A NEW CONFERENCE FROM THE BORDERS OF PERFORMANCE, ABOUT THE STATE OF THE WORLD August 21 2011, 11am – 7pm Forest Fringe, Bristo Place, Edinburgh

Pay-what-you-can. Limited tickets. For more information on speakers, installations and performances, please visit http://bit.ly/edgelands

In January 2011 as part of the State of the Arts Conference in London we created what we called a Flash Conference – a thrilling, temporary space amidst the busyness of the conference for artists and producers to come together to ask challenging questions and a virtual space online for everyone who couldn’t be present to offer their thoughts and their words and play a meaningful part in the day’s conversations.

The event was unpredictable, exciting and galvanising. Since the success of that first event we have wanted to take this project further. Whilst retaining the same adventurous energy and inclusivity, we want to see if we can create a richer and more expansive flash conference; a real opportunity for people right across the art world to meet at its edge to think about the world we inhabit and how we might help change it.

There seemed to be no better place to do this than at the Edinburgh Fringe. We felt it was important that the flash conference happen in a place where conventional modes of doing things are malleable and in flux; a place where we can think about the structures within which we operate and ask how they might work better.

This day is not about railing against authority or the great institutions of the arts. It is a day for everybody to gather at the edges of those big institutions and organisations, on equal terms. To ask daring questions and suggest implausible answers. To share a spirit of generosity and a galvanising sense of hope; that despite or perhaps because of the political, financial and environmental circumstances in which we find ourselves, the arts can and will play a part in imagining and realising a better possible future.

Kindly supported by: