In his latest set of cultural reflections, Richard Demarco, CBE, connects the immediate geopolitical anxieties of the Ukraine conflict with the enduring, healing power of the arts and the legacy of the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF).
Demarco begins by highlighting the danger inherent in proposed peace deals for Ukraine, which he fears threaten European security, a parallel he draws to the post-war foundation of the EIF in 1947 as a “healing balm.” The core of the piece details the momentous and symbolic undertaking of relocating the Demarco Archive to the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, Poland, a move presented as a vital act of Scottish-Polish cultural solidarity and a continuation of his lifelong mission to bridge the divisions symbolised by the Iron Curtain.
Reaffirming his role as an “artist-teacher” and an exponent of the “total art work,” Demarco concludes by celebrating the EIF’s educational vision and looking ahead to his own future, where he intends to fuse the worlds of culture and agriculture at Papple Steading in East Lothian.
Geopolitical warning
“On Saturday 22nd November, I read The Daily Telegraph with great interest. The Editorial was entitled ‘Ukraine Deserves Better Than this Tawdry Deal’, and there is no doubt that the sentiment of The Telegraph echoes my own thoughts on the deal offered by President Trump to President Volodymyr Zelensky. He has stated that President Zelensky has rejected the plan as it stands, explaining in a sombre emergency address that Ukraine confronts a stark choice between “losing its dignity” or “risk losing a key partner”.
“To quote from the Editorial: “Facing a gravely weakened Ukraine, Putin would almost certainly come back for more and launch a third invasion designed to wipe his neighbour off the map, once and for all. And, if he achieves that goal, his next step would almost certainly be to attack a European Nato ally, starting a war that would engulf Britain and every member of the Alliance.
“If we wish to avoid that calamity, a line will have to be drawn. It should be drawn now. Europe should tell Mr. Trump that Ukraine has every right to reject this dangerous plan. If America responds by walking away from this crisis, Europe should accept full responsibility for supporting Ukraine in its struggle against an invader that threatens all of us.”
The Demarco Archive: A Move to Łódź and cultural solidarity
“Of course, I am now in the first stages of removing the Demarco Archive and Art Collection from the questionable safety of Edinburgh to Łódź and its world-famous Muzeum Sztuki. Łódź, like all Polish cities, is not far from the frontiers that separate the Polish nation from Romania, Germany, Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. The present situation is not going to deter me from moving my lifetime’s work; it is a “total art work” uniquely concerned with the fact that, next year, the Edinburgh Festival will celebrate its 80th birthday.
“I am therefore on a countdown, at the age of 95, to three weeks in August 2026 when, hopefully, the Edinburgh Festival will remind me of the extraordinary fact that I was fortunate to be celebrating my 17th birthday in 1947. That year, I personally experienced a well-nigh miraculous event which identified Edinburgh not just as the capital of Scotland, but as the world capital of culture for a period restricted to three weeks annually. The first Festival in August and September 1947 was an undoubted blessing on my life. It proved that the international language of all the arts was a “healing balm” capable of healing the agony and wounds inflicted on humanity by the Second World War.
“I must also consider the fact that on 2 December, Angus Robertson MSP, the Scottish Parliament’s Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture, in the august setting of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood presented me with an award in the presence of high-ranking representatives of the European Movement in Scotland. This is a movement encompassing all of Britain with a membership of over 26,000. (I find it hard to believe that I received 54% of the vote while the two other candidates shared 46%).”
A lifetime in the arts: From Cold War to creative education
“My long life, stretching over ten decades, has encompassed not only the agony of the four years of the Second World War but also the forty years of the anxiety-ridden Cold War. This resulted from Joseph Stalin’s plan to create a prison for Europe, engulfing not only Poland but Romania, the former Yugoslavia, Belarus, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic States, and other parts of Europe into what undoubtedly became the largest-ever prison under the severe regime of a Stalinist Communist worldview.
“Despite this horrific situation, there was a distinct glimmer of light expressed by the Edinburgh International Festival. It provided me personally with an education unsurpassed anywhere in the world. Through the outstanding practitioners of every imaginable art form, I found myself involving world figures who dominated my life, such as T.S. Eliot, Lillian Hellman, Laurence Olivier, Rudolf Nureyev, Billy Connolly, Seamus Heaney, Yehudi Menuhin, Christo, Marina Abramović, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Tadeusz Kantor, Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, and countless others.
“I was also pleased to introduce to the Edinburgh Festival, often as students or artists at the beginning of their careers, figures such as Günther Uecker, Robert Filliou, Dieter Roth, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Helen Mirren, and Rachel Weisz.
“In order to raise the funds for my 25-year-long official Edinburgh Festival programme of avant-garde artists, I was pleased to collaborate, in 1968, with institutions like the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, the Galeria Foksal in Warsaw, and Tadeusz Kantor’s Cricoteka.”
The artist-teacher and education
“The Daily Telegraph of 22nd November also contained an essay by Charles Moore entitled ‘We abandoned classical liberal education and have left it dangerously late to revive it.’ The essay ended in three paragraphs that discussed the failure of comprehensivisation to spread good learning.
“I am reassured greatly by Charles Moore’s essay because, basically, I am a teacher. I am an “artist-teacher” who uses the language of all the arts—particularly during the Edinburgh Festival—on all three levels of education: primary, secondary, and tertiary. This leads me to the most important ten-year period of my career when I was Kingston University Professor of European Cultural Studies.
“Joseph Beuys said that everyone is an artist. By that, he meant that every human being was born to be creative. The Edinburgh International Festival provided me with a perfect education through the language of all the arts. I am eternally grateful to all those creative individuals and institutions who have identified with its 80 years of history. Thankfully, Nicola Benedetti, the present Director of the Edinburgh International Festival, is a world-renowned artist whose thought-provoking programmes relate to her concept of education on all three levels.
“The gifting of the Archive to Poland will manifest a Scottish-Polish cultural dialogue. This will honour the extraordinary fact that the second language of Scotland is now Polish. I deliberately crossed the Iron Curtain innumerable times, rather than heading to the international art realm controlled by the “almighty dollar.” I regarded the Richard Demarco Gallery’s exhibitions as total art works in themselves, transforming the gallery into a Scottish version of Black Mountain College.”
The Archive’s Journey and Future Location
“A few days ago, I received an email to inform me that a team representing a Polish carrier will arrive in Edinburgh, ready to pack and transport what is legally constituted as The Demarco Archive – an unfinished “total art work” with a pointed take on my personal history of the entire Edinburgh Festival. This body of work, which includes films and photographs now being digitised with a £312,000 AHRC grant, is an exponent of the genre known as “event photography.” Transportation has begun.
“Finally, I must mention my recurring problem, which is the loss of my dear friends and patrons over recent months, including Professor Noel Witts and my dear friend Patrick Reyntiens.
“I have decided that, through the friendship I have enjoyed with George Mackintosh and his family, I will be found in the county of East Lothian, near the harbour town of Dunbar. I do believe wholeheartedly that you cannot separate the world of culture from the world of agriculture.
“Lord Kames, one of the luminaries of the Scottish Enlightenment, controversially declared that “the greatest of all the arts is agriculture”. I heartily agree with him because my Demarco ancestors were shepherds. So it seems inevitable that my long life as an artist-teacher will be found primarily at Papple Steading. This new chapter, culminating in what I call “The Road to Meikle Seggie,” will celebrate the inspiration that has blessed my life from the well-nigh miraculous eighty-year birthday of the Edinburgh International Festival.”
