Dîdâr: I Am The Feather And The Bird Is The Precipice - Facilitated Critique

Dîdâr: I Am The Feather And The Bird Is The Precipice is a facilitated critique taking place at Summerhall on Saturday 17 October, part of a wider exhibition that's running in the Lab Gallery from 9 to 18 October. The session is hosted by writer, critic and podcaster Bram Gieben, who'll be leading a critical reflection on the ideas and questions the exhibition raises. It's one of several events built around the show, so it works best if you've had a chance to see the work first.

At the centre of it all is a series of fine art photographs by Franco-Iranian photographer XEDER, created in collaboration with artist Alex Rigg, with further contributions from Danna Sim, Topaz Pauls and Suzi Cunningham. The exhibition is preoccupied with what it calls 'life-forms of the precipice' — grief, separation, cries and silence, destruction, death and birth — and their inhabitants: ghosts, prophets and crises. It brings together photography, performance, spoken word and critical discussion, so the images become starting points for other forms of encounter, interpretation and experience.

There's a strong community element to the whole thing: writers, poets and members of the public were invited to respond to the photographs and to themes of encounter, identity, memory, distance, belonging and connection. Those responses are being gathered into a publication that accompanies the show and were brought to life through live readings. The facilitated critique on the 17th is one of the ways those conversations continue in person, rather than just sitting on a wall.

If you're planning to go, keep in mind that a content warning for nudity applies. The exhibition itself is free to visit at the Lab Gallery, 1 Summerhall, Edinburgh EH9 1PL, open Wednesday to Sunday from 11am to 5pm. The critique is on Saturday 17 October, and the exhibition runs until the 18th, so you've got a few days to wander through the photographs before the discussion.