By Susan Mansfield

Published 23rd Apr 2025, 13:05 BST

Updated 23rd Apr 2025, 13:10 BST

Walker & Bromwich: Searching for a Change of Consciousness, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh ★★★★

Trading Zone 2025, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh ★★★

Andrew J Brooks: TOLL – Five Years On, The Paper Factory, Edinburgh ★★★★

Neil Walker and Zoe Bromwich have a well established art practice, but this is the first gallery survey of their work because their projects generally happen out in the world, after lengthy periods of social engagement. Over more than two decades, the Glasgow-based duo has carved out a niche for participatory work which is idealistic in attitude and celebratory in tone and features large-scale inflatable sculptures.

Three of these squeezed into Talbot Rice’s Georgian Gallery is an impressive sight: the 35-metre Serpent of Capitalism has to coil in on itself just to fit. That said, while they are striking in scale, the sculptures are inseparable from the contexts for which they were made. Each is accompanied by a documentary film.

The Serpent of Capitalism was borne aloft at a music festival in Denmark in 2018, accompanied by chanting figures in priestly garb. The aim was to reclaim the “sacred” serpent, part of various ancient and indigenous origin stories, which has been “corrupted” into a symbol of capitalism (the duo were inspired by a political allegory by Walter Crane).

This work encapsulates some key Walker & Bromwich ideas: concerns with systems, the planet and social justice; inspiration from ancient and indigenous cultures; a desire to open up space for considering alternative futures. The suite of watercolours in the upper gallery express many of these ideas too, showing the importance of drawing and painting in the development of the work.

Installation view of the Walker & Bromwich exhibition at Talbot Rice Gallery PIC: Sally Jubb

The Encampment of Eternal Hope is one such space for discussion and activities, framed by inflatable missiles which morph into trees and cannons which blossom (the Love Cannon has been part of the W&B repertoire since 2005, featuring in their most recent work in Indonesia in 2024). It has been staged several times, including during COP26 when it provided a platform for representatives of indigenous peoples from the Colombian Amazon to talk about climate change.

Arguably, the most powerful work here, though, is Slate or State, a community engagement project carried out in North Wales in 2017. Penrhyn Castle was once home to the Pennant family who made their fortune in the plantations and had a similarly unenlightened attitude towards the workers in their slate quarry, one of the largest in the world.

A bitter three-year strike at the turn of the century pitted workers against owners, and workers against one another, creating deep fissures in the nearby village of Bethesda which are still felt today. In a visionary commission by National Trust Wales, which is now responsible for the castle, Walker & Bromwich were invited to explore that history.

A programme of community engagement culminated in a procession from village to castle by the local male voice choir, bearing aloft an inflatable sculpture of a volcanic rock named Talcen Mawr, found in the quarry, which proved resistant to quarriers and became a symbol of resistance.

Defenders of Faith, 2025 by Eilidh McKeown at Talbot Rice Gallery

In the accompanying film we see them process with real solemnity, sing their protest songs on the castle lawn then knock on the door demanding entry. While the serpent at the music festival feels like hard-wrought idealism imposed on a bunch of revellers, this is socially engaged art at its best, an indication of the power of symbolism to reclaim a story, even one in which the participants are long dead, in order to bring about some kind of healing.

Reference points from ancient myth and times of political idealism are evident in the emerging art in Talbot Rice’s “student exhibition”, Trading Zone 2025. Reviving the tradition of a student show for the gallery’s 50th anniversary year, eleven bodies of work have been selected, from ECA graduates and PhD students in art, design and creative writing.

Keziah Greenwood draws on mythic creatures, particularly the chimera, to look at the experience of otherness in an installation which looks a lot like a theatrical set. Inayah looks to myth too, drawing on Buraq, a winged horse in Islamic mythology, to explore the experiences of young, queer Muslims.

Eilidh McKeown is interested in who and what incurs faith in contemporary post-industrial communities which have lost the identities and politics they once had. She has created a beautifully tongue-in-cheek banner featuring money guru Martin Lewis and imprinted slogans on slices of toast.

Toll: Five Years On at the Paper Mill, Edinburgh

Several of the artists are concerned with providing a platform for voices and stories which might not otherwise be told: illustrator Hanayo Kabuta uses words and images to tell the stories of people affected by war in Syria and the West Bank. Emily Beaney’s analogue film, Deviant, giving a voice to the experiences of women suffering from endometriosis, is one of the strongest works here.

Ross Dickson is fascinated by archaeology and ancient sites, but his packed installation feels confused and confusing. Victoria Evans’ multi-channel sound composition uses data from satellites to altered domestic sounds, but it’s a tough listen.

While there are interesting subjects here, some of the artists need to focus more on what they want to say and how to communicate that to an audience. While Trading Zone is beautifully curated and installed by Talbot Rice’s James Clegg, this doesn’t always make up for the moments when the work fails to communicate.

It’s hard to believe it’s been five years since the first recorded death in the UK from Covid-19. Artist, architect and musician Andrew J Brooks marked the occasion by showing his monumental work on paper, TOLL, for two days only at the Paper Factory on Turnhouse Road, the former industrial complex now managed by Hidden Door which will host their festival in June.

Fully unrolled in this show for the first time, TOLL is 60 metres long – even in the vast Crane Shed it had to be shown in two pieces. Brooks has made a mark in ink for each of the lives lost to Covid in the first year of the pandemic, a shocking 145,652. He also filmed the making of the work in 52 performances, one week of deaths at a time, a total of some 37 hours.

The work reveals the week-by-week ramping up of the pandemic: five deaths in the first week became 115 in the second, 610 in the third and within a few weeks over 9,000. As many lives were lost in the second wave as in the first, while politicians partied and gave PPE contracts to their cronies. This is a memorial, yes, but it’s about anger too: some of these deaths were preventable.

Mostly, though, it’s about trying to fit our heads around the scale of the loss, one relentless mark at a time. Life moved on, but not for everyone. Covid changed us in so many ways, and every so often, we need to stop and remember.

Walker & Bromwich: Searching for a Change of Consciousness and Trading Zone 2025 both run until 31 May; Andrew J Brooks: TOLL – Five Years On, run ended.

Art reviews: Walker & Bromwich | Trading Zone 2025 | Andrew J Brooks