Presented in partnership with The Dean Gallery, National Galleries of Scotland

Juliana Engberg - Curator
Anna MacDonald, Charlotte Day - Project Coordinators

Edinburgh epitomizes the ideals of the 18th century Scottish Enlightenment with its neo-classical beauty and places of learning, law and finance.

Edinburgh also exists as a series of warrens and darker places. The city's enlightenment edifice is built upon a maze of intriguing geological fissures, labyrinthine architecture and iniquitous underworlds.

Against this backdrop of the city and its philosophical history the artworks that make up The Enlightenments offer contemporary observations on subjects including religion, philosophy, superstition, architecture, literature, natural history, the cosmos, scepticism, stoicism and social manners.

Gabrielle de Vietri - Hark!

Gabrielle de Vietri engages the public in acts of communication. In Hark!, singers relate the news of the day, recalling the way information was delivered to people prior to the Enlightenment and mass literacy. 

Gabrielle de Vietri - The I Don't Know Show: Philosophy for Kids

New Commission

Children have been asked to answer some of the fundamental philosophical questions concerning art and aesthetics. These interrogations offer humorous and engagingly honest responses in a video record.

Greg Creek - Edinburgh Drawing: Chatter Shapes

New Commission

Greg Creek's drawings of Edinburgh, city of Enlightenment, encourage a visual journey that maps both place and time, with references to historical, contemporary and fictional events, people and subjects.

Joseph Kosuth - The Reference Room (__________________)

New Commission

A poetic installation evoking the presence and absence of the material and conceptual in this most historic of Edinburgh rooms.

Joshua Mosley - dread

Joshua Mosley's digital film of animated clay figures presents a fictional encounter between two of history's most important philosophical and theological thinkers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Blaise Pascal.

Juan Cruz: Mensch - Bluetooth-delivered stories

New Commission
Juan Cruz is known for his projects involving story telling, translation and fictional navigations of urban space. In Mensch he evolves a number of interconnected narratives that circulate around the old city of Edinburgh.

Lee Mingwei - Elevation

New Commission

Lee Mingwei creates an installation, filling one side of the gallery and elevating viewers much like Edinburgh's physical situation, perched above and observing the surrounding terrain or indeed the gargoyles on Edinburgh's buildings.

Nathan Coley

New Commission

Coley questions belief systems and investigates the architectural structures that are inhabited by, and invested with, faith. Homes, churches, sanctuaries and various prop edifices form Coley's three-dimensional practice.

Susan Norrie - Enola

Susan Norrie's practice is concerned with the future of our planet. Norrie's acclaimed video project Enola pictures a world that has become mummified as a result of nuclear trauma.

Susan Norrie - SHOT

New Commission

Susan Norrie's new project SHOT explores aspects of outer space and our quest for enlightenment - a quest necessary not just for the sake of knowledge, but possibly for survival.

Tacita Dean - Presentation Sisters

Acclaimed British artist Tacita Dean emphasizes the aspects of quiet devotion, internal contemplation and external dedication that defines this small ecclesiastical community's spiritual and earthly existence.

Edinburgh - The city of edinburgh council Scottish Arts Council

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with its registered office at The Hub, Castlehill, Edinburgh EH1 2NE. Registered Charity No SC004694