iTalbot Rice GalleryOld Town
The Rupture: No condition is permanent
International group show on living through the breakdown of systems, as artists confront generative AI, neo-colonialism, war and climate change, insisting no condition is permanent.
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In Kiri Dalena's photographs, Manila protesters from the 1970s hold up their placards, and every placard is blank. She took the pictures from newspaper archives and digitally erased the slogans, a series she began in 2008 and is still adding to.
Fifteen artists share the gallery, and the subjects are heavy: censorship, migrant labour, the UN, the war in Ukraine, exile. The curators frame it around Mark Carney's line at Davos, "we are in the midst of a rupture", and say they come at it from a position of hope. You meet a sigh by Song Ziwei that escapes as a puff of mist, and on the way out you take a bar of Taysir Batniji's soap home.
The Scotsman gave it four stars but found it sprawling and "time-heavy", and called two big films accomplished but tangential. Its advice: take in the range, then stay longer with a few. Entry is free, Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm, in Old College on South Bridge.
Editor's pick
Kiri Dalena reprints press photos of 1970s Manila protests with every slogan wiped, so the marchers hold blank boards. Sixteen artists on censorship, migrant labour, war and exile, plus Taysir Batniji's soap sculpture, made to vanish with time.
Look for
Kiri Dalena's Erased Slogans
Archival press photos of 1970s Manila protests, reprinted with the slogan wiped from every placard, leaving blank white boards in the marchers' hands.
Tarik Kiswanson's The Conservatory (Saint-Denis)
Children of immigrant families at a music school outside Paris sight-read Ode to Joy, the EU anthem, on the piano for the first time; their faltering notes carry through the White Gallery.
Song Ziwei's Echo Valley
In the Side Gallery, fog machines, LED light and aluminium blinds turn a lonely Beijing office into a sigh that escapes as a puff of mist.
Combat Cooking
Claudia Zeiske's recipe book of dishes from more than 20 countries living through conflict, illustrated by Edinburgh College of Art students, and yours to take home.
Taysir Batniji's soap sculpture
The show's last work: bars of soap stacked on a shipping pallet, each engraved in Arabic with 'nothing is permanent', and you may take one with you.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Nerding Out
- Out-Of-Town Guests
Skip if
You want a quick look: the Scotsman found it time-heavy, with many long videos.
With kids
The gallery has a free activity book for ages 5 and up, with drawing tasks on the birdsong reliefs and road-sign animations. Several works deal with the war in Ukraine, and the Upper Gallery and Round Room are dark.
Also at Talbot Rice Gallery
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Image credits
9
- The Rupture: No condition is permanentCourtesy the artist. © Kiri Dalena
- Scotland's First WarriorsNational Museums Scotland
- Blood and Guts: The Twists and Turns of Edinburgh's Medical HistorySurgeons' Hall Museums
- Elizabeth Blackadder: A Life in ColourCourtesy of Dovecot Studios
- Talbot Rice GalleryVysotsky / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- National Museum of ScotlandMaccoinnich / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Surgeons' Hall MuseumsRConnor21 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Dovecot StudiosMike Wilkinson, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Museum of ChildhoodPretzelles / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0