Creative Edinburgh Awards 2017: The Winners

This evening, Creative Edinburgh announced the winners of their annual awards, celebrating achievements across the creative arts in the city. At this year's awards – which doubled up as Creative Edinburgh's sixth birthday party – nine awards were dished out across the full scope of the arts and creative industries. The Collaboration Award went to The Architecture Fringe, which was nominated for its 2017 programme featuring work from more than 250 contributors, while theatre company Creative Electric received the Creativity Award for their work on a pair of productions – Sinking Horses & The Church of Broccoli.

The City Award was won by tech incubator – and host for the evening's festivities – CodeBase, while the Startup Award itself was awarded to indie publishing house and Kickstarter sensation 404 Ink. Strategic creative consultancy CreateFuture won this year's Commercial Award, Marco Bevilacqua of Want Some Studio won the Independent Award for his work on political art exhibition Pissed Modernism, and Flint & Pitch's Jenny Lindsay received this year's Leadership Award. The John Byrne Award won the Social Award, while Alannah Cooper was the winner of the Student Award.

Creative Edinburgh Director Claire Stewart says that 2017 has been a "stand-out year" for the city's creatives. Introducing the winners, Stewart says: "The Architecture Fringe put on an incredible programme fuelled by voluntary power and passion, which rivalled many of the creative festivals with paid staff and showed the creative programming power of an open programming structure. CodeBase have secured several major investments and partnerships, with ambitious future plans to support the flourishing of Edinburgh's digital scene – completely independently financed.

"Creative Electric embody a creative approach which is enjoyable, accessible, topical and wildly creative – demonstrating that innovative theatre is alive and well in Edinburgh outside of August. After LeithLate, [their] Broccoli Weddings were on everyone's lips. Creative Electric should be acquired by the National Theatre of Scotland immediately to act as their creative engine room! Of the shortlist that didn't win, the absolute stand-out for everyone involved is Ashley Jack, truly a creative leader and independent spirit creating passion for dance in Edinburgh with her dance troupe, teaching and creative choreography.

"Despite a strong shortlist, the leadership award could only have gone to Jenny Lindsay this year. She has raised the bar for the amount one person can contribute to and elevate a creative scene. Great decision from David Greig to get her to guest programme at the Lyceum this year. She has kickstarted several careers this year and made waves in spoken word programming across Scotland."

Creative Edinburgh is the city's largest network of creatives, with the goal of celebrating and promoting the city's creativity locally, nationally and internationally. Read on for a full list of the nominees for this year's Creative Edinburgh Awards (winners in bold).

City Award

Hidden Door Festival
GRAS Studio
Boat Graphic Novel
Fisk
CodeBase
Open Close Collective

Collaboration Award

Duncan Cowles and North Merchiston Care Homes
Luke Pell and In The Ink Dark
The Architecture Fringe
Pyrus Botanicals x Laboratory Perfumes

Creativity Award

Blueroom Collective – Nowhere
Alice Carnegie – Bubblegum
Daniel Labrosse – Blue People in the Concrete Complex
Creative Electric – Sinking Horses & The Church of Broccoli

Commercial Award

CreateFuture
Cagoule
Bright Side Studios

Independent Award

Marco Bevilacqua / Want Some Studio
Robbie Walker / Pieute
Ashley Jack

Leadership Award

Jenny Lindsay
Morvern Cunningham
Martin Sweeny

Social Award

Edinburgh Soup
The John Byrne Award
Edinburgh Tool Library

Startup Award

CareSourcer
404 Ink
Custom Lane

Student Award

Alannah Cooper
Lauren Nickodemus
Olalla Borrego