Curated by Sarah McCrory

With the referendum vote for Scottish independence scheduled for September, it is significant that this year’s Glasgow International is operating in partnership with Homecoming Scotland—an initiative of Visit Scotland aimed at “welcoming the world” while bolstering national identity and, no doubt, state revenue. Though such entrepreneurial liberalism might leave some with a sour taste, it is precisely the region’s growing cosmopolitanism and financial solvency that may have the greatest bearing on the country’s forthcoming bid for autonomy. Harnessing these tensions, curator Sarah McCrory assembles, for this sixth iteration of the festival, a complementary mix of some eighty artists—both resident (including Sue Tompkins and Charlotte Prodger) and imported (Michael Smith, Gareth Moore, Khaled Hourani, among others)—to stage performances, screenings, and installations of their work over the course of eighteen days in nearly fifty sites throughout the city of Glasgow.

— Adam Kleinman