Having seen the Pam Hogg Runway Show as part of the Edinburgh International Fashion Festival, it was a treat to see some of her designs up close, in the eerily appropriate setting of Summerhall’s Post Mortem Room. Set up as an installation of clothing, accessories and fashion photography, the pieces fill the brilliant – though limited – space perfectly, and despite its small size, there is plenty to see here between the exquisite clothing and exhibition design.

A personal selection from Pam Hogg’s collections is surrounded by recent fashion photography by Rankin. Four full-body mannequins, domineering from their high vantage point, display a range of clothing.

Within the apt confines of the converted Dissection Room at new Arts venue Summerhall, attendees of the Edinburgh International Fashion Festival were granted the rare opportunity to see some of Pam Hogg’s most stunning designs all in one place. A Scottish designer who seldom shows in Scotland, Hogg’s runway show included personally selected looks from her last seven collections: ‘Time Machine’ AW/09, ‘Goddess at War’ SS/10, ‘Valley of the Shadow of Darkness’ AW/10, ‘To Kingdom Come’ SS/10, ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ AW/11, ‘Notre Dames’ SS/12 and ‘Wild Life’ AW/12. With highlights from these individual shows on one runway, it was inevitably going to be a spectacular and consistently rich display of stunning design, daring fetish-inspired looks, and bodysuits galore.

The Rose Street Film Programme is advertised as providing a platform for young artists who offer an oblique view of the city of Edinburgh.  It will host a variety of different films over the Festival and will be screened in the windows of shops along Rose Street.  

New to 2012 Festivals was the Edinburgh International Fashion Festival and with Edinburgh only being 409 miles away from London (now considered to be a Fashion Capital of the world) it has been a long time coming.

The Festival took place in Summerhall - the old Royal Dick Veterinary School and featured incredible Scottish designers, exhibitions, talks and workshops. It’s aim: “to feature fashion as an art form”.

As part of the Edinburgh International Fashion Festival I attended the Bebaroque AW2012 Runway Show set in the beautifully converted Dissection Room.

A sense of playfulness regarding space and the city is one of the most charming features of Anthony Schrag’s Tourist in Residence programme, part of the Edinburgh Art Festival. As Schrag explains when we arrive, we will be approaching the city with new eyes, those of tourists, and examining the nature and actions of tourism through a number of whimsical activities. 

The first room in this surprisingly vast gallery space in Stills on Cockburn Street features three large-scale, high resolution photographs of model American suburbia. The pictures themselves are devoid of humanity, sparse and give the feeling of sterile American ghost towns, but rather than crumbling buildings and rusting playgrounds, these are made up of perfectly symmetrical lawns and houses. It really does convey a new, more literal meaning to the term ‘model home’. The lack of humanity in each piece means that there doesn’t appear to be any particular narrative focus, but real life flames in one of the pictures provides intrigue and enough action to sustain interest. The most impressive aspect of the exhibition is the sheer scale of the photographs and the fact that the intricate detail of the models themselves is not lost in enlargement. You really do see something new every time you look at each picture.

Little Sparta is the unique garden creation of distinguished Scottish poet and artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. Located at the artist’s hilltop home Stonypath, in Dunsyre, Little Sparta is an estate of ten diverse gardens embodying his poetic and philosophical thoughts on The French Revolution, warfare and conflict, the sea, literature, art and Greek mythology.

The gardens reflect his ideas on the relationship between man and nature and there are over 275 works of art in stone, wood, neon, metal and glass many featuring inscription of language. Some of his ideas, sometimes touched with humour, are clear to the visitor whereas others require knowledge.

Danny boi! Having only seen images or You Tube clips of extreme bike rider Danny MacAskill it was incredible to watch him perform live in St Andrew Square.

His show, which curiously featured as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival, drew a huge crowd during lunch hour. Plenty of young and inspired fans had flocked to see their hero and the show began with the announcement that the loudest cheering fan would win an autographed t-shirt. I was rather tempted by the prize! 

A breathtaking project not least for its scale and innovative use of technology, Speed of Light will be hard to miss and probably one of the most talked about events of Edinburgh International Festival 2012.  With the UK gripped by Olympic fever and mesmerised by Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony, it seems fitting that a land-art show with community, creative and competitive spirit at its heart would shine brightest.

Kinetic energy emitted by hundreds of runners will create a land-based glowing galaxy beneath Arthur's Seat in NVA director Angus Farquhar's latest Festival event. Words Mark Fisher

Keen followers of NVA know to expect the unexpected. Buying a ticket to one of the Glasgow company's events means opening yourself up to a quite extraordinary experience.

Speed of Light, in contrast to previous NVA installations, is positively urban, taking place not at the furthest reaches of the Scottish countryside, but on the slopes of Arthur's Seat, the iconic 250m peak at the heart of Edinburgh's Holyrood Park. In an imaginative response to the Olympic Games, it is a piece of choreographed athletics, featuring hundreds of runners.

"It's about intentional movement made manifest as energy through light," says creative director Angus Farquhar.

Harry Hill is making a much-talked about appearance in Edinburgh this year - with a stand up show and as an artist holding his first public exhibition. Words Mark Fisher

There are many reasons we may know Harry Hill. Perhaps it is as the large-collared stand-up, making light of light entertainment in TV Burp. Perhaps it is as the masterful voiceover artist who transformed You’ve Been Framed! from a cheap clippings compendium into half an hour of must-see hilarity.

Whatever your reason, however, you are unlikely to know him as an artist. Certainly not one whose name might be mentioned alongside Turner Prize winners Richard Wright, Susan Philipsz and Martin Creed. Yet here he is, exhibiting alongside these artworld greats in the Edinburgh Art Festival with a show called My Hobby, in addition to his much-talked about comedy show at The Stand.

400 Women is a memorial to all women. Not only is it a body of works dedicated to individuals who died as subjects of depraved acts of violence, it debunks the sick destruction through reinterpretation. By having almost two hundred other artists get involved to create the pieces, Tamsyn Challenger has generated awareness of the painfully brutal fact that in Mexico hundreds of women are being abused and murdered in epidemic proportions. 

Spring Has Sprung but the Stance Still Stands is a lot more than an alliterative masterpiece. It is also a deeply introspective look at the connections between seemingly random incidents in our lives by two talented young artists, Hilary Donald and Joe Sloan, an exhibition of inter-related art hosted in an unoccupied flat in Stockbridge.

Hiroshi Sugimoto has an acclaimed portfolio of work, and as the exhibition’s entrance rightly claims, can boast the creation of “some of the most celebrated images of our time.” If you’re looking for art but not sure where to begin with so much going on this month, this is a good place to start. It’s a short exhibition of large, striking images by an important artist. Concise blurbs accompany the two parts, Photogenic Drawings and Lightning Fields.

From the gentle brushstrokes of the Impressionists to the hard-edged drama
of Atsuo Okamoto’s granite sculptures, Edinburgh is going all arty in August.

EAF EXPO EXHIBITIONS
6 Times
Various sites
From 22 June
6 Times is a landmark series of sculptures by celebrated British artist Anthony Gormley, whose other work includes the iconic Angel of the North, has positioned six life-sized figures between the grounds of Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the sea. Discover these striking figures along the scenic Water of Leith.
 
7 ARTISTS: EDINBURGH SOUL
Union Gallery
www.uniongallery.co.uk
5 August - 6 September, Mon-Sat, 10.30am-6pm; Sun, 12-6pm
An exhibition featuring seven of Edinburgh’s finest and most exciting artists, full of iconic and powerful imagery.