BIG SPELL open day, Sunday 23 August 2026, 12 - 8pm. Free.

You are warmly invited to our whole building open day with exhibitions, talks, screenings, open studios and performances.
About this Event

Whole building event with contribution from over 60 members at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop.

Sunday 23 August 2026, 12 – 8pm

Schedule*

12 – 6pm Exhibitions open in courtyard and inside the building

12 – 1.30pm Loop Talks

2 – 4pm Open Studios

2 – 6pm The REEL screening programme

6 – 8pm Courtyard performances, readings, celebration

*These times are subject to small changes.

There will also be SPELL Incantations happening during the event at 12pm, 2pm and 6pm.

About the Event

BIG SPELL is a day of sharing centred on ESW members, celebrating the infinite possibilities, the circular community and commitment to practice.

https://edinburghsculpture.org/events-featured/save-the-date-big-spell-sunday-23-august-2026-12-8pm/

The event takes inspiration from the regenerative nature of working at ESW where each person’s ideas, efforts and skills feed in to create the ongoing momentum for the whole community of practice. This has brought to mind imagery of the ouroboros – the snake eating itself – an icon with meanings across multiple cultures and within disciplines from alchemy to psychology, all understanding the power of self-reflexivity, and the idea that matter and energy are never lost, but perpetually change form. These ideas reflect the chance for a certain form of stability within uncertainty – a confidence in the ability we have together to create and support each other, as sure as the cycles of the sun.

Casting the Spell

The word spell holds several meanings at once: a time, an incantation, a meeting, a charm. The event takes its name and its structure from this multiplicity.

Join us in the melting pot of ideas, of conversation, skill sharing and creation — a bubbling witch’s brew.

Become part of the assembly.¹

Build a cinema in a cave.²

Or a net woven of your own hair, put it in the holy place.³

There is the potential to spin off in a million different directions at once.⁴

¹ László Moholy-Nagy, Image Sequences; Series, 1946 ² Robert Smithson, A Cinematic Atopia, 1971 ³ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, 1988 ⁴ Adam Chodzko in conversation with Dave Barrett, Art Monthly, 2001

BIG SPELL is part of ESW's Summer Programme and Edinburgh Art Festival. You can view all our summer exhibitions during the event, including solo presentations by Kate Power, Esther Castle and Etchingroom1 and an exhibition made by children in our Schools Programme called Fair Play. Edinburgh Art Festival exhibitions and events run until the end of August.

Free, all welcome.

Anyone can come along, if you book in advance it helps us to plan.