Contemporary Visual Arts Programme 2025
Mount Stuart Trust are delighted to share plans for the 2025 visual arts programme. Two major presentations planned - with Linder Sterling and Thomas Abercromby.
A new project with Linder - to be fully announced shortly in collaboration with EAF (Edinburgh Art Festival) - will open the season on 14 June and run until the end of the summer. Linder Sterling (a.k.a. Linder) is most notably known and celebrated for her provocative collage and performance practice that has consistently challenged gender binaries, tradition, and history over the course of five decades. In 2017, she was named the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awardee and has a major solo retrospective opening at the Hayward Gallery in London this month which will also tour to Scotland’s Inverleith House gallery at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh as part of EAF.
Linder at the Hayward Gallery. Photo: Hazel Gaskin. Outfit: Ashish. Make-up: Kristina Ralph Andrews. Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery.
This autumn, Thomas Abercromby will present a new body of work exploring how gardens and gardening contribute to personal and collective healing. Drawing inspiration from Jamaica Kincaid’s reflections on cultivated and wild spaces, as well as her complex relationship with her mother, the project is deeply rooted in the memory of Thomas' late father, his garden, and his struggle with addiction.
Thomas Abercromby. Photo: Matthew Arthur Williams.
In 2023, Thomas' solo exhibition John at Collective in Edinburgh also centred on his father, exploring themes of family, memory, and social class. This new project extends those ideas further, connecting them directly to his personal history while engaging with broader societal issues related to class, addiction, grief, and recovery. Grief, in some form, touches everyone, and we all hold connections to the natural world, whether through family gardens, windowsill plants, local parks, forests, or the landscapes of our childhoods. Thomas seeks to capture these shared experiences, transforming them into a work that invites viewers to see their own stories reflected within it.
Ahead of the exhibition, the artist has been exploring green spaces across the Isle of Bute, including allotments and community gardens, while engaging with local residents, particularly addiction service users and collaborating with the gardeners at Mount Stuart. A series of community workshops held in Mount Stuart’s garden grounds, greenhouses, and kitchens will bring participants together through collective activities such as harvesting, walking, and shared meals, shaping the final exhibition.
The final work will unfold throughout Mount Stuart’s historic house as an immersive sound and olfactory-based installation. Weaving together the voices and recollected scents of participants with Thomas’ own reflections, the work will offer a sensory exploration of grief, memory, and recovery.
Mount Stuart Trust will also host a sixth Emerging Artist, who will be selected through an Open Call process. Full details to be announced.
In 2025 the Trust marks the thirtieth anniversary of the house and gardens first opening to the public with a year-long programme of events, 30 Years: Celebrating People and Place. Full details here.
EAF (Edinburgh Art Festival) is the UK’s largest annual festival of visual art. Founded in 2004, the festival cultivates connections between artists, collaborators and communities to develop contemporary visual art projects in Edinburgh. In August, it present the UK’s largest annual visual art festival that is deeply rooted in the city and Scotland, with a global dialogue and connection. The festival amplifies intersectional voices and perspectives. 2024 was EAF’s 20th birthday.
