Jupiter Rising x Edinburgh Art Festival announces special conversation with Lena Dunham and Lindsey Mendick

Jupiter Artland and Edinburgh Art Festival today reveals a very special guest who will join the lineup for JUPITER RISING x EAF 2023 which takes place on Saturday 19 August from 6pm until 1am at Jupiter Artland, the middle weekend of Edinburgh Festival.

Lena Dunham will join artist Lindsey Mendick for Shameful Women, a special conversation at JUPITER RISING x EAF. Having both challenged conventions and sparked crucial conversations through their respective works, in this special one-off event, Lindsey and Lena will speak openly and honestly about their personal experiences, as well as exploring what Shameful Women means to them and the ways in which it impacts their lives.

Clockwise from top: Jupiter Rising 2022, Photo by Tiu-Makkonen; Sgàire Woods, Photo by @spit.ting on instagram; Lindsey Mendick, SH*TFACED, Exhibition preview at Jupiter Artland, Photo by Robert Diament; STASIS Summer Party! David Dale 2018, Photo by Daniel Cook.

Lena Dunham is a writer, director, actor and producer born and raised in New York City. Her first feature length film, Tiny Furniture, won an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. She is the creator and star of HBO’s Girls, which ran for six seasons and garnered 11 Primetime Emmy nominations. She won two Golden Globes, a Writer’s Guild Award and was the first woman to win the DGA award for best director for a television comedy. Her prose has been published in The New Yorker, The Guardian, Vogue, Harper’s Magazine and The New York Times.

Jupiter Rising is curated by rising star artist Lindsey Mendick, whose solo commission SH*TFACED is currently presented across Jupiter Artland’s galleries. Mendick has rapidly established herself as one of the most important artists of her generation. She works predominantly with clay, and houses her artwork in life-like installations, recreating scenes from her personal life. SH*TFACED is her largest commission to date and presents a contemporary view of duality and supposed binaries between good and evil, virtue and depravity and gender roles.

“These two women bring their power of observation and relentlessly confessional instincts to site their work in a most compelling medium themselves. This talk is not about women and shame, it’s an exploration about shameful, proud women that transmute shame into observations that resonate with us all. Mendick does not shy away from confession and mess as she presents unflinching observations of the power of drink – it’s fun and it’s optimism alongside the messiness and regret that it also inflicts” says Jupiter Artland Founder and Director Nicky Wilson.

Curated by artist Lindsey Mendick and workers’ co-op Bonjour, a queer owned bar, club and community space in Glasgow, this year’s JUPITER RISING x EAF features artist-performance, live music, workshops and DJ sets from An(dre)a Spisto and Joana Nastari, Guy Oliver, Honey Revlon, Pink Suits, Sgàire Woods, STASIS, Ziah Ziah and a new commissioned performance by Lindsey Mendick. Bonjour’s Late Night Stage brings together two of Scotland’s favourite QTIPOC (and ally) cabaret and club nights MOJXMMA and Q’IWA with sets from Halal Kitty and Jam Eye and performance by Lala Munan, Malaikah, Thea Transformo, Kiki Rivera and Caramella Coins.

Inspired by muse Lindsey Mendick, JUPITER RISING is collaborating with EAF to present the first one-night only party at Jupiter, expertly curated by Mendick and queer workers’ co-op Bonjour. Expect dancing, karaoke, DJs, performances and live music across the iconic landscape of Jupiter Artland, just 30 minutes from the city centre.

Kim McAleese, Director, Edinburgh Art Festival, says, “We are thrilled to collaborate with Jupiter Artland on this amazing one night event, with such a fantastic range of collaborators and performers and curated by active, important and exciting artists and arts workers. Our EAF 2023 programme is one which seeks to platform local grassroots artists alongside those working globally and is a programme which is deeply connected to feminist and queer practice. This event will be a key moment in our 2023 programme and will also of course be a memorable day and night of art, music and dancing and for people to come together”

Highlights include:

● Lena Dunham in-conversation with Lindsey Mendick on shameful women

● A newly commissioned performance by Lindsey Mendick followed by an artist-inspired summer BBQ

● Cake-related promenade piece by performance-collective STASIS (Aniela Piasecka, Paloma Proudfoot, Olivia Norris and Isabel Palmstierna)

● A toast to the virtues of slugs by neuroqueer clown An(dre)a Spinsto and artist Joana Nastari

● Work by poet and filmmaker Guy Oliver and Sex Siren workshop led by Honey Revlon to practise your ballroom moves

● The return of JUPITER RISING favourite Sgàire Woods for Sgàireoke!

● Queer Country favourites performed by Pink Suits and live music by Ziah Ziah

● Late Night Stage curated by Bonjour with DJ sets by Mojxmma’s Halal Kitty and Jam Eye and performances by Q’IWA’s Lala Munan, Malaikah, Thea Transformo, Kiki Rivera and Caramella Coins

“As part of Jupiter Artland’s public programmes across the summer, Jupiter and Edinburgh Art Festival are co-commissioning Lindsey to curate a one-night-only edition of our annual Jupiter Rising festival alongside some of Scotland’s best DJs, artists and performers. This free event continues Jupiter’s mission to support artists at every stage of their career. It will be an unmissable night” says Nicky Wilson, Director of Jupiter Artland