One of the quiet highlights of this year's Edinburgh Art Festival is surely Andrew Miller's The Waiting Place, set not far away from Ronald Rae's recumbent lion in St Andrew Square, writes John Ross Maclean.
This severely charming structure in black, recycled cedar and metal – described variously as 'a pavilion/bothy/kiosk/folly' for 'people waiting for diffent things to happen' (the latter a quotation from Dr Seuss's Oh the Places You'll Go) – also serves as a Festival venue.
In itself it is a caesura of calm and contemplation, not unlike a haiku which composes itself within the pelting sounds of a great city.
[img_assist|nid=3307|title=|desc=|link=node|align=right|width=133|height=200]One of the happenings within it on 21 August was an exhilarating reading of Ian Hamilton Finlay's poetry and reminiscences by his son (and fellow poet) Alex Finlay. It was a magical half-hour accentuated by drumming rain, a thrum of traffic, and sudden shafts of sunlight – of which amalgam Ian Hamilton Finlay would have happily approved.
The Waiting Place was constructed specifically for the Art Festival, and will be dismantled after 2 September. Staff say that the future of the structure is uncertain, but Andrew Miller hopes it may be purchased as a work of art in its own right. This reviewer fervently hopes there will be a sequestered spot for it in the Botanics where it surely belongs.
For up-to-date information on events happening at The Waiting Place, visit: www.edinburghartfestival.com
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