As part of Collective’s summer exhibition, Fire on the Mountain, Light on the Hill, artist Mercedes Azpilicueta has collaborated with Edinburgh-based artist and choreographer Janice Parker and other local performers to create this one-off live performance for the closing weekend of Edinburgh Art Festival.
The performance brings together themes from the exhibition with Collective’s site on Calton Hill, referencing stories of protest and political expression connected to the hill and its viewpoints.
The performative journey unfolds through a series of choreographed gestures and embodied movements that draw from the struggles and resistance of women, real and fictional, across time. Through shared movement, silence, repetition, and symbolic actions, the performers will inscribe their own temporary, fluid monument onto the hill: a moving ritual envisioning new forms of solidarity and resistance for our current era.
This performance acts as a live extension of Fire on the Mountain, Light on the Hill, bringing the exhibition to life through movement, using costumes and props that are on display in the exhibition. Drawing from the exhibition’s central installation Potatoes, Riots and Other Imaginaries (2021), the performance continues Azpilicueta’s exploration of women’s resistance, collective action and care. The costumes and props featured in the exhibition are activated during the performance, connecting the gallery space with the lived, moving body. Drawings related to the costume and prop designs are also on view in our Library in the City Observatory.
The event is free and open to all, but advance booking is required.