Timorous Beasties create an Edinburgh Toile for Festival 09

The Edinburgh International Festival has commissioned Scottish design company Timorous Beasties to create an Edinburgh Toile in celebration of one of the themes of Festival 09 - the Scottish Enlightenment.

Known for creating provocative textiles and wallpapers the Timorous Beasties designers have added an affectionate, frank and honest vision of modern Edinburgh to their portfolio for Festival 09.

Like many of the artists in the Festival programme their work transforms traditional forms, subjects and ideas with a fresh, 21st century approach which speaks loudly to us in the present.

Timorous Beasties has also designed a Glasgow Toile and a London Toile. Their exploration of this design technique comes from a love of the toiles originally produced in the small French town of Jouey in the 1770s.

The imagery in these original toiles may look traditional to us now but the depiction of scenes, including the factory at Jouey, with workers relaxing, drinking, dancing, and womanising was considered controversial at the time. English textile designs of the same period tended to be purely decorative where as the French designs were full of politics, philosophy and cultural history. Timorous Beasties draw on this French tendency to use textile designs to make political statements.

The urban landscape in many UK cities appears to be changing all the time. Iconic modern buildings give us a strong sense of identity and sit alongside monuments to great minds of the past, stunning period architecture and the practicalities and realities of a modern city.

Elements of the Edinburgh Toile include iconic buildings St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh Castle, the Scottish Parliament and Carlton Hill; historical figures including David Hume, James Boswell, Robert Burns and Greyfriars Bobby; tour buses and tartan tourist shops; tramworks and roadworks; people going about their business, fast food caravans, homeless people, modern housing developments and a love of drink. Edinburgh International Festival references include the Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert, a firebrand conductor and ballet dancer incorporated into elements of this cityscape.

The Six Cities Design Festival commissioned Timorous Beasties to create a Toile island for each of its cities in 2007.

Visit Timorous Beasties online at timorousbeasties.com