A Walk of Art: LeithLate 2014

Forget the referendum – on the weekend of 21-22 June, Leith declares its independence from Edinburgh with its own mini-festival, LeithLate, celebrating the formerly separate municipal borough's thriving art community with a breadcrumb trail of gallery shows, pop-up exhibitions, open studios, one-off gigs and special events.

LeithLate launched in 2011 as a one-night pop-up festival, and this time, for the first year, it has expanded to run all weekend. Having already been awarded the Creative Edinburgh award for Outstanding Creative Contribution by a Creative Organisation in 2012, organiser Morvern Cunningham (you may recognise her name from the equally successful Future Shorts pop-up film festival), with the help of a group of co-curators, has cooked up quite an ensemble for the 2014 outing, making it their biggest and boldest yet.

“We're expanding this year, with a longer duration and a longer route,” says Cunningham. “We've decided that it's time for it to really blow up.” With the trail of participating venues now beginning at Calton Hill (“sometimes known as the gateway to Leith”), and stretching all the way down to Great Junction Street, this year's LeithLate will have even more of a carnival atmosphere than last year's festival, which saw in excess of 1000 people descend on Leith Walk for gigs, visual art spectaculars and film screenings.

“I always bill it as a multi-arts event, but for me the visual art element is very important, and is the primary input,” says Cunningham. This includes the LeithLate Shutter Project, which sees local artists decorating the closed blinds of shops on Leith Walk, launched in 2012 and now gracing seven shop-fronts and counting. “We recently got funding to do three more, which we're in the process of finishing. Fraser Colquhoun Douglas is finishing his on Blue Tiger Tattoo.” The latest to be announced is a new piece from illustrator Erin McGrath, on the shutters of local retailer Elvis Shakespeare.

LeithLate engages with what Cunningham sees as the ongoing emergence of a bustling creative community, attracted in part by Leith's relatively cheaper living costs in comparison to the affluent capital, and its busy, multicultural, welcoming community spirit. “The reason LeithLate came about in the first place was to showcase all of the grassroots art spaces which were springing up around Leith,” says Cunningham. “That was part of the tide of artists moving to Leith, and living and working there. Those artists are still there; they are still participating in the community, still reacting to the environment.” LeithLate is “a showcase of places that I and the other curators really like, some more hidden places which people maybe aren't familiar with... it's an encouragement for Leithers, and people from beyond, to come in and see what Leith has to offer.”

 “If you can't get it in Leith, you can't get it anywhere." – Morvern Cunningham

Previous years have seen exhibitions and installations from names such as Kevin Harman, Katie Orton, Omar Zingaro Bhatia and Ross Fraser McLean, so what have Cunningham and her team got planned for this year? “Vision Mechanics, formerly known as Puppet Lab, are going to be doing an open studios event,” Cunningham reveals. “We're putting the Harvest Skate Company and some film work in to the Bainbridge Vaults; and we're also showcasing some African art in some of the African shops on Great Junction Street. We're also taking in Coburg Studios and Sofi's,” she says, both of which will showcase work by local artists (or in the case of Sofi's, Glasgow artist FiST).

“There's more art than anything else happening at LeithLate, but there's a hell of a lot of music as well, with a bit of film and spoken word thrown in on top,” Cunningham continues. This includes an animation-focused one-off event by local spoken word heroes Neu! Reekie!, with Kevin Williamson presenting some of his favourite animated films, and Michael Pedersen providing poetic interludes at The Brass Monkey on Leith Walk on Saturday – no doubt they'll have a few special guests up their sleeves as well.

“This is one of the things we do,” Cunningham explains. “We invite art spaces and businesses to be part of LeithLate, and a lot of them curate their own events. But it's also really nice when we can facilitate collaborations, and approach people like Neu! Reekie! to curate something in The Brass Monkey, or a venue like that.” On Sunday, The Brass Monkey will also get a visit from the Too Much Fun Club. “I've always wanted to work with them,” Cunningham enthuses. “They're quite interested in LeithLate because of the previous public art initiatives we've done. The Brass Monkey have a rather naff (the manager's words!) bit of advertising on the outside of their bar, which he's keen to refresh. So the TMFC are going to come and do a mural live – that's their forte, they work really fast, and it's fun for people to watch.”

This year, as well as featuring events in established and acclaimed galleries such as Collective Gallery, Edinburgh Printmakers, Embassy Gallery, Rhubaba, and arts and crafts space Bainbridge Vaults, there are various curated shows popping up around the Leith area. “Andrew Gilbert will be curating a show at The Settlement Project,” says Cunningham. Gilbert's involvement “was serendipitous – he's a Scottish artist who's been living and working in Berlin for the past 11 years, and he's in Edinburgh for another show, so we invited him to do something for LeithLate, and he's creating some special pieces for the event.”

Bainbridge Vaults and The Art Cave will showcase work from the Harvest Skate Company; Coburg Studios will present an exhibition titled Art by the Water; Scottish Printmakers will feature work and a live demonstration from Matt Wilson, and the Scottish Print Network offering a tour of their studio. Elsewhere, Embassy Gallery will present an exhibition titled 'ribofunk.' Other exhibitions will be happening at Rhubaba, Boda, Victoria, Junkadelic, and Silverhub Studios. Super Five Star and the African Flavour Lounge will showcase African art by Immy Mali and Moses Serubiri, with a DJ playing Afrobeat sounds. “The hipsters can have some Nigerian Guinness!” says Cunningham, assuring us, “It's good stuff!”

Musical performances include a showcase from newly-minted label MishMish at Joseph Pearce's, and on Sunday at Out of the Blue, a very special Bruncheon event hosted by singer-songwriter William Douglas. “It's a regular themed event there, he and his mates do covers and original songs,” says Cunningham. “For LeithLate, they're going to do a Summer theme.” The crowning jewel of this very special musical Bruncheon is a full set from celebrated Scottish musical visionary and indie-folk legend, Fence co-founder King Creosote. There will also be live music at venues including The Windsor Buffet, Elvis Shakespeare, Area C Coffee, Victoria, and Sofi's bar.

Cunningham also has a very special after-party planned after the main festivities on Saturday night. “We're finishing up at the Thomas Morton Hall for the first time this year,” she says, describing a packed lineup of bands and DJs that includes local indie rock titans Holy Mountain, and SAY Award-nominated singer-songwriter and filmmaker Adam Stafford, plus the RAMMED DJs and more TBC.

There will also be a special double-decker red bus ferrying punters around the circuit, packed with live pop-up performances and special treats. “The thing about LeithLate is the sheer plethora on offer, there's so much of it,” says Cunningham. “You can take in as little or as much as you want to, but we also wanted to be a little bit playful about how we moved between these spaces.” The bus provides a mobile party, stopping at the beginning, middle and end of the LeithLate trail, and will run throughout the Saturday night from 8pm til 10pm.

As ever, the star of the show is Leith itself. As Cunningham says, “If you can't get it in Leith, you can't get it anywhere. Just walk down Leith Walk, the variety of shops is amazing, and it changes all the time. It's a constant movement.” As for her plans for next year, Cunningham has toyed with ideas like bite-sized chunks of Twitter Theatre, inspired by the The Village Pub Theatre's events, with whom she has discussed ideas for future shows: “I'm definitely up for expanding it in different ways,” she says. “We might expand to be a week long, we might try and replicate it in other areas known for their artistic output.” She grins mischievously. “I'm up for including some flash-mobbing next year. Opera flash mob anyone?”

Originally from Glasgow, Cunningham's organisation of LeithLate comes from a place of passion, and of sincere community engagement. “It wasn't until I moved to Leith after graduating that I felt I'd found somewhere that had a heart, had a community, had an edge... somewhere with a bit of personality.” She shrugs. “Edinburgh's a great place to live, it's beautiful. But I wouldn't try and organise something like this in Edinburgh. I just care about Leith.”