Linder: A kind of glamour about me

14 Jun-31 Aug 2025

Overview

Seminal feminist artist Linder will present a major new performance work in two parts this Summer. The work is the first of its kind to ever come to Scotland and taking place across two iconic locations, first presented at Mount Stuart with an exhibition, then opening EAF25 to coincide with Linder: Danger Came Smiling touring to Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Co-commissioned by EAF (Edinburgh Art Festival) and Mount Stuart Trust, A kind of glamour about me is a new performance by Linder  in collaboration with choreographer Holly Blakey, composer Maxwell Sterling and fashion designer Ashish Gupta. For Linder, the title epitomises the transcendent power of the creative arts in a person’s identity and social mobility.

Linder at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh for EAF and Mount Stuart. Photo: Charlotte Cullen. Stylist: Rebecca Palmer. Make-up: Kala Williams. Courtesy the artist and EAF.

The performance debuts at Mount Stuart on 14 June, alongside an exhibition running until 31 August 2025. Supported by Art Fund and The Ampersand Foundation, the work draws inspiration from Mount Stuart’s architecture and gardens, both rich in mythical and decorative motifs. Linder will create a series of ‘traces’ - costumes, props, works on paper, photography, and writings - that will subtly animate the interiors of the Neo-Gothic mansion.

A new modular tapestry, created by Linder in dialogue with Ashish Gupta’s costumes, will be a central element of the performance. Crafted by the master weavers of West Dean Tapestry Studio and infused with the Surrealist history of West Dean College, the tapestry will appear as a physical and performative manifestation of Linder’s distinctive photomontage practice: woven fragments, shaped as body parts and bodily adornments from armour to epaulettes, are worn, wrapped and rearranged in a continuous act of assembly and disassembly by the performers choreographed by Holly Blakey.

After Mount Stuart, A kind of glamour about me will travel to the mystical Oak Lawn at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh (7 August) to open EAF25. The work will weave together imagery from the stained glass windows, anthropomorphic furniture on Bute, references to Linder’s own archive of imagery and the enticing presence of nature situated across both sites.