Edinburgh is a city shaped by the arts. We’re home to the world’s biggest arts festival and have a long cultural heritage studded with creative giants.  

From June to September The Melting Pot will explore social innovation in the arts, looking at the way creativity fuels, drives and inspires the action that makes the world a better place. What is innovation if not creativity? Art of all kinds – creating and contemplating is good for the soul, our well-being, our inspiration, and it even has a pretty low carbon footprint.

During this event series we will showcase local artists, emerging and renowned. We will provide spaces to create some of your own original art. And we’ll look at the arts through the lens of social innovation posing some challenging questions: How can we better support a thriving creative community here in Scotland? What opportunities and challenges are posed by being home to the Fringe Festivals? What lessons can we learn from artists and creatives that can help us drive positive social change? 

We’ll kick off by welcoming Edinburgh's favourite creative community networking event Creative Mornings to The Melting Pot on Friday 20th June. On Thursday 17th July we will hold our second Artist’s Showcase in partnership with Creative Edinburgh, introducing you to local artists who will be exhibiting their work in our space for the next year. We’ll host an evening of guided poetry writing and painting inspired by Edinbugh’s own Mary Somerville, a pioneer of women’s inclusion in the STEM fields on 13th August. We’ll round off the series with Edinburgh Beyond the Fringe, an exploration of the impact the world’s biggest arts festival has on the creative community that lives here year-round and the fabric of the city itself – more to be announced on this event.