart: A Long Hard Look, is still available from our bookshop. It features Ali Smith’s short story, along with writing by Fruitmarket director Fiona Bradley, Helen Legg, Director of Tate Liverpool, and artist and filmmaker Sarah Wood.   Ali Smith is an acclaimed Scottish writer. She is the author of several novels and short story collections including, The Accidental, Hotel World, How to Be Both and the Seasonal Quartet. She has been four times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, has won the Goldsmiths Prize, Orwell Prize, Costa Best Novel Award and the Women’s Prize.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.

Andrew O’Hagan and Fruitmarket Director Fiona Bradley discuss the links between Lee Lozano and Dame Muriel Spark. Their conversation, titled ‘Self-Sabotage’, explored the parallels  between the self destructive tendencies of one of the protagonists of Spark’s 1970 novella  The Driver’s Seat and Lozano’s rejection of the art world in the early 1970s, which threw her into semi-obscurity. Lee Lozano was a major figure in the New York art scene of the 1960s and early 1970s. Her radical approach to art and life, in particular her systematic refusal to engage with the institutions and support structures of the art world, led to her work being neglected and becoming much less well known over time. A reassessment of Lozano’s work over recent years has included the 2018 Fruitmarket exhibition which led to this talk. There are more details about the 2018 exhibition Lee Lozano: Slip Slide Splice, including images and video, at the Fruitmarket’s online archive. Along with the exhibition catalogue, Fruitmarket produced a book of Lozano’s language pieces, which is still available from our online bookshop. These hand written and sometimes typed notes , many of which had never been published before, read like a working instruction book of her work. Andrew O’Hagan is a Scottish writer. His recent novels include Mayflies and Caledonian Road. Our Fathers, his first novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction and the Whitbread First Novel Award. He has also published several non-fiction books and had essays and stories in London Review of Books, The Guardian and The New Yorker. In 2018 O’Hagan wrote the introduction to a new edition of The Driver’s Seat, published by Polygon on the 100th anniversary of Spark’s birth. A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.

A panel conversation between Voices of Experience (Suzanne Ewing, Jude Barber and Nicola McLachlan) and architect Kirsty Maguire. Voices of Experience is a collaborative project that recognises and supports the achievements of women working in architecture. This conversation was recorded as part of Assembling, a day of events focused on women and the built environment, hosted in August 2023 by Fruitmarket in partnership with Edinburgh Art Festival. Taking its lead from Leonor Antunes’ exhibition the apparent length of a floor area (which at that point was showing across Fruitmarket’s galleries), the events of Assembling examined and recognised women’s contribution to, and experience of design and architecture.   The recording of Voices of Experience is preceded in this episode by a brief discussion between Fruitmarket’s Iain Morrison reviewing the day’s events with Jude Barber and architect Akiko Kobayashi – who led a workshop Imagining the first day at a humanist architecture school led by women.   For more on Leonor Antunes: the apparent length of a floor area, including images and video, go to Fruitmarket’s online archive.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.

On Mike Nelson: David Grinly and David Moore in conversation    David Grinly (Stills) and David Moore (Edinburgh College of Art) discuss Mike Nelson’s new work for Fruitmarket: a transient history of Mardin earthworks and low rise, and think about its intersections with both sculpture and photography. The conversation explores the sophisticated lie of Mike’s practice, and the way in which his spaces tap into a material collective imagination. The speakers talk about the unusual amount of photography in this exhibition and its relationship to ‘stuff’ in the way it is made and displayed. Hosted by Ruth Bretherick, Fruitmarket’s Research and Public Engagement Curator Mike Nelson’s exhibition runs until October 2025. For more go to https://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/mike-nelson/   Mike Nelson will be live in conversation with Fruitmarket director Fiona Bradley on Weds 17th September 2025. For details and to book your ticket go to https://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/event/mike-nelson-artists-talk/   This episode was recorded at University of Edinburgh’s uCreate Makerspace. Thanks to Simeon and the team there for all their help.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.

A 2010 lecture by curator and art historian Briony Fer on ‘oneness’ and ‘noneness’ in the work of Martin Creed. Martin Creed is one of Britain’s most highly-regarded and popular artists. His work captures the public imagination, while also attracting critical acclaim for its generous, accessible approach. In 2001 he won the Turner Prize with Work No. 227: The lights going on and off, and in 2008 responded to the prestigious Duveen Commission at Tate Britain with the phenomenally popular Work No. 850, in which runners sprinted through the gallery at 30-second intervals.   Briony Fer gave this talk at Fruitmarket in 2010, accompanying Down Over Up, an exhibition of recent and newly-commissioned work by Creed. This exhibition focused on stacking and progression in size, height and tone – stacks of planks, chairs, tables, boxes, pieces of Lego; series of paintings; and works making use of the musical scale. Creed installed a recorded choir in the gallery’s lift, singing up and down the scale as the lift rose and fell. You can still hear it today if you visit us. Another legacy of this show is Work No. 1059 – The Scotsman Steps, opposite Fruitmarket on Market Street. Creed resurfaced the Steps with different and contrasting marbles from all over the world, creating a visually spectacular, beautiful and thoughtful response to this historic artery of the city. Go to Fruitmarket’s online archive for more detail on Down Over Up, The Scotsman Steps, and our singing lift.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.ukwhere you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.

A conversation between Canadian artist Stan Douglas and Fruitmarket director Fiona Bradley. Stan Douglas is known for films, photographs and installations which use new and outdated technologies, the tropes of cinema, TV and photography, the conventions of various Hollywood genres, and classic literary texts to examine the intersection of history and memory in evocative, mesmerising artworks. In 2014, when this conversation was recorded, Fruitmarket presented a selection of Douglas’s films and photographs in a new exhibition. That same year, his innovative play/film hybrid, Helen Lawrence, was performed for the first time in the UK at the Edinburgh International Festival.   You can find out more about Stan Douglas’ Fruitmarket exhibition at the gallery’s online archive, where you can also listen to a lecture on his work by Amsterdam based cultural analyst Mieke Bal. The book produced to accompany the show, featuring essays by Fiona Bradley and Mieke Bal, is available from Fruitmarket’s online bookshop.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.

A panel discussion from 2013, between artist Gabriel Orozco, curator Briony Fer and art historian Benjamin Buchloh, chaired by Fruitmarket’s director Fiona Bradley. Gabriel Orozco is a Mexican artist who lives and works mainly in Tokyo and Mexico City. His work blurs the boundaries of art with everyday realities and often balances complex geometry with organic materials and elements of chance.   In 2013 Fruitmarket showed Gabriel Orozco's exhibition Thinking in Circles, which was curated by Briony Fer. The exhibition took Orozco’s 2005 painting The Eye of Go as its starting point, and looked at how the circular geometric motif of this painting – part of a way of thinking for Orozco, a way to organise ideas – migrates onto other work, recurring in other paintings, sculptures and photographs. Through the exhibition and in her accompanying essay, Fer asked how far it is possible to think with the work rather than about it.   You can find out more about the Thinking in Circles show at Fruitmarket’s online archive, and the book produced to accompany the exhibition is still available from our online bookshop.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.

A mix of speech, music and song from Karine Polwart, introducing the plans for her 2025/26 writing residency with Fruitmarket. Karine Polwart is a writer, musician, and storyteller whose work evokes a richness of place, hidden histories, scientific enquiry and folklore. She has been selected as the recipient of the 2025/25 Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship, for which Fruitmarket is the host organisation.   The Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship, supported by Creative Scotland, offers the opportunity for a mid-career writer to spend a year dedicated to producing their own new writing, with the support and inspiration of a host organisation.   Ticket details for Karine’s August 2025 show, Windblown, at Queen’s Hall, are here: https://www.thequeenshall.net/whats-on/karine-polwart-windblown    Archive televised film of Dick Gaughan performing Now Westlin Winds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ7oYCx6tBw Karine refers to Robbie Nichol in this podcast. Robbie is now Professor of Place-Based Education at Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh.    Fruitmarket is a free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, which provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences.  We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. Creativity makes space for meaning, and we create a welcoming space for people to think with contemporary art and culture in ways that are helpful to them – for free. Further information at fruitmarket.co.uk. Follow us on Bluesky,  Facebook,  Instagram, TikTok. 

A panel discussion on Louis Bourgeois featuring British sculptor Phyllida Barlow, and art historians Elisabeth Lebovici and Mignon Nixon, chaired by Fruitmarket Director Fiona Bradley.   Louise Bourgeois is one of the greatest and most influential artists of our time. In a career spanning seven decades, from the 1940s until her death in 2010, she produced some of contemporary art’s most enduring images. Bourgeois’s work is personal yet universal, rooted in the details of her own life, but reaching out to touch the lives of others.   In 2013 Fruitmarket presented I Give Everything Away, an exhibition of Bourgeois’ work on paper, featuring some of her most intimate work, both drawing and writing. The show included Bourgeois’s Insomnia Drawings, a remarkable suite of 220 drawings and writings made between November 1994 and June 1995. Also in the exhibition were two suites of large-scale works on paper, When Did This Happen? from 2007, and I Give Everything Away, made right at the end of the artist’s life in 2010. A mix of writing, drawing and printmaking, these large works are both haunted and haunting. A major ARTIST ROOMS exhibition of work by Louise Bourgeois at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art coincided with the Fruitmarket show.   To accompany these two exhibitions, Fruitmarket,  the ARTIST ROOMS Research Partnership, and National Galleries of Scotland organised Future Bourgeois – a symposium on new research on Bourgeois, which included the panel discussion between Barlow, Lebovici and Nixon. More info on I Give Everything Away, including images and video, can be found in Fruitmarket's online archive.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.

A conversation between British-European artist Tacita Dean and Fruitmarket Director Fiona Bradley, recorded in 2018 to accompany Dean’s exhibition Woman with a Red Hat.   Best known for her use of film, and her advocacy for its preservation as an artistic medium, Tacita has a wide-ranging practice that includes drawings, photographs, installations and collections of found objects and images. She was a nominee for the Turner Prize in 1998, won the Hugo Boss Prize in 2006, and was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 2008. The works in her Fruitmarket exhibition asked us to consider the ways in which theatrical artifice can transport us, and ultimately deliver truth through fiction.   The title – Woman with a Red Hat – was taken from the film Event for a Stage, around which the exhibition pivoted. Originally commissioned for the 2014 Sydney Biennale as a live theatre piece, the work was Dean’s first foray into the theatre and her first experience of working with an actor. The film is an intricate interweaving of the four consecutive performances of the piece. The fierce interplay between the artist and the actor, Stephen Dillane, as they struggle to understand and accommodate each other’s artforms makes for a compelling, complex investigation into the balance of reality and illusion in both. For more details about the show, visit the Fruitmarket online archive. The book which accompanied the exhibition is available from Fruitmarket’s online bookshop.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process.   To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.

2024 was Fruitmarket’s fiftieth birthday. As part of our celebrations we published Words and Things, a selection of just some of the writing on art published by Fruitmarket over the decades, edited by Ruth Bretherick, the gallery’s Research and Public Engagement Curator. To launch the book, Ruth and Fruitmarket head of publishing Elizabeth McLean were joined in conversation with Words and Things contributors David Hopkins, Briony Fer and James Robertson. They discussed the past and the future of writing about and alongside art, and the relationship between art and language.   The book published to accompany the show can be bought from our online bookshop, where you can also buy many of the books Fruitmarket has published over our 50 years. Featuring contributions from, among others, Marina Abramovic, Laura Mulvey, Frances Morris and Ali Smith, the book brings together art historical scholarship by the world's leading thinkers on art and artists' writings and in-conversations, punctuated by poems and short stories. From painting to performance, sculpture to film, the book captures the way in which contemporary art can help us think through the pressing social and political issues of our times, but also offer space to experience material artworks as 'present tense things', as artists Emma Hart and Dean Kenning put it.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process.   To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.

Extracts of a conversation between artists Mike Nelson and Simon Patterson and art historian, lecturer and writer Patricia Bickers, from the opening of Print the Legend: The Myth of the West, at Fruitmarket in 2008.   British artist Mike Nelson is known for immersive, absorbing installations assembled from the detritus of everyday lives. Often referencing works of literature or countercultural or fringe political movements, his work transforms the spaces it inhabits. This summer Mike is taking over Fruitmarket with his new show Humpty Dumpty/ a transient history of Mardin earthworks / low rise, which opens on 27th June 2025 and runs until early October. In 2008 Mike was part of the group exhibition Print the Legend at Fruitmarket, alongside artists including Douglas Gordon, Isaac Julien, Cornelia Parker and Simon Patterson. Curated by Patricia Bickers, Print the Legend was a critical response to the western and the myth of the west, exploring themes such as narrative, conflict, fiction and truth, justice and injustice, frontiers and desire.   Further details about the show, including images and video, can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive. Mike Nelson’s piece, Untitled No.22 (High Plains Drifter) (1993/2001/2008), involved spray painting one of our fire escapes and the entire contents of a store cupboard with several coats of red paint to create a disorientating, breath-taking new environment. This was a reference to the film High Plains Drifter, but also painting, and in particular the work of the artist Niele Toroni, whose signature style is the measured repetition of a single brushstroke. In High Plains Drifter, Clint Eastwood’s character takes revenge on the citizens of Lago, getting them to paint their own town red, transforming it into a living hell. Simon Patterson’s wall drawing, Western: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1997), references the concept of the frame and horizon, portraying a metaphorical moral landscape through the representation of the Kodak™ Gray Scale, an exposure-testing format used in photography. The names of the three main actors in the film, Lee Marvin (who plays the outlaw Liberty Valance), John Wayne (the gunfighter) and James Stewart (the lawyer), are painted in black, grey and white, respectively, to denote their relative ethics, and good and bad actions –the equivalent of the black hat and the white hat in early westerns.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.

A conversation recorded in 2023 between composer Sara Glojnarić and journalist and author Kate Molleson, recorded in front of a live audience at Fruitmarket’s first Deep Time festival of new music ahead of the world premiere of Sara’s piece seconds, minutes, hours, eons, - commisioned by Fruitmarket and the ensemble p.e.r.s.o.n.a.l.c.l.u.t.t.e.r. Germany-based Croatian composer Sara Glojnarić is the winner of the Ernst von Siemens Förderpreis 2023, Erste Bank Composition Award and Darmstadt’s Kranichstein Music Prize. Kate Molleson presents BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show and the author of the award-winning book Sound Within Sound: Opening Our Ears to the Twentieth Century.  For more details about previous iterations of Deep Time, visit the Fruitmarket online archive.   The 2025 edition of Fruitmarket’s annual Deep Time festival, titled I See Red, will be curated by Raven Chacon in the Fruitmarket Warehouse from 27.11.25–29.11.25. Full programme will be released in September 2025. Ahead of this, in August 2025, Fruitmarket and EAF25 present the UK premiere of Voiceless Mass, a Pulitzer Prize-winning composition by Diné composer, performer, and artist Raven Chacon, performed by Scottish Ensemble at Edinburgh’s St Giles Cathedral.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk, where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.    

Artists William Kentridge and Vivienne Koorland in conversation with curator Tamar Garb. The conversation was recorded at the opening of the 2016 Fruitmarket exhibition William Kentridge and Vivienne Koorland: Conversations in letters and lines. Curated by Garb, this exhibition brought together the work of the two prominent South African artists, mapping their artistic friendship through shared artistic strategies and a common sense of the urgency and agency of art.   Further details about the show, including images and video, can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive.  The book published to accompany the show features an insightful essay by Garb, a conversation between Kentridge and Koorland, and writing from Briony Fer, Joseph Leo Koerner, Ed Krcma and Griselda Pollock. Lavishly illustrated, it offers the chance to look in a new way at the work of these two significant artists. Buy it now from our online bookshop.    A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.

Curator and activist Linda Goode Bryant and Fruitmarket director Fiona Bradley discuss the art of Senga Nengudi.   This conversation was recorded in 2019, when Fruitmarket showed the first solo institutional exhibition of Nengudi’s work outside the United States. Born in Chicago in 1943, Senga Nengudi has been a trailblazer in sculpture for fifty years. A vital figure in the avant-garde scenes of Los Angeles and New York in the 1960s and 1970s, her work is characterised by a persistently radical experimentation with material and form. Linda Goode Bryant founded the New York artists’ space Just Above Midtown, which showed work by African-American artists, including Nengudi, in the 1970s and 80s.  Further details about the 2019 Senga Nengudi show, including images and video, can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive. Originally organised by the Henry Moore Institute, the exhibition brought together pioneering sculpture, photography and documentation of performance from 1969 to the present, including recreations of work not seen since the 1970s and a major new installation.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.

Phyllida Barlow in conversation with fellow artists with Kate Davis, Keith Wilson, Eric Bainbridge and Jon Wood. They discuss the question why make art? This conversation accompanied the 2015 Fruitmarket exhibition Phyllida Barlow: Set, a major exhibition of new work made specially for the gallery. Further details about Set, including images and video, can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive    In 2024 Fruitmarket and Hauser & Wirth Publishers published an updated and expended edition of the book Phyllida Barlow: Sculpture, 1963-2023 available now from the Fruitmarket online bookshop. This major monograph is a comprehensive survey of the work of Barlow, authored by curator Frances Morris, who has made extensive additions to her original text. This new expanded edition features three new chapters by Morris, as well as a new introduction by Fruitmarket Director Fiona Bradley.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk, where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram or Bluesky.

Sisters in Solidarity: The Legacy of Southall Black Sisters  University of Edinburgh students in conversation with Pragna Patel and Meena Patel   This episode is one of three in a series accompanying the exhibition of Sisters!, a film by Petra Bauer, at the Fruitmarket: a collaborative film, documenting a day in the life of the Southall Black Sisters, a feminist organisation supporting Black and minority women in London with issues of domestic abuse and immigration. The film follows the organisation, exploring the day-to-day challenges and successes of running a politically charged non-profit. This episode delves into the remarkable journey of SBS through its founder, Pragna Patel and early member, Meena Patel. Founded in the late 1970s, the group has played a pivotal role in addressing domestic violence, racial and gender injustice, and immigrant rights. The conversation delves into their activism, challenges, and the legacy of the Southall Black Sisters. The episode will go further to explore the making of Sisters! as a collaborative filmmaking process with Petra Bauer. Fifteen years after filming Sisters! we will ask Meena and Pragna to reflect on the film in its creation, presentation and impact.  Further details about the show, including images and video, can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit www.fruitmarket.co.uk or follow us on Instagram. Produced by University of Edinburgh students on the MScR in Collections and Curating Practices, on which Fruitmarketis a partner: Lucy Beirne, Sara Kate Gregory and Greta Martyniuk.

University of Edinburgh students in conversation with Dr. Kirsten Lloyd and Dr. Rochelle Rowe  This episode is one of three in a series accompanying the exhibition of Sisters!, a film by Petra Bauer at Fruitmarket. Sisters! is a collaborative film, documenting a day in the life of the Southall Black Sisters, a feminist organisation supporting Black and minoritised women in London facing domestic abuse and immigration challenges. The film follows the organisation, exploring the day-to-day challenges and successes of running a politically charged non-profit. In this episode, University of Edinburgh students facilitate a conversation between two academics from the University, Dr. Kirsten Lloyd and Dr. Rochelle Rowe, whose areas of expertise lie within the field of feminist art and curation, and cultural histories of race and gender. To accompany the exhibition and provide a wider context for Sisters!, this conversation delves into the intersection of art and politics and how artistic activism serves as both a powerful tool for resistance and a platform for radical change. This episode opens conversations about the role of visual culture in shaping public discourse, and examines how the film addresses issues of race, class, and gender while pushing the boundaries of traditional political activism.  Further details about the show, including images and video, can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive.  To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit www.fruitmarket.co.uk or follow us on Instagram. Produced by University of Edinburgh students on the MScR in Collections and Curating Practices, on which Fruitmarket is a partner: Lucy Beirne, Sara Kate Gregory and Greta Martyniuk.

A conversation between Swedish artist Petra Bauer and curator Frances Stacey, recorded in February 2025 during the Preview event of the Fruitmarket exhibition of the film Sisters!, on loan from the University of Edinburgh Art Collection. This episode is one of three in a series accompanying the exhibition of Sisters!    This was the first major exhibition in Scotland of Sisters! by Petra Bauer, who uses film to explore the intersection of art and activism. Sisters! was made in collaboration with the Southall Black Sisters, a London-based organisation advocating for the rights and safety of Black and minoritised women in the UK. Screened at a large scale in the Warehouse, audiences gathered to engage with the film and hear from Petra as she and Frances explored themes of feminist activism and revolution.  Further details about the show, including images and video, can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit www.fruitmarket.co.uk or follow us on Instagram.  

Artist Karla Black in conversation with Fruitmarket Director, Fiona Bradley, discussing how Barry Le Va’s work inspires and informs her approach to materials and continues to have relevance for artists working today. This conversation, recorded in January 2025, accompanied the Fruitmarket show Barry Le Va: In a State of Flux, the first-ever major exhibition in the UK of the work of ground-breaking American artist and the first comprehensive museum exhibition anywhere since his death in 2021. The work of Le Va has long been a touchstone for Black. Sharing a use of fragmented and scattered materials, including powders – chalk and flour for Le Va; plaster dust, pigment and soil for Black – both artists make predominantly floor-based work that explores the transient nature of materials. Both practices rail against the apparent permanence of traditional sculpture, revealing, as Black puts it ‘that material in this world is only ever either flying together or flying apart and it’s only the limited experience we as human beings can have of time that leads us to believe that an object is permanent.’ Similarly, Le Va sought ‘to eliminate sculpture as a finished, totally resolved object’ and maintain its potential energy in a state of flux. A video of this conversation is available on Fruitmarket’s YouTube. Further details about In a State of Flux, including images and video, can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive, where you can also see more about Karla Black’s 2021 exhibition sculptures (2001–2021) details for a retrospective. The books on Barry Le Va and Karla Black that accompanied each exhibition are available to buy from Fruitmarket’s online bookshop. A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process.   To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk, where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.    

Portuguese, Berlin-based artist Leonor Antunes in conversation with Professor Briony Fer and Fruitmarket director Fiona Bradley, recorded in October 2023 to accompany Antunes’ Fruitmarket exhibition the apparent length of a floor area. Leonor Antunes works with traditions of modernist art, architecture and design through sculpture made and displayed with the specifics of a given place in mind. The forms and materials of her sculptures reference a history of modernism embedded in the work of its less visible protagonists; overlooked, often female, artists and designers. This cast of historical ‘companions’ enters Antunes’ work in enigmatic ways – through an echo of form or measurement, or the replication of a particular knot, hinge, colour or material – infusing it with their spirit and sensibility. For her show at Fruitmarket, research led Antunes to the work of architect, designer and writer Sadie Speight, whose work included a house in Cumbria for textile designer Alistair Morton of Edinburgh Weavers. Cork, a traditional Portuguese material Antunes has used frequently in her previous work, now had a different resonance for her, inspired by Speight’s extensive use of it in her interiors. Further details about the show, including images and video, can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive. The book produced to accompany the exhibition, written by Briony Fer, is available from Fruitmarket’s online bookshop. A video of this conversation can be viewed on YouTube.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk,where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.

Professor Briony Fer’s keynote lecture on German-born American artist Eva Hesse, accompanying the 2009 Fruitmarket exhibition Eva Hesse: Studiowork, curated by Fer and Barry Rosen, Director of The Estate of Eva Hesse.   Throughout her career, Eva Hesse produced a large number of small, experimental works alongside her large-scale sculpture. These objects, the so-called test pieces, were made in a wide range of materials, including latex, wire-mesh, sculp-metal, wax and cheesecloth. The exhibition was the result of new research by renowned Hesse scholar Professor Briony Fer and proposed that rather than simply technical explorations, these small objects radically put into question conventional notions of what sculpture is. Re-naming them studioworks rather than test pieces, the exhibition and the accompanying major publication offered a timely new interpretation of Hesse’s historical position, as well as highlighting her relevance for contemporary art now.   Further details about the show, including images and video, can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive.   The book produced to accompany the exhibition is currently out of print. However Briony Fer’s essay on Hesse is included in Words and Things, a celebration of the writing on art published by Fruitmarket over the gallery's fifty-year history. Words and Things is available now from Fruitmarket’s online bookshop.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process.   To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk, where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.

A conversation from October 2024 between Fruitmarket Director Fiona Bradley and Ibrahim Mahama, a Ghanaian artist critically acclaimed for his evocative large-scale, site-specific installations that speak to the cultural and social effects of post-colonialism and global migration. Mahama’s 2024 Fruitmarket exhibition, Songs about Roses, was his first solo exhibition in Scotland. He worked with materials he collected from the now obsolete railway the British built in Ghana in 1923 to transport minerals and cocoa around the then Gold Coast. Large scale charcoal and ink drawings, sculpture and film bring the materials, histories and ghosts of this defunct railway back to Britain, re-installing it on top of the railway here in Edinburgh. Mahama wraps politics and protest into his materials and methods. His Fruitmarket exhibition is named for a song by Scottish band Owl John: ‘we don’t need songs about roses/Please sing me something new … we don’t need songs about roses/All that we ask for is truth’. Details on Songs about Roses can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive. The book produced to accompany the exhibition is available to buy online from the Fruitmarket bookshop. A film of this event is available on the Fruitmarket YouTube channel, where you can also find a discussion between Osei Bonsu, Curator of International Art at Tate, and Nana Biamah-Ofosu, Architecture, design and research practice, YAA Projects, along with Fruitmarket’s Fiona Bradley and Talbot Rice Gallery director Tessa Giblin, responding to Songs About Roses and El Anatsui: Scottish Mission Book Depot Keta, an exhibition by another contemporary Ghanian artist which showed in Edinburgh at the same time.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk, where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram.    

Poor Things was an exhibition of sculptures made by 22 artists, working across the UK, shown at Fruitmarket in spring 2023. It was born out of conversations about art and social class that Emma Hart and Dean Kenning had together, both as friends and as artists. Emma and Dean’s hope for Poor Things was that it might reveal the multiplicity of experiences of artists whose work speaks to working and lower-middle class backgrounds, whilst identifying points of commonality. Details on Poor Things can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive.   In May 2023, Emma, Dean and Fruitmarket director Fiona Bradley spoke with in front of a live audience, with a number of the contributing artists joining via Zoom. They all discussed the show, their experiences and launched the exhibition catalogue, which is still available to buy online from the Fruitmarket bookshop Along with Emma and Dean, the artists who appeared at the event were Linda Aloysius, John Beagles and Graham Ramsay, Joseph Buckley, Andrew Cooper, Jamie Cooper, Lee Holden, Josie Ko, Rebecca Moss, Janette Parris, Anne Ryan, Aled Simons, and Laura Yuile.   A film of this event is available on the Fruitmarket YouTube channel.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk, where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram, Twitter / X or Facebook

A November 2021 conversation between Howardena Pindell and Fruitmarket Director, Fiona Bradley, about the selection of works in Howardena Pindell: A New Language at Fruitmarket. This was Howardena Pindell’s first solo exhibition in a public organisation in the UK. The exhibition tracked the development of Pindell’s artistic language from the 1970s to now, and examined her work as exemplary in articulating empowerment.   The exhibition brought together a significant selection of her work, and did its best to celebrate and communicate her vision, in the hope that we might all be able to respond to her urgent call for change.   Pindell makes beautiful, abstract paintings by spraying paint through a hand-made, hole-punched stencil. She makes intricate, complex paintings that layer paint with collaged paper circles, thread, glitter, powder and sequins. She makes paintings about war, Apartheid, police violence, the AIDS crisis, slavery and the environment. Her works on paper play with the tropes of lists, tallies, graphs and grids. And her two videos, Free White and 21 (1980) and Rope/Fire/Water (2020) confront racism head on.   Further details about the show, including images and video, can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive. The book produced to accompany the exhibition is available from the Fruitmarket Bookshop.   A film of this conversation is available on the Fruitmarket YouTube channel.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process.   To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk, where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram, Twitter / X or Facebook

Karla Black in conversation with Fiona Bradley, Director of Fruitmarket, from September 2021. This event accompanied Karla’s 2021 exhibition, sculptures (2001–2021) details for a retrospective. Scottish artist Karla Black makes sculptures that begin with a desire to do something. To experiment with certain materials, certain colours. In turn, the sculptures she makes do something: they hang, heap, spread, reach, spill, stand, hover. The materials Karla uses include cosmetics, over-the-counter medicines, cleaning products and packaging as well as the paint, paper and plaster more usually found in fine art. She uses them because she likes them, and wants to see what they can do. She keeps her materials as raw as possible, so that the energy they embody is in the present or the future rather than the past. Details on Karla’s show can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive. The book which accompanied the show is can be ordered online. A film of this event is available on the Fruitmarket YouTube channel.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk, where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram, Twitter / X or Facebook.

Programmed alongside Daniel Silver: Looking at the Fruitmarket, Edinburgh (11 June – 25 Sep 2022), this conversation explores space, sculpture and the audience encounter. Silver was taught by Barlow at the Slade School of Fine Art, London, and this conversation emerged from their professional and artistic relationship. As Fruitmarket Director, Fiona Bradley says, ‘Daniel mentioned having bumped into Phyllida and having had a conversation and I thought, wouldn't that be nice if I could eavesdrop on that conversation? Wouldn't it be nice if we could all eavesdrop on that conversation?’ More detail on Daniel’s show, Looking, can be found at the Fruitmarket online archive. The book which accompanied the show can be ordered online. Phyllida Barlow: set showed at Fruitmarket in 2015. Find out more about the show on the digital archive. An updated edition of the book which accompanied the show will be published in October 2024. Phyllida Barlow: Sculpture, 1963–2023 is the indispensable guide to the British artist Phyllida Barlow’s sculptural oeuvre across 6 decades, and charts the progression of the artist’s extraordinary and influential career. A film of this event is available on the Fruitmarket YouTube channel.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, the Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk, where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram, Twitter / X or Facebook.