list.co.uk/festival Ruth Ewan | FESTIVAL VISUAL ART
MAGIC MOMENTS
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S A L L Y J U B B P H O T O G R A P H Y
Artist Ruth Ewan and a team of magicians are taking to the streets of Edinburgh to perform magic with a political twist. Susan Mansfi eld fi nds
out about the inspiration behind the Sympathetic Magick project
E dinburgh in August is a magnet for street performers. Every vacant space in the city seems to be occupied by jugglers, i re-eaters and people dressed up as Yoda hovering two feet above the ground. When Glasgow-based artist Ruth Ewan was invited to make work as one of the director’s commissions for this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival, she knew she wanted her work to be out in the midst of the madness. ‘I really like
devising projects for particular contexts or spaces,’ she says. ‘I know Edinburgh quite well, and I’m really familiar with the festival. I was really interested in creating something that used the idea that Edinburgh is so busy and so full of performers and would add another layer to subvert that.’ In Sympathetic Magick, Ewan has orchestrated a team of magicians to join the throng of festival entertainers – on the streets, in pubs,
and in programmed events and workshops – performing magic with a political twist. Whether you i nd yourself watching ‘The Great Class Rope Struggle’ or ‘The Great Banking Trick’ – which explores the movement of money around the world – or seeing the social system being explained with reference to a deck of cards, the aim is to open up bigger ideas.
Ewan worked with Marxist magician Ian Saville and put out an open call for magicians, >>
1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 125