From starting The Database in 2018 to preserving its legacy today, Fringe of Colour founder and director Jess Brough looks back to where it all began and celebrates another beautiful summer with Artists of Colour at the Edinburgh festivals.
Read the Editorial now at fringeofcolour.co.uk/responses-home or by heading to the 🔗🌳 in bio.
📸 by @aileenang_
#FringeOfColour
📸The Big Artists of Colour Meet-Up / 14-08-2025📸 Part 2!
Thank you for the hugs, for the conversation, for the cheers and the electric slide. What a night!
And thank you @aileenang_ for these magic photos 🧡
#FringeOfColour
📸The Big Artists of Colour Meet-Up / 14-08-2025📸 Part 1!
Wow... what an incredible summer. There is so much to say about the last few weeks, but for now I just want to thank everyone who showed up for our big party at the Festival Theatre. This event was a thing of beauty that surpassed my wildest dreams 😍🧡🧡🧡
A huge thank you goes out to Aileen Lees @aileenang_ who took these stunning photos and captured these moments of joy and reflection with style. If anyone would like to see the full album, please get in touch with me at [email protected]. Here's a selection for now - and more to come in landscape mode, since Instagram can't handle anything as complex as a different aspect ratio 😶
Our venue was sponsored by the @edintfest and I am so grateful to the folks who made this happen. I also want to take this moment to reiterate that Fringe of Colour is in solidarity with the arts workers calling for the Edinburgh International Festival to drop Baillie Gifford as a sponsor. Baillie Gifford holds millions of pounds worth of investment in fossil fuel industries and exploitative tech companies that are actively harming millions of people in the Global South, and arms companies that are providing deadly weapons to the Israeli military. FoC is also in solidarity with the workers of the Edinburgh International Festival - the people who are making wonderful things happen behind the scenes, who are not in charge of making big organisational decisions and deserve to work for a festival that is doing great things for arts lovers, not art-washing genocide. As artists and arts workers, we must have the right to work with organisations that support human rights and reflect our values.
Thank you so much to everyone who attended this special event - the carpeted floor was no match for your dance moves and the vibes were immaculate.
🧡❤️🔥🧡❤️🔥🧡❤️🔥
#FringeOfColour
I would say "nothing feeds us like community," but @uwagboeskitchen offered to sponsor our Big Meet-Up for Artists of Colour on the 14th and did the most incredible job of keeping us full and nourished, for what was a truly unforgettable evening.
Thank you endlessly to John and his team of superstar chefs. Make sure to check out Uwagboe's Kitchen and Grill on Leith Walk for all your delicious Nigerian food needs 🧡🍛🍲🍚🧡
These stunning photos were captured by the wonderful @aileenang_ who understands that plantain needs its own special close-up. 10/10 photographer relationship, would recommend always!
A huge thank you also goes out to our partner @edintfest who sponsored the event by providing the kickass venue, to the Festival Theatre team @captheatres who made hosting and catering so easy and enjoyable, and to @lula.xyz for arranging the food sponsor.
If there's no food, it's not our party!!
In this Response to Shaparak Khorsandi’s Edinburgh Fringe show Scatterbrain, Shivam Chowdhary describes the joy of watching a performer revel in their ADHD mind, and the ache that comes with finding oneself on the outside of a diagnosis.
Read the full Response at fringeofcolour.co.uk/responses-home or head to our 🔗🌳
#FringeOfColour #NewWriting
Thank you @fringeofcolour@oommoo.xyz and @lula.xyz for this beautiful gathering of the Black and brown folx of the Edinburgh Fringe! I cannot tell you how special this truly is!
In our latest Response, writer Haneul Lee responds to @edfringe show Falling: A Disabled Love Story by Aaron Pang, exploring the mainstream media’s obsession with disabled bodies and why disabled people get to be seen as “cute” but rarely “sexy.”
Read it now at fringeofcolour.co.uk/responses-home or by heading to our 🔗🌳
🛋Need a space to sit and chill between shows? A quiet place to read, where you don't feel obliged to buy a drink?📚
For the next couple of weeks, Fringe of Colour will be operating its Living Room in partnership with the @edartfest . You'll find a quiet space to drop in, sit, and de-stress from the noise of Edinburgh in August. Come by from 10 am - 5pm tomorrow (8th) or on the 11th and 18th and take a break.
The EAF also has some beautiful, cosy, expansive exhibitions on at the moment by some brilliant Scottish and Scotland-based Artists of Colour. Stop by the Pavillion at the top of Leith Street (no. 45) and say hi! 👋🏽
As many of you are already painfully aware, the funding situation for Artists of Colour in Scotland right now is pretty dire, for a number of frustrating reasons. Due to Fringe of Colour's own funding woes, this summer everything is being done on the short end of a shoe string. It's DIY and that's okay! But it would be great to be able to do a bit more with a bit more, to avoid finishing August at a loss. If you can spare £5 (hey, or £500, don't let me stop you!) please do drop it in Fringe of Colour's collection box via paypal.com/paypalme/fringeofcolour or through the linktree in our bio.
Your money will help fund:
💰 Nurturing and supportive community events
💰 The continuous running of FoC's platform and back-end operations (subscriptions, domain fees, accounting, etc.)
💰 Access costs, such as audio described publications
💰 Future activities and community work
You can help directly by donating or by sharing this post. Thanks very much! 💸💸
🎨 Background by @yema.visuals
*Hoping to move to a better donation platform in the future, but working with what's available for now. Will gladly hear your recommendations for good alternatives to PayPal!
Thank you, gorgeous people, for making our first meet-up of the summer so good. It was great to hear about all your stunning shows and see you making plans to catch each other's work 🫡
Mega thanks to @lighthousebks for their hospitality. You'll want to find yourselves back there next week for 📚Book Fringe📚 - a series of free lunchtime talks from 13:00 - 14:00 each day with some incredibly cool, radical authors, including @eloosunde , @katie_goh_ , @paulaakpan , @rajarrar , @vashtiharrison , @yasminerifaii , @dayna_ash and more. You can book via the Lighthouse website to ensure a seat or risk it & just show up. Definitely an August highlight and a Fringe of Colour favourite 👌🏽
FREE PROMO! Is this illegal? It feels illegal...
The Fringe of Colour IG story is just sitting there silently, waiting for some juicy Edinburgh shows to whoop and rave about. If you're an Artist of Colour taking work to the Edinburgh festivals (or a company representing those shows) make sure to tag @fringeofcolour in your posts/reels/stories to get a few extra eyes on your posters, trailers, and announcements 👀✌🏼
Background by @yema.visuals 🎨
☀️🎟Meet-up and Ticket Swap!🎟☀️
Join us for a casual meet-up with a twist, for all Artists of Colour involved in the Edinburgh Festivals.
We're very literal when it comes to the idea of showing up for one another. Each attendee should bring one comp ticket to their show/event to exchange for another ticket in a "lucky dip" style swap. Tickets should be valid for August.
Find more info about this and all our other festival event at fringeofcolour.co.uk/events.
Fringe Central / 6 August / 12:00 - 13:00
📸@overelated
