Glasgow is set to transform once again as Glasgow International 2026 returns this June, bringing a city-wide programme of exhibitions, performances and public projects that stretch across institutions, artist-led spaces and community sites.
Running from 5th–21st June, the 11th edition of Scotland’s biennial festival of contemporary art brings together a wide range of practices and voices, moving between personal and ancestral memory, intergenerational exchange and the shifting textures of land, water and place.
This year’s programme leans into experimentation and duration, with projects unfolding across multiple formats — from one-off performances to installations that continue beyond the festival itself. The city becomes both stage and material, with artists working through questions of ecology, labour, migration and collective memory.
Among the highlights, Kate Cooper presents a new commission at Kelvin Hall exploring intergenerational thinking through conversations with children, while Jasmine Togo-Brisby makes her European solo debut at GoMA with installations addressing histories of enslavement and domestic labour.
At Tramway, Jericho Mars develops a seven-month project rooted in repetition and sustained attention, while the vast space is also transformed by Rae-Yen Song into a subaquatic environment combining installation and Daoist opera performance.
Elsewhere, Tanoa Sasraku explores uniforms as carriers of political and personal memory at The Briggait, and Rehana Zaman’s Plantation examines land, labour and environmental collapse through an immersive film and sculptural installation spanning Scotland and Pakistan.
A strong thread of moving image runs throughout the programme. Naeem Mohaiemen’s Through a Mirror, Darkly revisits the 1970s through the lens of the Vietnam War, while Jamie Crewe presents a two-day screening and performance programme that reimagines medieval fables within a contemporary disaster-struck city.
Music, sound and performance also play a central role. TAAHLIAH combines painting with a durational sound installation exploring the instability of the trans-feminised image, while Luke Fowler traces the history of electronic music in Scotland through film and archival material.
Beyond major venues, Glasgow International continues to expand its engagement with the city’s social fabric. A new initiative, Special Projects, foregrounds organisations embedded in local communities. Projects include Fire Stories in Easterhouse, developed with residents through workshops and performance, and A Very Human Thing To Do, a youth-led collaboration exploring identity, solidarity and collective action.
The festival also sees the return of Gatherings, a programme of talks, workshops and performances designed to connect themes across exhibitions, offering space for reflection and exchange. Details of?each Gatherings?event?and ticket bookings will be available at glasgowinternational.org
Across the wider programme, artists engage with diasporic histories, ecological systems and the politics of place — from installations in the Necropolis to exhibitions addressing migration, labour and the body.
Rather than a single narrative, Glasgow International 2026 unfolds as a constellation of voices and sites — a city-wide ecology of artworks that resist easy resolution, inviting visitors to trace their own paths through its shifting terrain.
Glasgow International, 11th Edition, 5th June – 21st June 2026 glasgowinternational.org
The Glasgow International 2026 festival team is Robyn Haddon (Open Programme Convenor), Poi Marr (Curator), Helen Nisbet (Festival Director), Pelumi Odubanjo (Curator), Martel Ollerenshaw (Festival Manager), and Abie Soroño (Festival Officer). The festival Press Officer is Sam Talbot. The external members of the selection panel for the Glasgow International 2026 open call were Glasgow-based artists Tako Taal, Mason Leaver-Yap, former Glasgow International Festival Director Richard Birkett and Billy Tang, artistic director at Yan Du Project, London.
Co-commissioners for Glasgow International 2026 include: Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff , Project Arts Centre, Dublin, Site Gallery, Sheffield
