Edinburgh is once again joyfully alive with creativity and originality as the UK’s largest arts event returns. Staged in the oak grove of the city’s Botanical Gardens, the opening night of the 2025 Edinburgh Art Festival presented a sensory explosion that set the tone for the entire run.

British artist Linder’s dazzling, genre-defying performance spectacle fused Holly Blakey’s visceral choreography, Maxwell Sterling’s haunting soundscapes and Ashish Gupta’s flamboyant fashion, showcasing an eerie synthesis of body and nature.

This year – the 21st edition – offers a rich celebration of memory, identity and imagination, and with 82 exhibitions across 45 venues, it’s the biggest yet. Here’s our pick of the best from a visual feast for lovers of contemporary art.

1. Linder: Danger Came Smiling

This exciting show is a retrospective spanning five decades of fearless, boundary-pushing art. From punk and feminist photomontages to surreal fashion interventions and video work, Linder dissects our cultural obsessions with feminism, fairytales, flora and the human form. A rich tapestry of provocation and enchantment, this is a show not to be missed.

Royal Botanic Garden, Arboretum Place until October 19 2025, free

2. Who Will Be Remembered Here

Lewis Hetherington and CJ Mahony present a powerful, poetic film connecting queer lives across Scottish heritage sites. Developed in collaboration with Historic Environment Scotland, this is a deeply moving multilingual tribute to silenced histories and a comment on the erasure of cultures and identities. Personal stories are performed with passion in English, Scots, Gaelic and BSL. The show features places imbued with personal meaning, such as the industrial ruins of Biggar gasworks and the 2000-year-old Machrie Moor stone circle on Arran.

EAF Pavilion, 45 Leith Street until August 24 2025, free

3. Drama 1882

The UK premiere of Egyptian artist Wael Shawky’s exhibition explores the Anglo-Egyptian war through film installation featuring puppetry, drawings and historical narrative. Visually stunning and politically resonant, Shawky narrates religious wars, the Crusades and events leading up to the British occupation of Egypt from an Arab perspective. The show embraces lesser known and contradictory accounts to represent the making of history from an alternative perspective.

Talbot Rice Gallery, South Bridge until September 28 2025, free

4. Fire on the Mountain, Light on the Hill

Buenos Aires-based artist Mercedes Azpilicueta’s monumental tapestry weaves stories of protest and political expression in a vibrant collage of archival and contemporary imagery. Referencing war, food economies, collective action and women-led rights movements, this is a powerful and insightful commentary on overlooked histories. August 22 marks Azpilicueta’s live performance exploring themes of the struggles and resistance of women – real and fictional – across time.

The Collective Gallery, City Observatory at Calton Hill until September 7 2025, free; live performance on Calton Hill, August 22, free

5. Humpty Dumpty

British artist Mike Nelson has appropriated the Fruitmarket’s Warehouse space to recreate a haunting labyrinth of a derelict housing estate in his latest show. Unable to put things back together again, the installations arise from two sets of photographs documenting the condemned Heygate council estate in London, and new infrastructure building plans in Mardin, a city in eastern Turkey, near the Syrian border. The work captures cities in flux, commenting on construction and destruction, global politics and people’s struggle against regeneration, gentrification and social cleansing.

Fruitmarket Gallery, 45 Market Street until October 5, 2025, free

6. Give Light And People Will Find The Way (Ella Baker)

Scottish-Pakistani artist Rabiya Choudhry joins Chloe Reith (The Common Guild) and Martha Burns (National Library of Scotland) in conversation to discuss her new installation. Drawing on the legacy of African-American civil rights activist Ella Baker, it merges her powerful and inspiring words with Andrew Carnegie’s flaming torch – a symbol of enlightenment and public access to knowledge.

The illuminated work, representing collective strength, resilience and the power of learning, finds its permanent home at Craigmillar Library, a civic space rooted in community. The unveiling coincides with Dear Library, a new exhibition celebrating the centenary of the National Library of Scotland, and reflecting the role of libraries as beacons of hope and empowerment.

Craigmillar Library, 101 Niddrie Mains Road; Dear Library in-conversation event with Rabiya Choudhry, National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge, August 14, 5.30pm, free

7. Resistance

Curated by British artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen, this striking show explores how countercultures and acts of protest have shaped life across the UK, and the powerful role of photography in documenting and driving change. It features renowned photographers such as Paul Trevor, Fay Godwin, Vanley Burke, John Deakin and Tish Murtha alongside lesser-known names. Underrepresented and marginalised voices are highlighted in this compelling exploration of overlooked histories.

Modern Two, National Galleries of Scotland, 73 Belford Road until January 4 2026, £14 (£2-£12 concession)

8. The Edinburgh Seven Tapestry

This extraordinary piece of work designed by Scottish artist Christine Borland and created by the city’s Dovecot Studios, commemorates the first women to enrol at Edinburgh University to study medicine. In 1870, the Surgeons’ Hall riot saw student and public protesters attempting to block the seven women from sitting an anatomy exam. Although the riot proved unsuccessful, the women’s fight to qualify as doctors eventually led to the Medical Act of 1876, legally permitting women to practise medicine.

The tapestry was created using a combination of traditional and modern materials and techniques. Borland’s organic shapes are ingeniously based on cellular structure in motion, with magenta and cyan hues representing the dyes that were used in both textiles and the scientific staining of human cells in the 19th century.

Edinburgh Futures Institute, 1 Lauriston Place until December 31 2025, free

9. Ring of Truth

A rare fusion of art, music and ancient philosophy makes up this collaboration between artists, musicians and historians. The show explores cosmic harmony and mysticism inspired by the Music of the Spheres manuscripts – ancient Coptic compositions from 5th and 6th-century Egypt. It features the work of Nurah Farahat, Haroon Mirza, Jack Jelfs, Craig Coulthard, Luke Fowler, David Maclean, Julie Johnstone, Edward Summerton, Alan Grieve and William Voelkle.

Blackie House, 6 Wardrop’s Court until August 24, free

10. Let Me Show You Who I Am

Created to be shown on billboards across the city, Alice Rekab’s arresting work delves into themes of diaspora, migration, queer identity and mixed heritage. The artworks have been created through a dynamic series of workshops exploring Black and Irish legacies of community activism and creativity across the UK. The artist’s explorations of Irish, Sierra Leonean, and Syrian family histories create powerful visual narratives of belonging.

Across Edinburgh until August 24, free

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Katarzyna Kosmala does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.