Announcing Jamie Crewe, ‘Defiling Rain’ at Glasgow International 2026

The University of Edinburgh Art Collection and LUX Scotland present a special two-day screening by Jamie Crewe at Tramway as part of Glasgow International 2026, accompanied by a unique live event featuring Crewe and a musical ensemble.

‘Defiling Rain’ is a new and ongoing work by Jamie Crewe. It is a collection of short audio-visual vignettes which take the opinionated animals and personified weather of medieval fables and abandon them in a city struck by disaster. Each vignette is a song, with music performed by a small ensemble of musicians and a variety of vocalists, and with lyrics describing fraught and fantastical scenarios that fall short of offering advice. They are fables with the tails lopped off, or the heads removed.

Using a diverse range of cinematic techniques, including animation, puppetry and collage, these stories without morals are richly illustrated, and are screened in an endlessly randomised order. In ​‘Defiling Rain’ authority has fled, or been overturned: the materials of commentary and instruction are deranged, and with their remains the work stages the awe, horror and joy of disintegration.

‘Defiling Rain’ was commissioned by The University of Edinburgh Art Collection and LUX Scotland, and the GI screening is the debut presentation of the work.

Tickets will be available soon.

Friday 12 and Saturday 13 June 2026

T1, Tramway, Glasgow

Free (drop-in)

Saturday 13 June 2026, 7.30pm

T1, Tramway, Glasgow

Free (ticketed)

Between 2024 and 2026 the University of Edinburgh Art Collection and LUX Scotland have been working with Jamie Crewe to support the development of this ambitious new artwork, and have begun shaping an innovative production and partnership model.

The collaboration is supporting the artist with production, collection and dissemination of the multi-part artwork. The project begins to think through a series of research objectives and questions, including those focussed on what the impacts are of the partnership on the artist, and understanding what​‘completion’ looks like for an episodic artwork.

This project builds on the ongoing relationship the Art Collection has with Crewe after working with her on the 2022 commission and acquisition of​‘False Wife’ – an offline website and moving image work produced as part of UoE Legal academic Dr Chloë Kennedy’s AHRC Research Leader Fellowship on​‘Identity Deception: A Critical History’. In addition, the Collection commissioned the corresponding publication​‘False Wife Comments’ which acts a reflection on the moving image work, and an insight into Crewe’s research. Crewe was also the recipient of LUX Scotland’s Margaret Tait Commission in 2019, for which she made​‘Ashley’, a semi-autobiographical rural horror film, and has since produced an online commission for LUX Scotland (an artist talk titled​‘PEOPLE HAVE COME’, 2020). In 2023, Crewe led LUX Scotland’s Winter School in partnership with Hospitalfield, programming a residential weekend centred around​‘False Wife’. Crewe’s work is also now distributed by the LUX Collection.

​‘Defiling Rain’ is co-commissioned by the University of Edinburgh Art Collection in partnership with LUX Scotland, with a copy of the artwork joining the Art Collection upon completion.

The University of Edinburgh Art Collection has supported the first two years of this project, and LUX Scotland welcomes interest from national and international partners for future partnerships to support the next stages of the project.