ShowGround
2025-26: a series of responses to Portobello’s showground entertainment, of sideshow, circus arts, puppetry and more. Arcade involved 5 artist commissions for our 10th Art Walk Porty festival, with new writing from Merlyn Seller published in Oct 2025. Since then we’ve been working with Portobello High School and Edinburgh College of Art who are creating performances and installations in response to ShowGround as part of our 2026 Spring Cluster.
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Circling the Fair Ground
Play gives and it takes, it’s serious business. When Fun City closed in 1998, its rides were taken far from Portobello, but no-one took away the arcade, and with Art Walk Projects’ 2025 Arcade commissions, we’re reminded of what play can help us grasp. As game studies scholar Aaron Trammell has it, play takes from…
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Arcade
In response to Portobello’s seaside era of showground entertainment and travelling showpeople culture, ARCADE explored public spaces in and around Portobello Beach and Promenade as a playground for encounter. A series of performance and installation based works were created featuring circus, acrobatics, dance, theatre, puppetry and film. Works were commissioned by Art Walk Projects for…
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The Portobello Moonlight Revue! with Gretchen Maynard-Hahn and Portobello High School
Students at Portobello High School have over the last few months been working with visiting artist and puppet maker, Gretchen Maynard-Hahn, to create a collection of large-scale parade puppets inspired by Portobello’s rich seaside and showground heritage. Across a series of hands-on workshops, students explored character design, simple mechanisms, and sculptural making techniques using lightweight…
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Circling the Fair Ground
New writing now published from Dr Merlyn Seller in response to this year’s ARCADE programme as part of the 2025 Art Walk Porty Festival.
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Tide & Seek
Over recent months we have working with teaching fellow Alicia Bruce and third year ECA students on a project that responds to our 2025 theme of ShowGround, inspired by Portobello’s entertainment era of live sideshow, theatre, puppetry, circus arts and more. An afternoon of performances and installations is planned for Friday 13 March as part…