The Kilmarnock Edition: Solo Exhibition, Dick Institute, Kilmarnock

TY - ADVS

T1 - The Kilmarnock Edition

T2 - Solo Exhibition, Dick Institute, Kilmarnock

A2 - Fagen, Graham

PY - 2026/6/5

Y1 - 2026/6/5

N2 - To mark the 240th anniversary of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, the Dick Institute presents a solo exhibition by Graham Fagen, one of the UK’s foremost contemporary artists. Commonly known as the Kilmarnock Edition, the first ever published edition of poetry by Robert Burns was printed and issued in July 1786 by John Wilson in Kilmarnock. Its unexpected success resulted in Burns altering his plans to emigrate to Jamaica to work as a bookkeeper on a sugar plantation. Growing up in Irvine, Ayrshire, Fagen was taught that Robert Burns was a champion of political, social and personal freedoms, a voice for the marginalised and the oppressed. This position was challenged, however, upon learning this. How could Burns, a voice of liberty and equality, have come so close to an active and direct involvement in the exploitation, trade and enslavement of his fellow man? The exhibition brings together a selection of works from throughout Fagen’s career exploring personal and shared experience and identity, with reference to links between Scotland and Jamaica now and at the time of the poet Robert Burns, a theme recurrent in Fagen’s practise. Amongst the works in the exhibition are Nancy, Bell and Roselle (2006), prints of the artist’s own drawings of the three ships upon which Burns booked passage to Jamaica to work as a bookkeeper on a sugar plantation, before the unexpected success of the first edition of his poetry caused him to alter his plans. As part of this exhibition, Fagen revisits these earlier works in a new commission by Ayrshire360: a set of unique works and a print edition in collaboration with writer Andrew O’Hagan, printed with the replica of the John Wilson printing press on permanent display in the Dick Institute museum. Also featured is The Slave’s Lament (2015) a 5 channel audio video installation which has its roots in Burns’s poem of the same name and A Portrait of Sir Geoff Palmer (2023) the world-renowned Jamaican-British academic, scientist and human rights activist and the first Black university professor in Scotland. Thanks to Glasgow Print Studio, Hospitalfield, Arbroath and the National Galleries of Scotland.

AB - To mark the 240th anniversary of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, the Dick Institute presents a solo exhibition by Graham Fagen, one of the UK’s foremost contemporary artists. Commonly known as the Kilmarnock Edition, the first ever published edition of poetry by Robert Burns was printed and issued in July 1786 by John Wilson in Kilmarnock. Its unexpected success resulted in Burns altering his plans to emigrate to Jamaica to work as a bookkeeper on a sugar plantation. Growing up in Irvine, Ayrshire, Fagen was taught that Robert Burns was a champion of political, social and personal freedoms, a voice for the marginalised and the oppressed. This position was challenged, however, upon learning this. How could Burns, a voice of liberty and equality, have come so close to an active and direct involvement in the exploitation, trade and enslavement of his fellow man? The exhibition brings together a selection of works from throughout Fagen’s career exploring personal and shared experience and identity, with reference to links between Scotland and Jamaica now and at the time of the poet Robert Burns, a theme recurrent in Fagen’s practise. Amongst the works in the exhibition are Nancy, Bell and Roselle (2006), prints of the artist’s own drawings of the three ships upon which Burns booked passage to Jamaica to work as a bookkeeper on a sugar plantation, before the unexpected success of the first edition of his poetry caused him to alter his plans. As part of this exhibition, Fagen revisits these earlier works in a new commission by Ayrshire360: a set of unique works and a print edition in collaboration with writer Andrew O’Hagan, printed with the replica of the John Wilson printing press on permanent display in the Dick Institute museum. Also featured is The Slave’s Lament (2015) a 5 channel audio video installation which has its roots in Burns’s poem of the same name and A Portrait of Sir Geoff Palmer (2023) the world-renowned Jamaican-British academic, scientist and human rights activist and the first Black university professor in Scotland. Thanks to Glasgow Print Studio, Hospitalfield, Arbroath and the National Galleries of Scotland.

UR - https://ayrshire360.com/events/graham-fagen-the-kilmarnock-edition/

UR - https://artmag.co.uk/graham-fagen-marks-burns-rum-tale-at-kilmarnocks-dick-institute/

M3 - Exhibition

PB - The Dick Institute

CY - Kilmarnock, UK

ER -